WSP02109 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

_T......-;-' ~-~ , , Page 4 WRW washn x x x stated Central Arizona's major rivers and streams in need of help, largely due to groundwater depletion, Pontius said, are the Santa Cruz, Gila and Salt Rivers. "Today this still stands as an unmet obligation," he under- scored. AR, the Arizona Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, and Sierra Club were among the conservation groups that developed a report to meet some of the environmental needs of the state's rivers following the cri- sis that has developed over CAP repayment. "The (CAP) problem is that irrigation districts can't pay and are refusing to contract for much CAP water," AR said. (See WRW's for the past two weeks.) The environmen- tal groups' report recommended about 150,000 acre-feet of CAP water be set aside to meet fish and wildlife needs on the mains tern of the Colo- rado River plus an additional 25,000 acre-feet to be reserved for simi- lar needs on the rivers in Central Arizona; and that a watershed con- servation trust fund be established "to conserve, protect and restore Arizona's aquatic and riparian resources, including cost of transporting CAP water for such purposes." Only belatedly, after public protest, did Gov. Fife Symington, R-Ariz., add four environmentalists to his 33-mem- ber CAP advisory committee, Pontius observed. The Symington Committee watered down both recommendations in the environmentalists' report but included both when it made its report to the Governor last October. Pontius is an attorney from Arizona. During the 1980's he special- ized in water and public land law when he was in private practice in Tucson, worked as an executive assistant to Bruce Babbitt when the lat- ter was governor of Arizona, served as an assistant attorney general for Arizona, and as staff counsel of a House Interior Subcommittee under former Rep. MOrris K. Udall, D-Ariz. So he is thoroly familiar with CAP and offered some detailed suggestions on using CAP water. For example, he said, "a CAP allocation (of water) to the City of Sierra vista could be used, thru an exchange or transfer, to enable that city to develop an alternative water supply or recharge project to pro- tect the San Pedro River from groundwater pumping. He said the cost of meeting fish and wildlife needs such as maintaining the viability of the Cienega de Santa Clara in the Colorado River delta and to enhance fish and wildlife habitat in various wildlife refuges along the Colorado Riv- er--as recommended in the environmentalists' report--could be offset to some extent "by savings from mothballing the Yuma Desalting plant" that he characterized as "a white elephant." He recommended that CAP water users should pay for a portion of the cost of the watershed Conservation Fund. "If you were to add a surcharge to municipal and industrial use in Arizona of only $5 an acre-foot, it would add less than SOc a month to the average (Arizona) homeowner's water bill," he maintained. Some costs could be paid for "by power consumers and water users elsewhere if market forces are allowed to work," Pontius observed. As AR hates dams more than diversions, Pontius said water officials should consider mar- keting CAP water to thirsty communities in the Lower Colorado Basin to take the pressure off "for new water development from other sources, such as the Virgin River." And he said the public should have a chance to review transfers of CAP subcontracts, such as the proposed transfer of the Payson allocation to the city of Scottsdale. Dr. Kevin J. Coyle, a land and river planning expert, is AR's president. Ray M. Coulter, a vice president of Nature Conservancy, is chairman of AR's board of directors. Jon M. Jensen, an official of the Gund Foundation of Cleveland, is chairman of AR's scientific and tech- nical advisory committee. **** (more)