ARS Scientists Strategize To Save a Desert River

[Gloria]

ARS Scientists Strategize To Save a Desert River

“It starts with sky islands with ponderosa pines at the higher elevations and traverses down and across four major vegetation types to desert shrub land. Then there’s an emerald-green ribbon in the middle of the desert—all within about 15 miles

In 2004, Congress directed the U.S. Department of the Interior to work with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Defense and the USPP to develop water-use management and conservation measures for restoring and maintaining the sustainable yield of the regional aquifer by and after September 30, 2011.

[Gloria]

Deterring attemps to kill the golden egg laying goose.

While the bypass has been deterred water is still a very big issue.

Hopefully this shows that more people are beginning to understand the importance of the biological diversity of entire ecosystems.


San Pedro River

Located along the interface of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts and influenced by both the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre, it’s one of North America's most important wildlife havens, with more than 400 bird species — nearly half the U.S. total — living in or migrating through the basin. It’s also home to 180 species of butterflies, 87 species of mammals, and 68 reptiles and amphibians.

But the San Pedro River is drying up. Unsustainable pumping of the groundwater that supports the river has caused base flows to decline by 67 percent since the 1940s. The current population of more than 50,000 people in the upper basin is pumping thousands of acre feet (billions of gallons) more out of the aquifer each year than are recharged by rainwater. By 2020, the deficit is projected to reach 13,000 acre feet (4.2 billion gallons) annually. The burgeoning water deficit is caused by unsustainable population growth and a lack of effective water-conservation planning.

In June 2008, the Center and allies sued Pinal County for misusing the San Pedro by creating an unrestricted passageway across the river, straight through the San Pedro River conservation area southeast of Phoenix. Our lawsuit sought to revoke the county’s illegal seizure of the land on which the passageway was created, halting dredge-and-fill operations and habitat destruction by off-road vehicles drawn to the passageway. In February 2010, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cited Pinal County for its illegal activities on the river and the Bureau of Land Management took up the proper defense of its conservation area — and we settled our lawsuit with the county, which agreed to pay our legal fees

Ultimately, if the San Pedro is to be saved, it will be necessary to change the way Arizona water law treats groundwater pumping near riparian area

Index Summary

While any ADOT Bypass for I-10 would seriously (and unnecessarily) damage and undermine precious lands and life-forms, the routes proposed for the San Pedro River Valley (including that for its Aravaipa tributary) would assault a valley that is both biologically rich and relativelyconstricted in width. Construction would have to occur in or very near the floodplain, and would entail huge expenses of construction and maintenance and enormous, certainly irrevocable damage to unique environmental and conservation interests.

San Pedro River Ecology

San Pedro River Valley