County pushes back on river

TUCSON—Pima County Supervisors say they’re in favor of applying environmental protections in the federal Clean Water Act to the Santa Cruz River.

A motion by board Chairman Richard Elias instructed County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry to put together a new memo on the question for the board’s Aug. 5 meeting.

The issue of the Santa Cruz River may affect the proposed Rosemont Copper Mine east of Green Valley.

If the Santa Cruz River is designated as navigable, it’s covered by the federal Clean Water Act and wastes can’t be dumped into it or its water courses even when dry.

Opponents fear the waste from the Rosemont mine would wind up in the Santa Cruz or its tributaries.

The Army Corps of Engineers earlier this year declared the Santa Cruz is navigable, but about two weeks later, it withdrew that decision from one of its Web sites.

Another question that was raised at the County Board meeting was whether county staff members had been negotiating with the Corps of Engineers over the river’s status.

At least one supervisor, Ray Carroll, whose District 4 includes Green Valley, wants to look into it to see whether staff members are taking care of business that should be left to the Board of Supervisors.

Deputy County Administrator John Bernal says he has talked with Corps representatives.

Supervisor Carroll asked whether that was “insubordination” and said the staff should be “held accountable for its deception and malfeasance.”

Supervisor Sharon Bronson, District 3, said the most serious part of the debate, however, is not who’s talking to whom, but how to protect the river.

She asked, “How do we do it (protect the river) and how do we do it permanently?”

What constitutes a “navigable river” and “how far does it go” are questions that are being asked.

A federal definition of navigable water is if the stream is part of a system that connects to navigable waters, in this case the Colorado River, then it’s navigable and subject to the Clean Water Act restrictions.

So, does that mean a dry water course that runs into the Santa Cruz River, which has at least two stretches of effluent discharge, is navigable?

In the 1990s, the Arizona Navigable Streams Adjudication Commission ruled that the Santa Cruz was not navigable, but that decision has been appealed. And since that’s a state body, federal regulations would supersede its ruling.

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