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Cautious small towns prove bigger isn’t better

TOLLESON — Like the small community banks that dot their landscapes, small cities and towns that didn’t go all in on the real estate frenzy are having an easier time weathering the economic crisis than their sprawling peers.

The housing market bust and related credit crunch has fueled a worldwide economic crisis, and the U.S. economy has been dragging them down. But you couldn’t really tell if you drove through Tolleson or strolled through City Hall.

Here, in this town of 5,000 west of Phoenix, the outlook isn’t so gloomy.

“We’re holding our own,” says Tollseon Finance director Steve Baumgardt.

Many major U.S. cities recruit developers of single-family housing and thus rely heavily on the housing market for revenues. Until recently, homeowners began scooping up property as if playing a board game, despite the fact they were using risky credit schemes – high-interest loans, interest-only loans or loans with balloon payments – to secure such deals.

When the mortgage rates began to soar as the economy began to collapse, many people simply could not afford to pay their monthly mortgage fees. This lead to the seizure of thousands of properties that are still not fully paid off.

In Phoenix, the nation’s fifth-largest city with 1.5 million people, housing development boomed. But now at least 12 major developments are locked up in trustee sales, mechanic liens or Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to a recent report from the Arizona Department of Real Estate.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon told National Public Radio today that the city faces $250 million in budget cuts this coming year. That’s more than any of the last five years combined, he said, and residents could see the barest minimum of city services ever. Police officers and firefighters will not be laid off, he added.

In Tolleson, however, the development scheme and financial adjustments are a little simpler. Slower. Less risky.

The majority of Tolleson’s funds comes from sales and property taxes. The sewer, water and sanitation departments bring in a good share of money by charging residents operating fees.

Tolleson also has money in bonds, which are sold to large organizations or investment buyers, which further benefit the city.

Officials here focus on developing on the city’s heavy industrial background and neighboring retail opportunities.

“We currently have three apartment complexes that are doing fairly well,” says Tolleson City Manager Reyes Medrano. “Two more are currently being built to attract business for retail.”

Tolleson also cuts back on operation costs within their city. With an estimated operating budget around $45 million, city officials plan to do few layoffs and use the Internet more often for training instead of hiring outside consultants.

“We’ve cut back in hires, only recently putting in one to two positions” Baumgardt says.

Traveling expenses were also cut back, with only those pertaining to emergencies being on the priority list. This included computer help training for city technicians when it comes to new and better technology, but Tolleson has turned towards online training, which is just as helpful and cuts back on traveling costs.

“Three to four hours of online training is just as efficient as sending them [the technicians] out and costs much less versus traveling,” Baumgardt says.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Welcome to the Footprint: Arizona Environmental News

Arizona is booming in almost every measurable way. The population has risen by 73 percent since 1990, reaching 6,338,755 in 2007. The U.S. Census estimates that the state could add another five million residents by 2030. The Arizona economy has grown even faster: the state’s gross domestic product expanded from $127 billion in 1997 to more than $232 billion in 2007, an increase of 83 percent.

All this growth means that Arizona’s environment is under pressure like never before. Suburban sprawl and rising business and industrial needs have stretched the state’s water supplies to near the breaking point. Surging commodity prices have ignited a gold-rush mentality for corporations intent on mining the state’s ample copper, coal, uranium and other mineral deposits. Utility companies wrestle with meeting a new renewable energy standard as scientists warn of drastic impacts on the state’s climate from global warming.

Here at The Footprint, we aim to combine original reporting with commentary on environmental news from around the state, to provide a comprehensive look at the stories that impact Arizona’s land, water and air.

Check in for daily updates on the stories that matter to you, like the proposed Rosemont open-pit copper mine south of Tucson, to plans to mine uranium near the rim of the Grand Canyon, and more.

We are always open to suggestions, tips, comments or critiques. Please contact us at azfootprint@gmail.com.

Urban needs drain Colorado River delta

High over the southern edge of the lagoon, a bald eagle appeared as if from out of nowhere, wheeling through the cloudless sky. Then, in a beating of wings that shook the desert air, several thousand snow geese took flight, honking in terror at the sight of a mortal enemy.

“Man, look at all those snows,” says Brad Andres, a wildlife biologist from Colorado. “I think two on the left are Caspian terns.”

Paul Meyers, a biologist from Alaska, pointed his binoculars to the west. “Here comes an osprey,” he says.

That morning at dawn, Meyers and Andres had set out from Yuma, Ariz. with a half-dozen fellow biologists for a tour of the Cienega de Santa Clara, a 40,000-acre wetland thriving in the midst of the bone-dry Sonoran desert, near the Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico.

A crucial stop on the Pacific Flyway, the cienega — Spanish for “marsh” — provides habitat for hundreds of thousands of migratory and resident birds, some of which, like the endangered Yuma clapper rail, are found virtually nowhere else on Earth. It is a birder’s paradise, where white-faced ibis, sandpipers, gulls, warblers, cranes and pelicans hunt among tall cattail reeds and rise in flocks that can momentarily darken a flawless blue sky.

“It’s crazy how wetlands out in the middle of the desert are always so incredibly productive,” Meyers says.

Remarkable though they may be, these wetlands are only a tiny fragment of what once was one of North America’s largest and most productive estuaries: the Colorado River Delta. In the days before the building of dams on the river, and the creation of giant reservoirs such as Lake Powell and Lake Mead, massive surges of freshwater created a wetland area here the size of the state of Delaware.

In 1922, ecologist Aldo Leopold explored the Delta by canoe, through a seemingly endless landscape of emerald-green lagoons and towering cottonwood and mesquite trees, where deer, bobcats and even jaguars roamed.

“The river was nowhere and everywhere…” Leopold wrote. “He divided and rejoined, he twisted and turned, he meandered in awesome jungles, he all but ran in circles…”

Today, those green lagoons — and the wildlife they supported — are all but gone, replaced by agricultural fields, cities, and barren salt flats that stretch as far as the eye can see. Canals and pipelines divert so much water from the river that it fails to reach the sea except in times of exceptional flooding.

Of the Delta’s former wetlands, only the Cienega de Santa Clara remains.

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“It’s the last relic we have of the wetlands of the Delta,” says Martha Roman, a field biologist for the Mexican state of Sonora. “It’s a treasure.”

Yet even this remnant wilderness is threatened, as water officials north of the border weigh diverting as much as 70 percent of the water that sustains it for use in cities and farms in the United States.

ENVIRONMENT VS. ECONOMICS

As American water officials like to point out, this remaining marshland is an artificial creation, more replica than relic. For while the Delta’s former wetlands relied on the spring floods of the Colorado River for life, the Cienega depends on millions of gallons of agricultural run-off from farms in Arizona, water delivered through a concrete canal built in the 1970s.

That run-off was intended for delivery to the Yuma Desalting Plant, which was intended to purify and return the water to the river. But due to a series of unusually wet years, and the high cost to operate the desalter, the water was allowed to bypass the plant, which stood idle. Instead, it flowed into the desert, and there, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the Delta’s wetlands were reborn.

“For the longest time people didn’t even know these wetlands existed,” said Robert Mesta, a birds of prey specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who is coordinating conservation efforts in the area. “They just depend on the fact that canals leak.”

For Arizona’s water managers, though, Nature’s gain is their loss. An average of 110,000 acre-feet of water – enough to supply 220,000 Arizona households for a year – flows across the border to the wetlands. This volume is equal to about 8 percent of Mexico’s total share of Colorado River water.

Yet until the plant begins operation, that water is subtracted from Arizona’s river allotment, a supply already stretched to the breaking point by massive population growth and compounded by the worst drought since the region’s record-keeping began.

“Because the U.S. is not operating Yuma, we were delivering water into Mexico that was not being accounted for,” says Sid Wilson, director of the Central Arizona Project. “It was just ice cream for Mexico, and it was lowering levels in Lake Mead by a foot a year.”

If elevations in Lake Mead and Lake Powell sink to a pre-determined level, a shortage will be declared on the Colorado River, leading to immediate cuts in water deliveries to Nevada and Arizona. With less water available, the Southwest’s development-driven economies would inevitably suffer.

Gloomy predictions about imminent shortages on the river have been tempered somewhat by heavy snowfall in the Rocky Mountains. At the moment, spring runoff is estimated to be about 117 percent of average, which would add about 10 feet to Lake Mead’s elevation, and forestall a shortage at least for a few years.

Nevertheless, booming population growth in the region, and the prospect of more dry years on the horizon, has water managers scrambling to secure every drop of water they can. One of the most attractive options has been halting the flow of agricultural runoff and other unregulated water into Mexico, and keeping it for use in the United States.

Yet while that water has been targeted under the banner of conservation, much of it flows down the main channel of the river, sustaining the Delta’s remaining wetlands.

“Some of the water that flows off of these fields really does support some important habitats,” says Karl Flessa, a paleobiologist and chair of the University of Arizona’s geosciences department, who has studied the Delta for decades. “But that flow is likely to be reduced to near zero, so that the United States can retain as much water in the river as possible.”

FEW OPTIONS FOR CIENEGA’S SURVIVAL

The Yuma Desalting Plant has been eyed for years as a potential tool for reducing accidental flows into Mexico. Were the plant put into full operation, however, flows to the Cienega would be reduced to a brackish, pesticide-laden sludge.

According to Jim Cherry, Yuma area manager for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, after a successful test run at 10 percent capacity last year, the plant could be restarted almost immediately. “It ran beautifully,” he says.

The reopening of the plant was simply a matter of time, Cherry adds.

According to Wilson, flows to the Cienega could eventually be cut by as much as 70 percent, down to about 30,000 acre-feet. But Wilson, who has been deeply involved in delicate negotiations with environmentalists and other groups over the fate of the Cienega, argued that such a reduction might not spell disaster for the wetlands.

“I don’t know how much water the Cienega needs, and neither do the environmentalists,” he says. “Nobody really knows.”

And while Wilson said he recognized the value of the wetlands as a unique habitat, he could not guarantee that they would avoid the impact of future shortages on the river.

“The Cienega, like the rest of us, will have to learn to deal with drought,” he says.

With a growing recognition of its environmental importance, it appears unlikely that flows to the Cienega de Santa Clara will be dramatically disrupted in the short-term. Even more promising to its long-term survival are several alternative strategies for providing water to the region.

The Yuma area suffers from an exceptionally high groundwater table, water that is too salty for use in agriculture. Were that water pumped into the desalting plant, it could replace the agricultural run-off that currently flows into Mexico.

“We’ve been looking at whether it makes sense for this plant to be operating a little bit differently,” Cherry says. “This is a more sustainable use of the desalting plant, and it would still allow the Cienega to flourish.”

Still other options exist, such as paying Yuma farmers for their water rights. “In times of real drought, where you don’t have supplies available to go to the Cienega, part of the solution might be short term, temporary leases of land, and fallowing of that land,” said Wilson. “That would free up some water to go down to the Cienega.”

MEXICAN INVOLVEMENT NEEDED

To environmentalists, while the long-term survival of the Cienega would represent a major victory, much more work remains to be done in the Delta, where around 95 percent of the original wetlands have vanished.

The task of restoring the greater Delta is complicated considerably by its location in Mexico. In the U.S., tens of billions of dollars have been spent restoring estuaries and wetlands such as Chesapeake Bay, the Everglades and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in California.

“You don’t see the same corresponding effort going into restoring the Delta, I think because it’s simply on the other side of the border,” Flessa says. “The United States hasn’t taken its full responsibility in assisting Mexico in restoring some of these habitats.”

North of the border, a $626 million effort to restore riparian and marsh habitats along the river is underway, led by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. That restoration work, aimed at shoring up populations of endangered birds and fish, ends at the U.S.-Mexican border.

Wildlife in the region, however, does not respect international boundaries. “The common interest is that these birds are found on both sides of the border,” Mesta says.

The key ingredient in further restoration of the Delta is water — lots of it. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 1 to 2 percent of the Colorado River’s total flow would be necessary to begin repairing significant amounts of habitat. But the river’s supply is under tremendous strain, with essentially every drop already divided up between users in seven U.S. states and Mexico.

Not represented at the negotiating table, of course, are environmental uses such as the Delta.

Dr. Osvel Hinojosa-Huerta directs the water and wetlands program for Pronatura, a Mexican environmental organization. On a recent bird-counting trip into the Delta’s remaining wetlands, he and his team identified 109 species — among them eagles, hawks, the endangered snowy plover and even a great horned owl.

Hinojosa has seen the Colorado River reach the sea a few times in his many years in the Delta, during times of major floods. He says he hoped one day it would be a regular occurrence, allowing the Delta to flourish once more.

“If we want it to happen again, we need to make a legal allocation [of water] for the environment , with both countries working together,” he says. “That’s a big challenge, but I think it’s very possible.”

WATER USERS BICKER OVER RIGHTS

High anxiety over water for human uses in the region, however, make the prospects for significant new allocations for the environment uncertain at best. Negotiations over the Colorado River are extraordinarily complex, involving seven U.S. states, the U.S. Department of the Interior and Mexico.

The Delta’s location south of the border provides additional cover for those who would rather prefer to steer the river’s water towards development.

Wilson, for instance, praised efforts by Mexican environmental groups working to secure water rights for the wetlands. But he expressed doubt that the U.S. was obligated to provide additional water supplies to the area. “It’s really a Mexican issue, to begin restoring the Delta,” he says.

Others feel that responsibility should be shared among all river users.

“Saying that Mexico should use its allocation to restore habitats in the Delta, would be like saying the state of Louisiana is responsible for the dead zone off the mouth of the Mississippi River, and that none of the upstream states in the Mississippi River system should bear any responsibility for putting excess fertilizer in the river,” Flessa says. “It’s simply unfair, regardless of the fact that it’s in another country.”

A number of U.S. environmental groups are working towards just that goal, including the Sonoran Institute, based in Tucson, as well as Environmental Defense and the Pacific Institute. But fair or not, implementing a policy to allocate U.S. water for the Delta will be far from easy.

Unless the Southwest breaks out of its current drought and enters a prolonged wet period, increasing demand from cities and agriculture seems almost certain to keep supplies stretched tight. With demand already exceeding supply, securing water for any new purpose—much less an environmental use in a foreign country—won’t happen without a long struggle.

After all, as Mark Twain once observed, “In the West, whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting.”

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.