Arizona's cash crop of houses demands lots of water , Mark N. Trahant, The Seattle Times: Today's News , 6/25/98, redisplayed with permission.
PHOENIX - One Western conversation ought to start with this question: "Will we still love the West 20 years from now?"
Sure, the stunning vistas will still be here. But they might be harder to see because of the crowds in front of us. In two decades this region's population is expected to increase from some 60 million to more than 100 million people.
Urban Arizona's story brings up themes familiar in the Northwest. Arizona is blooming with row after row after row of its new cash crop, houses. More homes, more jobs and more people - a seemingly endless supply - all planted where saguaro and prickly-pear cactuses once rose from the soil.
The new desert is landscaped with look-alike native plants, recently paved streets and Spanish-style homes with bright red tiles. This is a developer's dream field where expensive and moderate homes sell quickly to keep up with the demand: 600,000-plus new residents in just five years.
Of course, Arizona's growth has a price. Years ago there were rivers flowing through the Valley of the Sun. Those rivers are gone.
But southeast Arizona still has a river worth fighting over, one of the world's richest habitat areas for migratory birds. Nearly one-quarter of the birds in North America, at least once during their lifespan, will visit the San Pedro River.
The San Pedro is the Southwest's only free-flowing river, so there are no dams to remove.
But other obstacles may be more concrete.
Congress thought the San Pedro could be a model for habitat restoration. In 1988 it created the San Pedro River Riparian National Conservation Area, protecting the habitat of millions of migratory birds and dozens of species of reptiles, mammals and fish. This was a rich habitat that could be saved. To do this the Bureau of Land Management also purchased water rights and did something very un-Western: It kicked cows off of the range.
The riparian restoration worked at first. The area attracted rare gray hawks, sparrows and 380 species of birds. The banks of the river became lush again with tall grasses, brush and cottonwood trees.
That is history now. The San Pedro is again in trouble - and this time there might not be enough political will to save the river or the habitat.
One of the side provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, was the commission of a San Pedro River study. That international report concluded last week that the river is on "an unsustainable course."
This time it's not cows killing the river and habitat. It's thirsty people living in the growing town of Sierra Vista, Ariz., and at the U.S. Army's nearby Fort Huachuca. The town and base pump more water from wells, reducing the water table and eventually the river's flow. During the dry season the river has a quarter of the water it had only a few years ago.
"Unless steps are taken, already established water-use trends will jeopardize this natural asset that presently enriches the quality of life within the basin and, by extension, the bio-diversity of the entire hemisphere," says the report by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation.
The easiest way to save the river is to stop pumping groundwater on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border and to limit population growth. But the report also suggested an expensive alternative: import water, perhaps from the Central Arizona Project, to replenish the San Pedro.
Arizonians took this report in stride. Folks in Sierra Vista say the river is not as important as the local economy. Even before the report was released, the Legislature last month passed Concurrent Memorial 1006.
The resolution asks President Clinton not to designate any Arizona waterway as an "American Heritage River," with the conservation hassles that might entail.
The resolution also asked the president and Congress to halt international investigations of the San Pedro River's water problems.
Arizona is a state where developers rule. Any challenge to more development is a threat to the state itself.
But when one of the country's river treasures may need imported water - I guess that would be called "irrigating the river" - at least the question of limits should be part of public discourse.
Mark N. Trahant's phone message number is 206-464-8517. His e-mail address is mtrahant@seatimes.com
Copyright © 1998 The Seattle Times Company, repdisplayed with permission.
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