Pumping and Preserving the Verde River SRP Wants Mitigation Plan for Verde River Flow he Salt River Project is pressing its demand that Prescott-area communities develop a cooperative mitigation and monitoring plan before pumping groundwater from the Big Chino Sub-basin. Plans are underway to construct a 30-mile pipeline to deliver water from the sub-basin to provide water to the water-strapped communities. SRP is concerned that the pumping threatens the utilities’ senior Verde River water rights that provide one-third of its surface water supplies for Phoenix-area cities. Hydrological studies have shown that the Big Chino aquifer is the source for about 80 percent of the baseflow of the Upper Verde River. A Dec. 31 Daily Courier article reports that SRP sent a detailed five-page letter on Dec. 11 to Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley officials demanding the action after a private meeting with them on Nov. 19. The letter raised the issue of litigation. According to the article, some Prescott-area officials were taken aback at what they consider to be a more stringent tone to SRP’s demands. They said they have been open to work cooperatively with the utility on a monitoring and mitigation plan. Officials have stated that the communities will make up for any loss of Verde River flow that results from the pumping. SRP has sought a such binding written plan for years since Prescott announced its intent to pursue its special right to Big Chino groundwater under a 1991 state law. The Prescott and Prescott Valley plan calls for a pipeline to carry Big Chino water south to augment their depleted water supplies. Chino Valley decided to build its own pipeline, unable to pay the cost needed to participate in the two communities’ project. SRP’s is not the only objection to the project. Shortly after Prescott and Prescott Valley purchased the former JWK Ranch, later renamed the Big Chino Water Ranch, to use as a water ranch the Center for Biological Diversity, concerned about adverse effects on the Verde River, threatened to sue. Verde River Springs Preserve. Photo: Dan Campbell/The Nature Conservancy TNC Buys/Protects Verde River Springs ed by aquifers deep below the Big Chino and Little Chino valleys, the Verde River Springs are at the headwaters of the Verde River. The springs are said to be where the Verde River comes to life, emerging from the ground in a deep canyon 25 miles north of Prescott. The Nature Conservancy’s recent purchase of a 312-acre parcel containing the springs, the last parcel of private land along the Upper Verde River, will protect the springs. Included as part of the parcel is a one-mile stretch of the river with lush riparian vegetation providing habitat for a variety of native wildlife including threatened and endangered species. The Conservancy’s new Verde River Springs Preserve provides water for the upper 24 miles of river. It is eventually joined by Sycamore Creek, Oak Creek, Wet Beaver Creek, West Clear Creek and Fossil Creek and flows downstream to join the Salt River east of Phoenix. The Verde River Springs have a major role in a growing state water controversy. Upstream of the springs, Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley wells are pumping an unsustainable amount of water from the Little Chino Valley. (See accompanying story.) Verde Program Manager Dan Campbell describes TNC plans for the area: “Our work at the Verde River Springs Preserve will include the establishment of hydrologic monitoring in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey and other science institutions. Additionally, we will support native fish recovery efforts in the Upper Verde by partnering with the Arizona Game and Fish Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.” TNC purchased the land from Betty and Billy Wells, ranchers who wanted to preserve the land. The Wells also donated two conservation easements to prevent development over adjacent property buffering the river, a 160-acre easement to the TNC and a 2,440-acre easement to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

Study: Cohabitation Conserves Resources
Recent efforts in Arizona to offer the same benefits, including health care, to state employees with unmarried partners, gay or straight, as provided to married couples have sparked a controversy whether it would be good public policy or an incentive to immoral behavior. Not included among the pro-and-con arguments is the effect such a policy would have on the consumption of resources.

Would it make a difference in semi-arid Arizona if it could be shown that cohabiting couples used less water? Would a more solid case be made if cohabitation could be shown as a water conservation strategy like planting native vegetation?

According to a recent Michigan State University study households with cohabiting couples use considerably less resources than split-up households. Focusing on divorced couples, the researchers noted that in 2005 divorced American households consumed between 42 and 61 percent more resources per person than before they separated. They spent 46 percent more per person on electricity and 56 percent more on water. Analyzing data from 12 countries around the world including Belarus, Brazil, Kenya and Greece the researchers found similar results.

The research also reported that if U.S. divorced couples had remained married in 2005 a savings of 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water would have resulted in that year. Further the researchers surveyed divorced households between 1998 and 2002 finding that they used more space, occupying between 33 and 95 percent more rooms per person than in married households.
Individuals who remarry and establish new households redeem the situation; they return to using the same amount of resources as married couples who never divorced.

The intent of the research, which was published in the Dec. 18 edition of the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” was to demonstrate the mostly overlooked environmental impact of divorce. Its broader implication is that merging what would otherwise be separate households has an environmental payoff.

Carefree Repeals Surcharge for Excess Water Use
An effort to charge water users extra fees for excess water use came to naught when the Carefree Water Co. Board of Directors voted 6-1 to eliminate the surcharge in response to customers’ complaints. In the fall, the company had decided to adopt rate hikes and extra fees to encourage water conservation, a decision that provoked customer discontent. The utility serves about 1,800 customers.
Tiers were established based on water consumption, with rates raised between 28 cents and $3.75 per 1,000 gallons, depending on the tier. The effect of the decision varied greatly, with most customers billed an additional $10 while heavy water users, those using more than 50,000 gallons a month, got a $150 surcharge tacked to their bill.

In getting rid of the extra fees, the company instead implemented an across-the-board rate increase.
According to officials, eliminating the surcharge will likely decrease revenues based on previous estimates. To cope with the loss plans call for fewer, if any, reserves to be set aside this year and possible reduced capital expenditures on improvements.

Carefree’s decision to rescind its surcharge comes after receiving editorial kudos from an Arizona Republic editorial. A Nov. 17 editorial titled, Heavy Water Users Should Pay, praised both Paradise Valley and Carefree for raising rates to encourage water conservation. The editorial stated, “In our view, such surcharges are responsible reactions to a drought well into its second decade.

“Surcharges may be what it takes to convert denial into recognition of the challenges facing a desert in drought.”

N. Arizona Seeks Support for Water Supply Study
Efforts are underway to obtained congressional approval for a feasibility study for several projects that would provide much needed water supplies to northern Arizona. With water shortages looming on the horizon — a 2006 water supply study indicated that the area’s current water supplies would not be adequate to meet anticipated demand as soon as 2050 — the northern Arizona communities want to explore their water options, including a controversial pipeline from Lake Powell.

In an effort to gain support for a Bureau of Reclamation study, the Coconino Plateau Water Advisory Council met with Arizona’s congressional delegation. The council, its membership including local, federal and tribal officials, environmental groups and private entities, hopes that Senator Jon Kyle will introduce legislation authorizing the study, with the federal government paying half its $13.1 million cost.

The study would consider the economic and environmental costs of three water supply projects that could serve the region: the aforementioned Lake Powell pipeline and two well fields that would extract water from two different aquifers.

Some critics have voiced concern that the study might end up paving the way for construction of the Lake Powell pipeline, a longstanding and controversial project. The pipeline was noted as essential in a 1998 ADWR report, if the future water needs in the region were going to be met. Department of Economic Security figures indicate that the area’s population will double from 96,125 in 2000 to 184,650 in 2050.
No route has been set for the proposed pipeline. One plan calls for the pipeline to transport water to the western edge of the Navajo Nation; another plan would pipe water to the Hopi village of Moenkopi, Flagstaff, Tusayan and Williams.

The other water supply options of pumping groundwater are not without controversy. One of the proposed well fields could reduce the flow of streams supporting the spinedance and other endangered fish.

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