Save the Scenic Santa Ritas

Fighting to protect the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains from the devastating impacts of mining.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Board of Directors and Staff
    • Endorsements
    • Opposition and Resolutions
    • Volunteers and Friends
  • Background
    • Rosemont Mine
      • History
      • Impacts
        • Air Quality
        • Land Use
        • Wildlife and Habitat
        • Scenic Views
        • Heritage
        • Recreation
        • Economy
        • Water and Hydrology
    • Legislation
    • Copper
    • Patagonia Area Mines
  • News
  • Action
    • Donate
    • Volunteer
    • Join Mailing List
    • Endorse Us
    • SSSR Presentation
    • Show Your Support
    • Letter Writing
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Resources
    • Visual Media
    • Links
    • Documents and Reports
    • 1872 Mining Law
    • Inspiration
  • Projects
    • Lens on the Land
      • Biodiversity
      • Culture
      • Economy: Industry, Tourism & Recreation
      • The Land
      • Night Sky and Astronomy
      • Water Resources
    • Rosemont Mine Truth

A tale of two CAP pipelines

February 17, 2011 By Administrator Leave a Comment


A tale of two CAP pipelines: Rosemont divides local water powers

By Philip Franchine
Green Valley News | Posted: Saturday, February 12, 2011 11:02 pm

Why are two local companies planning to build separate Colorado River water pipelines instead of combining efforts?

Because there are basic philosophical disagreements between the sponsors – mostly about a proposed copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains – and the pipes serve each company’s needs.

Officials of Community Water Company of Green Valley (CWC) and Farmers Investment Co. (FICO) agreed on those points in front of an audience of about 125 Friday at a Green Valley Council forum at the West Center.

Both will be 36-inch pipes, officials said, meaning each could carry about 30,000 acre-feet a year of water in the effort to recharge the local aquifer, which is dropping by several feet a year. An acre-foot is about 325,000 gallons, or enough to serve four families per year. The local overdraft is about 40,000 AF a year.

The pipelines will leave the region with a lot of empty pipeline capacity in the short run. The pipes will have a capacity of about 30,000 AF each, with 7,000 going through the CWC pipe and between 3,000 and 4,000 AF in the FICO pipe.

CWC board chairman Virgil Davis said his company’s plan, to use its allocation from the Central Arizona Project (CAP) to recharge 7,000 acre-feet of water a year starting in 2013, would actually raise the aquifer level by 100 feet near the recharge station, planned for an area near Old Nogales Highway east of Wal-Mart.

The planned CWC pipeline, recharge facility and 15 years of CAP water would be paid for by the owners of the proposed Rosemont Copper open-pit mine in the Santa Rita Mountains.

Davis said CWC and the Waldens, who own FICO, met several times about combining efforts, but “we can’t seem to figure out how to get all pieces of the puzzle together.”

“We have some basic philosophical differences between us and the Waldens. The present pipeline we are working on will accommodate all users in the region with no restriction. If you are a water user or from outside the region and want to pay to move water through the pipeline, it would be accommodated,” Davis said.

 

 

Concerns over Rosemont

FICO Vice President and General Counsel Nan Walden said “we do have a different philosophy about how to recharge. While your project does not cost your ratepayers, it will raise rates to all other water companies in the valley.

“All others will be impacted to their detriment. Because a mine is exempt, it can pump unlimited amounts of groundwater for unlimited amounts of time. If we let an unregulated new user come in, it could go on for years and we’ll never reach sustainability,” Walden said.

Residents long have asked if FICO is planning its own pipeline just because it opposes Rosemont Copper. Walden didn’t say so, but said Rosemont will draw 6,000 acre-feet of water a year from the local aquifer.

Walden added that she thinks the mine could continue drawing water for 40 to 60 years, well beyond its 15-year recharge commitment, and this will hurt the aquifer in the long run. She said Rosemont’s wells, in Sahuarita Heights would lower the aquifer and cause land subsidence in an area she said was already stressed by mines and agriculture.

Longtime pursuit

FICO has been talking to CAP about connecting to the system since the 1990s, long before Rosemont got into the picture, Walden and Larry Dozier, deputy director of the Central Arizona Project said. Dozier pointed out that a pipeline along Pima Mine Road owned jointly by CAP and Tucson Water was built years ago with a flange to allow a connection by FICO.

Davis said what the CWC will get from its project is permanent ownership of a pipeline that will allow it to obtain CAP water after years of paying for the right to buy CAP water. Also, a recharge station near one of its wells, and 105,000 AF of free CAP water over 15 years, as Rosemont pays for the water and for transporting it. (Once a pipeline is in place, CAP water has three operating costs: the allocation cost for the right to buy it; the purchase cost, and the cost of moving it through a pipeline.)

“We could choose to move water through that pipeline, but we’d have to purchase the water ourselves, but at this point we don’t have a need to do so for our own use, and we’d have to pay for transport for the next 15 years,” Davis said. “It seemed like a good deal with CWC to continue with the current plan.”

Rosemont, in an apparent effort to blunt local opposition, has been buying CAP water and storing it in Marana but promises to recharge 105,000 AF locally when the pipeline and recharge facility are done.

FICO’s pecan orchards are a state-permitted Groundwater Savings Facility with a 22,000 AF capacity, and FICO says it plans to use its allocation of more than 3,000 AF of CAP water a year for irrigation, leaving that amount of higher-quality groundwater in the ground. The 3,000-plus AF allocation will decline to zero by 2030, but before then FICO hopes to get water from the Arizona Water Bank and the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District, which intends to recharge water close to areas of new development.

Davis said CWC made an effort “to coordinate with FICO and make temporary use of the recharge facility, but time went by and that option did not work out.”

pfranchine@gvnews.com | 547-9738

Filed Under: Rosemont

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Recent Posts

  • Litigation Schedule February 17, 2021
  • Links to recent news and letters – 2021 February 15, 2021
  • Links to recent news and letters – 2020 December 31, 2020
  • Long Mountain – a film by Leslie Epperson July 8, 2020
  • A major win for endangered species in the Santa Ritas February 13, 2020

NEWSLETTER SIGNUP

Sign up to receive important updates straight to your inbox! We will guard your privacy and will not provide your email to anyone else.

RSS Latest from Rosemont Mine Truth

  • Pima County reaffirms resolution opposing Rosemont Mine April 19, 2019
  • Hudbay approves $122 million spending plan for “early works” at Rosemont March 29, 2019
  • Hudbay seeking Rosemont Mine joint venture partner after receiving key federal Clean Water Act permit March 15, 2019
  • Hudbay has failed to provide legal justification for Clean Water Act permit, Natural Resources Committee chairman says March 5, 2019

Selected Lens on the Land Photographs

PlayPause
Slider

Litigation Update

Speaking of which (the appeal originally filed in Nov. 2017 challenging the Forest Service’s approval of the mine), we now have a schedule for that case in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals – not definitive, but at least a general time frame:

 

After a lot of negotiating, the lawyers have come to an agreement on the final schedule of our cases before the 9th Circuit Appeals Court. Here is the updated schedule:

  • Feds opening brief due by 1 June 2020
  • Hudbay opening brief due by 15 June 2020
  • Then, our response by 3 September 2020
  • Feds optional reply brief by 2 November 2020
  • Hudbay optional reply brief by 9 November 2020

Click here for more updates

DONATE

Copyright © 2021 · Save the Scenic Santa Ritas