Water war at Army’s Fort Huachuca

SIERRA VISTA — The U.S. Army has been allowed to drain the San Pedro River basin using a flawed environmental study, and the results for one of Arizona’s rarest ecosystems could be catastrophic, according to a recent lawsuit.

The suit was filed in federal court by the Center for Biological Diversity, a national nonprofit, and the Maricopa Audubon Society, a Phoenix-based group of birdwatchers.

Both parties have banded together in a 21-page lawsuit, which basically accuses the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service of cow towing to military interests by letting Fort Huachuca continue to tap more and more groundwater despite their own studies that show this could be disastrous for the upper San Pedro River basin.

The river flows north from Mexico and joins the Gila River in Arizona. Biologists say it supports more than 490 mammals and reptiles, a massive stand of cottownwoods and enough birds to gain the first “Globally Important Bird Area” from the American Bird Conservancy.

Because of this, wildlife officials declared almost 34 miles along the river’s upper basin as “critical habitat.”

But Fort Huachuca continues to draw upon its waters by adding more soldiers. Wildlife officials have repeatedly asserted in past that this is a problem, but have yet to act on those studies, the suit claims.

Biologists for the center sued and won in 2002. Now they are asking a federal judge to intervene again and force Army and wildlife officials to find a solution before the river runs dry.

“If the water table continues to drop,” the suit says, “the river’s hydrology will eventually reverse — in other words, instead of the aquifer feeding the San Pedro River, the San Pedro will feed the aquifer, and the river will dry up.”

The biologists are represented by McCrystie Adams and Andrew Hartsig of the Denver-based Earthjustice.