The Verde River Basin Partnership has begun an extended campaign to get study money it's been waiting four years to receive.
The partnership sent long letters to U.S. Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl as well as U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick Thursday, urging them to find the money to conduct the studies called for in 2005 legislation sponsored by McCain, Kyl and then-U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi.
"In the face of a burgeoning population and the potential impact of a warmer and drier climate in the southwestern United States, the water resources of the Verde River Basin are threatened as never before," the letter states. "Title II (legislation) offers a path to accelerate the critical scientific work so badly needed for well-informed water management decisions in the Verde River Basin, which supplies water affecting nearly 3 million citizens in Arizona."
Next, the partnership will send the Congressional delegation letters signed by about 100 citizens who stopped by the partnership's booth at the recent Verde River Days, said Ed Wolfe, chair of the partnership's coordinating committee.
Then the partnership will start an e-mail campaign asking supporters to send more letters to the Congressional delegation, he said.
The letters call the Title II legislation an "unfunded promise" and ask for $5.2 million to conduct water studies in the Verde River Basin, as well as $200,000 to cover four years of partnership operations beginning October 2011.
"We made no attempt at all to tell them how to do it," Wolfe said, although the partnership members are hoping that it will help to have a new U.S. president. "We're just saying, 'This is the need, you made a promise, now it's time to fill it.'"
The seven-page letters list numerous reasons for the studies, which the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) would conduct. They note that population projections from the Arizona Department of Economic Security and the Yavapai County Water Advisory Committee forecast an increase from the current approximately 227,000 people to anywhere from 419,000 to 1.4 million by 2050.
A 2006 USGS study calculated that a combination of human impacts and drought already have caused the Verde River baseflow to decrease 380 acre-feet annually at Paulden, 1,000 af annually at Clarkdale and 2,000 af annually at Camp Verde, the letter notes. Groundwater levels that supply the river also are declining.
The letter quotes the campaign website of McCain, who led the effort to create the Verde River Basin Partnership.
"In the tradition of his hero, Theodore Roosevelt, John McCain believes that we are vested with a sacred duty to be proper stewards of the resources upon which the quality of American life depends," the website says.
The letter includes five attachments: a one-page background on the partnership, a one-page list of the partnership's technical advisors, a 30-page study plan that the partnership and USGS revised last month, the partnership's bylaws, and a 13-page letter that makes counterpoints to issues that Prescott-area communities have raised while refusing to join the partnership.
The partnership refutes any Prescott-area contention that it intends to stop the pipeline that Prescott and Prescott Valley want to build to the Big Chino aquifer, which scientists agree supplies most of the water for the Verde River's baseflow.
"The partnership has always recognized that importation of groundwater from the Big Chino Valley to the Prescott Active Management Area is not its purview," the letter states. "However, provision of the scientific basis that is essential for water managers to evaluate the best management strategies and their potential consequences is the partnership's goal."
The letter and attachments will be available shortly on the partnership's new website at verderiverbasinpartnership.com, Wolfe said.
Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, October 30, 2009
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Go away
Jeez, talk about thrashing a long dead horse why don't you. It's like the Society to Revitalize 8 Track Tapes or something lol. Let the thing die paleeeze!
