Caliche puts snag in CAP pipe plan

Sixty-five feet of rock-hard caliche will delay a proposed pipeline that would bring CAP water to the area.

Community Water Company of Green Valley president Arturo Gabaldon said the company is looking for another location for the recharge facility that would be served by the pipeline.

He said the original site, 1.5 miles east of Old Nogales Highway at El Corto Road, includes caliche for the first 65 feet and that the site could have required costly maintenance after the water company took over operations after 15 years.

Gabaldon said he expects the company to take two to three months to conduct drilling and hydrological sampling to find another recharge site. The original site is owned by Rosemont Copper, which has proposed a copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains and which has begun to draw water from well fields in Sahuarita Heights to serve the mine.

Rosemont will pay for the 36-inch pipeline and recharge facility and the first 15 years of operation, but after that Community Water would pay maintenance costs.

Gabaldon said a number of sites are under consideration, and noted that the environmental assessment conducted for the federal Bureau of Reclamation mentions as a possible site the Groundwater Savings Facility on Farmers Investment Co land.

However, FICO is co-sponsoring a rival pipeline proposal with American Nevada Co. of Las Vegas, which has planned a 15,000-home development west of Sahuarita straddling Mission Road.

Under each pipeline proposal, the CAP water would be recharged into the local aquifer.

Community Water sent a letter in June to the Bureau of Reclamation, which has regulatory authority over the pipeline, saying “it is Community Water’s judgment that the cost to develop and operate the recharge facility proposed in the subject EA (environmental assessment) will not be supportable by Community Water over the long haul. The change of plan has been reviewed with the owner of the original site and enables that site to be considered for other uses.”

The Forest Service says it expects to make a decision on the Rosemont Mine proposal in July 2010, though the matter could be tied up in court for years; the Bureau of Reclamation has ruled that the pipeline can be considered as a separate matter.

The water company notified the bureau that it is developing a new set of criteria to use in evaluating possible recharge sites, that it plans to share the new criteria with the federal agency and may consider sites it previously had rejected.

The letter, signed by Community Water board secretary Virgil W. Davis, said “Community Water understands that this decision will delay the completion of the subject EA, but believes that it is in the best interest of all parties in our community.”

pfranchine@sahuaritasun.com | 547-9738