Guest Comment: Letter carried distortions about pipeline construction

Larry Kempton’s recent letter to the editor (FICO Responds to Freeman) attempts to “correct the record” on important issues raised by Ms. Freeman, but makes several inaccurate statements concerning the nature of water management in the Upper Santa Cruz River basin.

He also distorts the proposed pipeline construction efforts being undertaken by Community Water Company (Community) to bring this much-needed infrastructure to the area.

It is important to correct the record on these and other issues in Mr. Kempton’s letter so citizens of this valley have a fair basis upon which to understand the Community Water Company project.

First, Community and the Green Valley Water Improvement District (GVWID) both hold Central Arizona Project (CAP) municipal and industrial (M&I) priority water contracts, annually in the amounts of 2,858 acre-feet and 1,900 acre-feet respectively.

These are the only CAP M&I subcontracts available for use in the Upper Santa Cruz River basin and they represent the only truly reliable source of CAP water for the long term.

Both entities have paid to hold these contracts over the years, despite the fact that, without a pipeline, they cannot use them.

Allowing a prospective user to buy this water in the near term will alleviate the cost of holding the CAP contracts by Community and GVWID while preserving the right to access and use this water for other customers in the future—once a pipeline is in place.

This is not a lease but a simple customer purchase.

Over the years, no one else has stepped up to buy this water at CAP’s M&I priority rates.

Rosemont Copper, like FICO, is under no obligation to replenish or pay the CAGRD (Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District) to replenish.

But unlike other groundwater users, Rosemont is not only replenishing the water, but is buying it first and placing it in the aquifer well in advance of any use.

If the mine never happens, that water will still be available for the community.

Others, like FICO, which uses 26,000 acre-feet per year, have not replenished any water during the 15 years that the CAP has been in operation.

By contrast, Rosemont will have stored 30,000 acre-feet of CAP water in the Tucson basin by the end of 2008.

For Mr. Kempton to claim that CAGRD, or Indian leases, or the non-Indian agricultural pool water will be the savior for the basin, he overlooks the fact that Indian leases are not easy to come by, and neither FICO nor American Nevada has one.

The non-Indian agricultural pool water has been available since the CAP came to town, but is declining and is scheduled to expire completely in 2030.

To date FICO has not accessed it. CAGRD itself does not have long-term access to much CAP water, and what it has is over-committed at present.

If Mr. Kempton and FICO believe that constructing 15,000 homes and using 5,000 acre-feet of new water per year—in perpetuity—is the answer to the basin’s water issues, they should study the situation further.

What we need is water moving here now—not a hope that after we build more homes, break-even water will come.

Rosemont does bring new water to the equation in the real sense of “wet” water.

If the Community pipeline is constructed, CAP water will flow to Green Valley within a couple of years.

This is water that otherwise will never again be available under the annual “use it or lose it” rules that govern CAP.

Rosemont has its own excess water contract from CAP (the same type of contract available to the non-Indian agricultural pool) and it also is willing to purchase Community’s CAP annual water.

Excess CAP water will only be available for the next several years and Rosemont intends to buy it now and bring it to Green Valley.

While it is true that mines can last longer than their initially projected life, Rosemont’s mineral extraction permit is only a 20-year permit and Rosemont is already storing water in the Tucson AMA to offset that maximum groundwater use.

At 20 years the permit will have to be renewed, under conditions that are likely to be even more stringent than they are now.

A new housing development will be here forever.

Rosemont will continue to access wet water while it is available and plan for the future.

Such planning has been sorely absent among existing water users, and perhaps it is time for a change.

We say let’s take advantage of the wet water now and let the mine-or-no-mine debate take place in another forum.

Getting the pipeline built and the water flowing should be the real goal of anyone interested in good water management for our basin.

Rod Pace is the vice president of operations for Rosemont Copper. The views expressed are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of this newspaper.