Environmental groups seek groundwater protections around Arizona's San Pedro River
Environmentalists seeking to protect a key desert oasis for birds and other wildlife in southern Arizona this week petitioned the state to designate a groundwater management zone in the Upper San Pedro Valley.
The San Pedro River, running north from the border region east of Sierra Vista before joining the Gila River, waters a ribbon of cottonwoods and other trees and sustains the insects that attract migrating birds to the area. It is considered a key habitat for endangered species, including the largest U.S. population of yellow-billed cuckoos. It also supports a federal conservation area.
The Center for Biological Diversity and allies at the San Pedro 100 say the Arizona Department of Water Resources has permitted more wells than the region can support in the long term, and petitioned for the creation of a new Active Management Area of the type that protects groundwater levels in several basins under the Groundwater Management Act of 1980.
ADWR may impose AMA monitoring and new well restrictions in areas where expanded pumping threatens future supplies.
Ribbon of life: On Arizona's San Pedro River, hummingbirds reflect the health of a landscape
An AMA enables the state to reject new pumping if it effectively “mines” groundwater from basins already under stress, as compared to the restriction-free pumping that occurs throughout most of rural Arizona. Most AMAs are in the state’s larger metro areas, though voters in Cochise County last year authorized one for the Douglas area while rejecting one for the Willcox area.
“Rapacious groundwater pumping across the Upper San Pedro threatens the continued existence of life in this entire region,” Robin Silver, co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “We’ve been asking the state to protect this biologically rich watershed for decades, but pumping continues unabated. The state must urgently use its power to intervene on behalf of the people, plants and animals of southeastern Arizona.”
ADWR has twice rejected such petitions, most recently in 2005. In so doing, Silver’s group argues in its petition, the state ignored both the watershed’s perilous trajectory and the U.S. Army’s role as a major water user at Fort Huachuca. Since 2005, the Center’s petition states, that ADWR has approved 1,858 new wells in the basin.
The Center filed its request for a new decision under a state law that allows for petitioning agencies to adopt rules. That law requires a response within 60 days.
ADWR officials did not immediately respond to questions from The Arizona Republic about the environmentalists’ claims or the process for addressing them. A spokesperson said the department was reviewing them.
“Over the last two decades the Department of Water Resources has permitted thousands of new wells in the Upper San Pedro, despite numerous studies that show it’s in severe overdraft,” said Tricia Gerrodette, president of San Pedro 100. “Our ability to preserve the river for the future is being foreclosed."
Brandon Loomis covers environmental and climate issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Reach him at brandon.loomis@arizonarepublic.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @brandonloomis.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: The San Pedro River is a threatened desert oasis, conservationists say
