Memos show rancor over CAP deal

In a memoranda shoot-out, top officials of Augusta Resource Corp. and Pima County continued their disagreement over the value of a 20-inch pipeline to bring Colorado River water to the Green Valley-Sahuarita area.

Jamie Sturgess, a vice president for Rosemont Copper Co., and County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry argued this month, in writing about the pipeline from Pima Mine Road to a Community Water Co. recharge site in the Sahuarita area.

Huckelberry said the line won’t meet GV-Sahuarita’s water needs and questioned if the mine company would actually pay for it should its plans fall through for a open-pit mine east of the Santa Rita Mountains.

Sturgess said plans will go ahead for the 20-inch pipeline, whether or not his company actually gets permission for the mine.

And he agreed that the line is not big enough to meet this area’s ultimate water needs, but he asked Huckelberry, “What alternative do you offer?”

Community Water Co. approached Augusta with the idea of getting a pipeline from the Central Arizona Project delivery site at Pima Mine Road to the Sahuarita recharge site.

Augusta - Rosemont Copper Co. is already drilling as least one large well in the same area to provide water to the mine site.

Community Water Co. has an annual Central Arizona Project water allotment of 2,858 acre-feet. Green Valley Water has a 2,900 af allotment and a local replenishment district has one of 650 af.

An acre-foot of water is about 325,851 gallons, or the amount of water used by two urban families of four in a year.

Many other local large water users in GV-Sahuarita don’t have CAP allotments, declining them when the giant project was first proposed.

The CAP brings 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River Water to Central and Southern Arizona. That’s more than half the state’s 2.8 million acre-feet the state was granted in the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

Augusta’s Sturgess told Huckelberry that there’s probably another 90 days before final agreements are signed that the county might use to participate in the CAP pipeline.

If the county or other entities don’t join the Community Water Co. venture, Sturgess said, there would at least be a “fully funded” pipeline that would “diminish the total amount Pima County and its taxpayers would be required to build.”

Earlier debates before the county supervisors pointed out that the county is not in the business of providing fresh water to residents, but is involved only in processing wastewater.

Huckelberry, in his memo to Sturgess, said he was aware there is only about 5,000 acre-feet of CAP water currently claimed for the GV-Sahuarita area, but he added, “the water is not physically available since the delivery facilities do not exist.”

He added, “For this area to be sustainable, a mix of all available water resources must be used efficiently and effectively.”

He said those include “groundwater replenishment, use of effluent, additional CAP supplies, storm water and water conservation.”

Huckelberry also said “there appears to be no requirement that Augusta Resource funding will be committed to the pipeline extension if the mine is not permitted,” and that would entail a signed contract between the mining company and Community Water.

The county administrator also said Community Water in late October “mentioned a time extension for the agreement, but no time period was given.”

Huckelberry said a regional solution of the area’s water needs should be proposed, “and then the pipeline sized accordingly.”

“We would welcome more information from Rosemont on the status of project design and capacity, the design and agreement,” he said.

Pima County supervisors have adopted a resolution opposing development of the mine.

Huckelberry’s memo also said there was no indication from Rosemont what would happen to its water storage credits “in the event the Rosemont Mine is not built,” adding:

“Augusta Resource may extinguish, sell, or otherwise dispose of the credits as its sole discretion.”

He also said the county’s concern “is that long-term storage credits will be sold to an entity that will recover in areas that are experiencing local groundwater depletion.”

He said those details won’t be “resolved until the final contract is executed.”

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