Latest Installment in the Painted Hills Follies

Let's see if we can figure out what's wrong with this article.  In paragraph 4 it says:

The county approved development plans for the 284 acres of scenic Painted Hills property just west of the city limits, but the supervisors didn't want the site developed, so they asked the city to deny water service to the property.

So the county asks the city to save them from a bad decision - see the county voters approved bond funds that would enable the county to buy this parcel of land and preserve it as open space.  But when the owners wouldn't sell to the county, the county decided they could wait them out.  But somebody else came in and offered more money for the parcel, expecting to develop it.

The city instituted a new policy that was used to deny water for the development, but ran into other problems when the developer sought a different remedy.  They are currently in negotiations with the property owner to do a swap that will provide them with a develop-able parcel of land elsewhere and permit preservation of the Painted Hills parcel.  You can find info on the city's water policy referenced here and here.

But back to the current article.  At the end of the article are a couple of really nice comments from the County Administrator, Chuck Huckleberry:

Huckelberry wants the board to ask the city to change its water service policy to provide service to properties like Marrs'.
"The presently adopted Tucson Water policy does not support rational regional planning for water service," Huckelberry said in the memo.

Guess it really pays to stay on the good side of our county administrator.  If I can paraphrase something a former president said recently - it takes some real brass to encourage the city to use their new policy to prevent development in one location then come back and say that said policy prevents rational regional planning when it stands in the way of a particular development you do want to see go forward.  Is it any wonder people in this town have so little respect for our local governments?

Here It Is!

If you remember waaaay back in April, I posted about a new law that had just been passed by the Arizona legislature that would make it very difficult to establish in-stream flow rights in Arizona.  At that point the bill was on its way to the governor's desk, where it would shortly be signed into law.

Well on Aug. 3 that new law went into effect and pretty soon Arizona Dept. of Water Resources had posted their guidance on implementing the law and a link to download the new in-stream flow application form.  They can be found here.

Now you might think this would be pretty much a tempest in a teapot, after all the opportunities to appropriate surface water in Arizona are effectively pretty limited at present.  And experience has shown that the most effective means of protecting in-stream flows around here are by having the most senior rights on the downstream end of the river system (see SRP).

But what this means is that our state government does not believe in the value of maintaining environmental flows in rivers (case in point) and wishes to protect existing "uses" of water from the threat of "non-users" or should I say "non-economic-benefit-providing users".  And by economic benefit I of course mean the kind of economic benefits that flow to highly favored entities among our state legislature.

New Website from Nature Conservancy

I received an email earlier this week announcing a new website that has been set up by the Nature Conservancy, called the Great Rivers Partnership.  Here's what it is about according to their email:

We’re excited to announce the launch of the The Nature Conservancy’s Great Rivers website http://greatriverspartnership.org/, a place where anyone whose life or livelihood is enriched by rivers can learn how we can all work together to protect these waterways.  The Nature Conservancy’s Great River Partnership convenes scientists, industry leaders, government and non government agencies, and others to exchange resources and find shared, pragmatic solutions that will support sustainable management and development of whole river systems.

As you well know, when a large river is healthy a diverse community of plants, animals, people and their industries can thrive. Everything that happens in and around a river system affects us all and the positive benefits are many. These waterways ensure power to large cities, drinking water to millions and transportation of crucial goods. They support vital ecosystems that fuel fisheries, enrich the soil and provide natural flood management.

 Sounds like some good ideas we can all support.  I'm a strong supporter of the model for conservation that the Nature Conservancy follows and I'm hopeful this website will prove to be a great resource for ideas that support that model.  Check it out when you have a chance.

Oh and there's a video you can check out too:

Is ADWR Impotent or Just Arizona Water Law?

From today's AZ Daily Star, a piece by Tony Davis about Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) recent decision to approve the water supply for a very large new development in the Sierra Vista area.  For a little background on water issues in this part of Southeast Arizona check out my previous posts here and here.

Before I take a look at what this decision means I have to point out one erroneous statement from the article.  In the 3rd paragraph where it says "the department's decision gave a clear signal that it doesn't agree with the BLM's position opposing this pumping ..." that is not exactly a correct interpretation of what ADWR was saying (just based on what was reported here because ADWR doesn't have the decision posted to their website as of this afternoon, when I last checked).  As stated under the reasons cited for the ruling, ADWR simply doesn't have the authority to consider the effect of federal reserved rights on an application for a designation of adequate water supply where the application involves pumping groundwater and the federal reserved rights at issue are for surface water.  Arizona law doesn't recognize the connection between surface water and groundwater, except under very narrow circumstances.  And the criteria that ADWR can consider in evaluating the application are pretty clearly spelled out in the administrative code.  I've never noticed anything in there about compliance with federal law as it pertains to federal reserved water rights.

Putting on the promoter cap

It's that time again.  Time for me to extoll the virtues of Watershed Management Group and put out the call for donations for our summer fundraising campaign.  Full disclosure up front - I am the current vice-chair of the board of directors for WMG.  I don't make any money doing this, but I derive great personal satisfaction from watching their success.

If you haven't heard my spiel before, WMG is a fabulous non-profit based here in Tucson, Arizona that does work, currently throughout Arizona, in Southern California, in Sonora, Mexico, and in India and more recently in Burkina Faso.  Several of those locations are places where we have only begun working within the last two years, largely because of the strength of the individual donors who support the organization.  WMG has been growing by leaps and bounds because there are many people who support the great work they do, but also because there is such a huge need out there for growth of community-based programs to give people the tools they need to become better stewards of their resources.

That need continues to grow and hopefully WMG will be able to continue to grow to satisfy that need.  But they can only do it through the support of like-minded people.  And I'm certain there are at least a few of those people who read this blog.  And if you decide you like what the organization does and think there is a need for them to take on work in your community, send me a note or contact them through their website to see if there is an opportunity to expand there.  Or you can participate in one of their great training programs and learn how to do this sort of work yourself and teach others the same skills.

Check out this link for info on how to support WMG.  And if you are able to make a contribution this week a generous match from one of our donors will double your support.  Please do what you can.  Thanks.

RIP Elinor Ostrom, 1933-2012

The resource management/economics/political science community said farewell to one of the true innovative thinkers of the past century today.  Elinor Ostrom, Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Nobel Prize winner in economics (the first woman to do so), and co-founder and Senior Research Fellow at the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, passed away this morning in Bloomington, IN.

What is the interest of a hydrogeologist and attorney in a political scientist with a strong economics pedigree?  Well, the ground-breaking work that brought Dr. Ostrom into my realm of professional knowledge and a big part of what earned her a Nobel Prize was her work on defining the role of informal, local institutions in overcoming the Tragedy of the Commons.  One of her foundational research projects was on the importance of such institutions to effective governance of groundwater basins that functioned as common pool resources, but were managed through local informal institutions that prevented the theoretical negative outcome predicted by ToC.  This important observational work (Dr. Ostrom was well-known for taking theory and supporting/refuting it through actual field observations) has informed many of my views on the preferred methods of governance for groundwater systems.  My own career owes a huge debt to her work.

Her brilliance will live on in her work and the countless academics and practitioners who have followed in her footsteps.  Farewell.

Colorado Considers Adopting Public Trust Doctrine?

I came across this link courtesy of Aquadoc's Weekly Round-up of water news.  Seems a few people in Colorado are dissatisfied with their current system of reasonably secure property rights in the use of the state's water.  They are placing initiatives on the ballot later this year that would formally adopt a strong public trust doctrine.  The texts of the proposed initiatives can be found here and here.  Essentially what this would do is still allow you to have your water rights - whether derived from prior appropriation or whatever.  But those rights would always be subject to rights of the state to protect the water on behalf of the people.  So if someone decides that a world-class trout fishery is more important to the state than a valley full of farmers, the state could step in (theoretically) and tell the farmers to stop diverting water for irrigation so that the trout stream can thrive.  This is a concept that exists in many places but only rarely has it been found to trump existing property rights.  In this case, the wording of the initiative states pretty clearly that the public trust is superior to private property rights.  I don't see this going very far.