CAP board hears differences in the two pipeline plans

It was two tales of two pipelines as the board of the Central Arizona Project, the agency that controls the water supply, heard from the Community Water Company of Green Valley and Farmers Investment Co.) on their proposals to bring Colorado River water to the region.

The Community Water Co. pipeline would be owned regionally and would allow for community input on design, CWC Board Secretary Virgil Davis told the CAP board on Thursday in Tucson.

Community Water plans to turn the pipeline over to a regional system that would operate in a public manner, serving all customers with money and water, while the other proposal would be privately owned and could exclude some users, Davis said. That might leave the proposed Rosemont Copper Mine recharging the aquifer in Marana, which wouldn’t do any good for the local aquifer, Davis said. Rosemont is funding the CWC pipeline effort.

The CAP board got a different view a few minutes later, as FICO President Dick Walden said that the Community Water proposal violates state and federal laws and may be tied up in litigation, and that his pipeline plan would have lower start-up costs because it would connect to FICO’s already-certified recharge facility in Sahuarita.

Davis said the Community Water proposal is moving forward rapidly and construction could start in late 2009, which could mean the pipe could be operating by late 2010 or early or mid-2011.

$15-$20 million

The 36-inch Community Water pipe would cost between $15 million and $20 million and would be paid for by Augusta Resource, the company proposing the Rosemont Copper Mine in the Santa Rita Mountains. Davis said that under the CWC plan, Rosemont would conduct its recharge in the Green Valley/Sahuarita area rather than downstream in Marana, where it would not help the local aquifer. Rosemont now is recharging in Marana.

Walden said that because the FICO pecan orchards in Sahuarita are certified as a recharge facility, the initial phase of the planned 36-inch FICO pipeline would only have to go a short distance from the end of the CAP system at Pima Mine Road near Interstate 19. This, he said, would require no pump lift, meaning lower building costs and eventual operating costs for those wheeling water through the pipeline.

The FICO pipeline would be paid for by American Nevada Co., the developer of the proposed Mission Peaks development of 15,000 homes on 4,200 acres west of Sahuarita. ANC has pledged to recharge more water than it uses.

Walden said the CWC pipeline plan could be tied up in litigation for years. A letter from a CAP official to the Bureau Reclamation raised that issue about the Community Water pipeline, but CWC President Art Gabald—n said that letter was based an old Letter of Intent between Community Water and Augusta, one that he said is being revised and will comply with all federal and state laws.

pfranchine@sahuaritasun.com | 547-9738