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Feds to eradicate weeds in Tonto Nat’l Forest

KELLNER CANYON — The worst year was 1969. The low flying U.S. Forest Service helicopters came more often that year, spraying with less accuracy than previous years. The pungent mist landed on homes, livestock and, on occasions, people.

On a hot August day that year, Bob McKusick was hiking with his wife, three children and two dogs They were exploring a clay deposit the family had recently acquired from the U.S. Forest Service near their home in Kellner Canyon in the Pinal Mountains just north of Globe

That’s when they heard the wahump of an approaching helicopter.

“We tried to wave them off,” McKusick says. “We were in full view.” They were sprayed away. Within days one of the dogs died, bleeding from “every orifice.”

In the coming years, the McKusicks and their neighbors would see birth defects, escalating cancer rates, deformed livestock and too many early deaths. The water supply was contaminated forcing residents to have their water trucked in from Globe for the next 35 years.

“We went through absolute hell,” says McKusick, now 77.

McKusick and his neighbors would soon discover the Forest Service had been dropping clouds of Silvex, a mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D on them. In Vietnam, the same stuff was called Agent Orange.

Now, the U.S. Forest Service once again wants to kill vegetation. Noxious weeds are pushing out competing native plants, running the ecosystem and creating a wildfire hazard. But this time, the agency is using herbicides at very low toxicity levels, as well as other techniques, to keep weeds from spreading across the Tonto National Forest through central Arizona and beyond.

The forest is the largest national forest area in the state at 2.9 million acres.

In June, the Forest Service released a proposed 10-year plan to eradicate 64 species of noxious weeds over the Tonto’s vast expanse. The agency’s preferred alternative would use a combination of mechanical, manual and biological controls as well as 13 herbicides. Similar plans have been used effectively and safely, officials say, on national forests in Arizona and throughout the West.

Not surprisingly, some Kellner Canyon residents like McKusick don’t like the idea.

It’s not hard to understand McKusick’s anger. In the late 1960s, the Salt River Project contracted with the Forest Service to spray a 1,900-acre chunk of the north slopes of the Pinal Mountains with defoliants in an effort to kill off water sucking shrubs and allow less thirsty grasses to take over. The grasses would mean better cattle grazing and more water flowing down the slopes and eventually into the Salt River for Phoenicians to drink and water their lawns with.

But the plan went wrong on many levels.

Diesel fuel was supposed to be mixed with the chemicals to avoid drift. According to Forest Service guidelines at the time, spraying was only supposed to occur when wind speeds were below 10 mph. On a handful of occasions in 1969, the chemicals were mixed with water and household detergent instead of diesel and helicopters sprayed on gusty days.

In early 1970, Time magazine ran an article that looked into the spiking cancer rates and tales of bizarrely deformed livestock coming out of Kellner, Ice House and Sixshooter canyons. When local physicians and veterinarians said they weren’t seeing anything usual, the article suggested residents were paranoid.

The McKusicks and four other families eventually sued Dow Chemical, the maker of Silvex, and the U.S. Forest Service, which the agency no longer uses because it is banned. The families ended up settling out of court in 1980.

“It wasn’t settled for millions and millions like they are nowadays, like it should have been,” McKusick says.

The Forest Service says everything will be different this time. Much has changed in 40 years. Thanks to passage of the National Environmental Policy Act, ironically passed by Congress in 1969, the federal government is now required to consider the environmental implications of any major plan and gather public comment.

Patti Fenner, noxious weeds coordinator for the Tonto National Forest, says past technology was not available to determine what levels of dioxin were safe. Regardless, she adds, her agency will only be doing ground-level spraying this time without helicopters or dioxin — a contaminant in herbicides that has also been banned.

“We made mistakes,” Fenner says, “There is no doubt. Trying to kill off an area’s vegetation is just stupid.”

Now the agency only wants to use methods that cause the least environmental impact to help save the West’s landscape. In an email to TZR, Fenner said buffel grass is taking over the Southwest’s Sonoran deserts, leading to less cacti and more intense wildfires. The thorny Yellow starthistle, she said, threatens to make certain lands unpassable by horse because it’s a toxic plant with one-inch-long spines. The plant is exploding in population in California and now Arizona, she said.

Fenner is particularly concerned with weeds like camelthorn, which is native to Central Asia. It’s a particularly tough plant that can grow through pavement and concrete. “You can’t get rid of this plant any other way,” except with herbicides, Fenner says.

Other weeds can be killed off with controlled burning and pulling by hand and other methods.

Still, such assurances aren’t good enough for McKusick or his son-in-law. Geof Condit, who also lives in Kellner Canyon, says nine of the 13 chemicals the Forest Service plans on using are toxic, according to the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides.

“They make it sound all wonderful,” Condit says of the Forest Service plans.

Fenner doesn’t expect a final decision to be made until sometime next year. Even if the Forest Service decides to go ahead with its plan to use herbicides, federal officials may still avoid an ugly confrontation with Kellner Canyon residents. Fenner says very few invasive weeds have been found in the Pinals, which means little, if any, spraying may be needed – at least for now.

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

Sedona’s cheap housing disappears under mansions

SEDONA — Mike Horner is a cashier at a mom-and-pop convenience store in Sedona. Over the past 17 years, he has downsized from a three-bedroom home in West Sedona to a trailer in Oak Creek Mobile Lodge on Highway 179.

His 16-year-old son, Brooks, lives with him. Soon, his 18-year-old daughter, Esme, will leave Flagstaff and move in.

When Horner first moved to Sedona, he could rent a three-bedroom house for about $675. When he re-entered the rental market after his divorce, rents were about $1,000 for a two-bedroom house. So he moved into Oak Creek Mobile Lodge because it was a good deal.

Now Horner believes his days as a Sedona resident are numbered. Oak Creek Mobile Lodge is on the chopping block. The property owner, Don Campbell, plans to remove the park’s 59 trailers and build about 50 condominiums.

Horner is dubious about the city’s intentions to do something – anything – about affordable housing in Sedona. To him, it’s empty talk about doing what’s best from people who cater more to the rich than to the “regular people” that make the town tick.

“They have a lot to say but it doesn’t seem to do any good. It’s like they have their own agenda and a deaf ear,” says Horner, who spoke to TZR under the condition that his real name not be used. “I haven’t seen them put up any low-income housing. I don’t think they’ve done anything.”

It’s been almost three months since the Sedona City Council approved new rules to encourage the construction and retention of affordable housing. City officials have been talking about the housing problem since at least 1992.

Little has changed, and Horner was not impressed by the news.

“Oh? I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Horner says as he bags a customer’s cigarettes and six-pack. “Have a good night, George.”

Instead, Horner will move to nearby Cornville, Ariz., where he owns a piece of land with a run-down mobile home on it.

“If [the landlord] says we have to go, I’ll make my Cornville property livable,” says Horner, who plans to continue working at the convenience store in Sedona.

SEDONA: WIDEST AFFORDABILITY GAP IN ARIZONA

Affordable housing is defined by the relationship between housing prices and household income – what one can reasonably buy or rent without financial hardships. Experts say monthly housing should represent no more than one-third of one’s monthly income over the long run, such as a 30-year mortgage or more.

With that in mind, Sedona has the highest affordability gap in the state, according to a report distributed at the Governor’s Housing Forum in September 2007. The city falls behind 96 percent of all U.S. towns with 40,000 people or less in the category of affordable housing, according to a 2007 citizen survey Sedona officials commissioned from National Research Center in Boulder, Colo.

Median home prices in Sedona increased 77 percent between 2000 and 2006 while rents increased 40 percent, according to the city’s Housing Commission. But Sedona median household incomes only increased 13 percent, from $43,466 to $49,225.

The current median asking price of a single-family home in Sedona is about $586,000, according to Buyers Brokers Realty of Sedona. Townhomes and condominiums fetch about $390,000 apiece.

At those prices, the average Sedonan would have to earn $23 per hour to rent or $84.50 per hour to buy a median-priced home, the governor’s report stated. That is $30 more per hour than the Arizona community with the next highest housing costs: Flagstaff, where workers need to make $54.14 per hour to buy a median-priced home.

As a result, about 64 percent of the Sedona’s workforce lives outside of Sedona. By comparison, 80 percent of the workforce in neighboring Flagstaff actually lives in Flagstaff, according to Flagstaff’s 2007 Housing and Community Sustainability Nexus Study.

In Flagstaff, wages are keeping up with housing prices – sort of. In Sedona, however, Horner’s “regular people” must work like Manhattan-ites. They take on multiple jobs just to afford a decent trailer here.

Between 2000 and and 2006, Sedona’s unemployment rate was 2 percent, less than half the rate for Arizona or the U.S. Those who live and work in Sedona usually have two or more jobs, says Sedona Economic Planner Jodie Filardo.

After all, they want to enjoy the city’s red rock formations and soothing vibe just like everyone else. But a recent video testimonial prepared by the city’s own housing commission shows that most of Sedona’s workers end up with a window seat.

Rhonda Ross, a former Sedona resident, talks about why she caved in and moved to the unincorporated Village of Oak Creek nearby.

Ross tells the camera: “Living in Sedona is definitely a very important part of being here. I really would not want to be working all my jobs just to be living here, just to be having the majority of my income going to rent, bills and food.”

The city’s affordability crisis goes far beyond the lowest wage earners most people associate with affordable housing, says Sedona Housing Commission member Nate Oskar. It makes it hard to attract teachers, police officers, nurses, managers and other professionals because the salaries don’t match the incomes required to buy or rent in Sedona, he says.

SIMPLE SOLUTION NEEDS WORK

Guiding future development is the solution. Sedona’s new housing policy, enacted in December, gives the city some leverage to negotiate affordable housing with developers seeking approval for their projects.

The new rules ask to developers to set aside six to 12 percent of the units they build as affordable housing in order to get zoning approvals from the city. Only those with a household income that falls between 80 and 150 percent of the area’s median income are eligible to buy them.

The new rule is hardly unique to Sedona. It can be found in pricey urban markets outside Arizona, such as Carlsbad and Oceanside, Calif., just north of San Diego.

If the developer does not want to set aside units for affordable housing, the developer can choose to pay into a special fund. This fund directly supports the creation and maintenance of affordable housing elsewhere in Sedona through activities such as land acquisition, down-payment assistance and low-interest loans.

Most developers opt for this route. It allows them to get their project approved and meet affordable housing rules without selling their own units at a discount or having the “affordable housing” stigma attached to their project in particular.

The city offers a carrot in return. Sedona officials can waive or defer development fees for some or all of the units, review building plans more quickly or, on a case-by-case basis, bend the city’s land development codes to accommodate the affordable units. This includes making exceptions for lot coverage, building heights, lot area, lot dimensions and yard setbacks.

But there’s a catch to the new rules: Compliance is voluntary. State law does not allow the city to make its affordable housing rules a requirement, says Sedona Housing Planner Jessica Williamson.

Even so, Sedona’s new policy is the biggest tool in its shed so far for narrowing the state’s worst affordability gap. To create it, Sedona’s Housing Commission met with businesses, resorts, the Sedona Oak Creek Unified School District, the Verde Valley Medical Center, and five major Sedona employers over a three-year period to determine how the lack of affordable housing affects their interests.

The commission circulated two informational brochures. It hosted focus groups and presentations on density and how community participation can help blend affordable housing into the community without a ruckus.

Though local Realtors cried foul about the policy, some Sedona officials cried fair.

“Developers are getting a benefit for a benefit given,” City Councilman Rob Adams said recently.

Yet some of the authors of the rules, such as Sedona Housing Commission chairwoman Linda Martinez, admit that the rules are flawed. But City Councilman Harvey Stern said it’s a good start and that, ironically, the city can’t afford to study the affordable housing problem much longer.

Housing Commissioner Diane Smith agreed, saying, “Small solutions got away while we’ve been looking for a big solution” for 15 years.

The commission took an aggressive step on March 10. It won approval from the City Council to lobby state legislators to pass a new law that would allow local governments to make developers include some affordable housing through special “inclusionary” zoning.

The City Council voted 6-1 in favor of the lobbying, with vice mayor Jerry Frey opposed. The commission will seek help from other towns to find a legislator willing to sponsor the bill.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING IS DISAPPEARING

Whatever the solution is, officials better hurry. In the 12 years it took to create a housing commission and take a snapshot of the situation, much of Sedona’s older [read: affordable] housing has disappeared, giving way to exclusive subdivisions and swanky mansions.

Today, Sedona’s stock of affordable housing is eroding before residents’ very eyes. It has dwindled so much that neither the city nor the commission could offer an estimate on the losses.

That means most of the disappearances are anecdotal – a trailer park here, a few lots there.

In 2000, all but four of 12 trailers were removed from the former Laughing Coyote bar in West Sedona. The rest were removed when the bar sold in 2004. Those affordable units have not been replaced.
Two years ago, about 80 residents of Hawkeye RV Park in Uptown were evicted to make way for about 150 condominiums and 12 affordable off-site units, all of which have yet to be built.

Now, because of funding issues, the developer is asking the city for an 18-month extension – meaning those residents might have had affordable housing for more than three more years. Windsong Trailer Park in West Sedona has sold and is planned for development.

Don Campbell, who is re-developing the Oak Creek Mobile Lodge where Horner lives, agreed to reduce the density of his project. He will come back to the city with five fewer units, which includes two affordable units. If the city approves the project, another 53 units of affordable housing will disappear without comment from the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

So forget houses. Sedona’s workers should just toughen up and find an apartment, right?

Well, Sedona lags far behind in that category, too. Apartments account for just 4 percent of Sedona’s housing stock, compared to 23 percent of Arizona’s housing stock overall, according to a 2006 city study by Kuehl Enterprises.

The same study showed that Sedona also lags behind other resort communities. Multifamily housing makes up 20 percent and 13 percent of the land uses in Aspen and Durango, Colo., respectively. Sedona clocks in at 4 percent.

DIM FUTURE IF SOLUTION NOT FOUND

So far, Sedona’s new affordable housing policy has netted at least 13 new affordable units and $186,984 in the special fund. That’s almost enough money to buy one bedroom in a median-priced, three-bedroom Sedona home.

But Sedona housing officials aren’t waiting around to see more successes. They are fast at work exploring other strategies such as inclusionary zoning, which would make some affordable units mandatory for any residential project.

Among those items is a request for help from Republican Andrew Tobin and other state lawmakers who represent the area. Although Tobin acknowledges the problem, he says the state’s projected billion-dollar shortfall and the Capitol’s bias toward helping big cities will hurt Sedona’s chances.

In a March 2 email to TZR, Tobin wrote, “It is not likely that our rural communities will get much help from an urban-dominated legislature.”

Tobin also wrote that beating the affordable housing crisis has to happen at the local level through partnerships between city governments and developers to build high-density, multifamily projects.

But Sedona has just 59 acres left for such projects. About 80 percent of the city’s developable land is spoken for.

Tobin also said he was unsure if any bills addressing affordable housing had made it past legislative committees, the Legislature’s lowest rungs for new bills to become laws.

Even if they did, he wrote, the bills would probably get stuck in the appropriations committee – which controls the state’s purse strings – because “funding is not available this year or next, as [far as] I can tell.”

SEDONA’S AFFORDABLE CLOCK IS TICKING

This leaves Sedonans like Ronald Pauley to find their own solution while local and state officials debate the ins and outs of the city’s affordable housing crisis.

Pauley owns a successful business that repairs restaurant equipment. He has rented a two-bedroom apartment in Uptown Sedona since 2002.

The view from Pauley’s affordable apartment used to be the jagged red hills below Wilson Mountain. Now, his view is the back of a new three-story timeshare condominium built about 30 feet from his window.

“I know they are timeshares because I see the people who come and go,” he says.

None of the mountains are visible. “How did they get three stories?” he asks, perplexed.

These days, media coverage of land speculation is driving up land values and rental prices in Sedona. Pauley says he is close to moving out of Sedona because the affordability gap is turning into a chasm.

Fearing reprisal from his landlord, Pauley spoke to TZR under the condition that his real name not be used for this story.

“My landlord started raising the rent after reading about higher average rent prices in the newspaper,” Pauley says. Last year, he adds, his rent rose three times in one week. It began at $600 and rose to $625, then $650, then $700.

Pauley says the eight-unit apartment building was built in 1972 by its current owner. The construction is not up to code. There are gaps between the original wood siding and the newer brick façade. The PVC pipes rattle inside the walls, he says, and methane gas vents into the attic, not outside the dwelling.

“I’ve got a working smoke detector and an exit strategy,” Pauley says with a grin.

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

New pipeline key to Arizona’s energy future

NEAR PRESCOTT — A 284-mile-long pipeline that soon could be delivering 500 million cubic feet of natural gas energy throughout Arizona and parts of New Mexico may be partially operational by this summer and fully functional by the end of the year.

The pipeline will deliver energy to users throughout central and southern Arizona. A large portion will run through ranch lands in Yavapai County and snake southward around Phoenix toward Gila Bend before turning east toward Coolidge.

The pipeline will deliver energy to a number of smaller additional users but also to nine primary providers, including the Redhawk and Sundance power plants, which are operated by Arizona Public Service Co.

“It’s strategically designed to meet capacity needs for some time in the future and to add to Arizona’s mix of resources some features like gas storage that weren’t there in the past,” says Arizona Corporation Commission member Jeff Hatch-Miller, a Scottsdale Republican.

Heavy use of natural gas has been part of the nation’s recent energy evolution, Hatch-Miller says. Congress once frowned upon the use of natural gas, a cleaner-burning yet non-renewable form of energy, because of concerns about the supply.

But after less government regulations came to the energy industry, Congress changed its stance. Hatch-Miller, who has worked on several pipeline issues as a commissioner, says natural gas is practically endorsed as a source of electricity these days.

This month, construction on the pipeline expansion project is scheduled to begin, even as the company building it finishes acquiring the necessary land. Transwestern has acquired all but six acres needed for the project, company spokesman John Ambler says.

Those two remaining parcels will be acquired by eminent domain – the process by which land is condemned for a public use and a fair price is negotiated, sometimes in court.

“In this particular case, they weren’t able to obtain an easement from the landowners. The strong preference is to do this amicably, rather than trying to use any kind of eminent domain,” Ambler says. “There are other tracks along the pipeline route that may make eminent domains filings necessary, but it’s handfuls of tracks. It’s not a huge number. We’re still trying to resolve most of them. I don’t know how many filings are likely.”

Since November, Houston-based Transwestern has been multiple legal actions in federal court in Tucson seeking permanent easements on 132 parcels from Yavapai County to points south. Four more cases were filed in January. Yavapai County supervisor Carol Springer declined to comment.

Pipeline helps peaking needs

Arizona residents’ increasing energy demands and concerns over global warming are the two factors driving development of the pipeline, Hatch-Miller says.

Over the past decade, Arizona’s overall consumption of natural gas has tripled, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration, which tracks energy consumption throughout the U.S. Most of the natural gas consumed in Arizona goes toward producing electricity. And in the Valley, it represents more than half of the electricity produced by APS, which also operates Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station.

The pipeline will add more capacity for Arizona’s future needs instead of those in California, who have traditionally been the largest consumers of the gas line crossing northern Arizona. The new line will give Arizonans a competitive advantage, a state corporation commission spokeswoman says.
The environmental effects are also a consideration, Hatch-Miller says. Natural gas burns cleaner than coal, so it helps Arizona address global warming concerns.

“Everyone who’s using electricity seems to be increasing their usage per person,” Hatch-Miller says. “If we want to have a robust electric grid and have the energy necessary for modern society, natural gas is pretty much the dominant player right now.”

Hatch-Miller adds that extending building setbacks from the new pipeline will help the public answer concerns about safety in case of a rupture or explosion.

“Most communities and most neighborhoods are not focused on the benefit to themselves and the state that they derive (from the pipeline’s electricity), but it usually doesn’t interfere too much with the community, and they’re accepting of it,” Hatch-Miller says.

“They’re always concerned with a gas pipeline explosion or some kind of a gas leak. These are going to be built with the highest, new, state-of-the-art standard and be plenty deep under the Earth. While no man-made machine is 100 percent foolproof, these are going to be inspected dozens of times before they’re even allowed to have natural gas in them.”

Bonus points for pipeline

The pipeline has a few other benefits. The pipeline will also deliver natural gas to a facility near Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix. The storage facility can be tapped during peak demands and help avoid power outages, Hatch-Miller says.

The expansion project also provides a second pipeline company for the heart of Arizona as an alternative to El Paso Natural Gas Co., which has had a relative monopoly on pipeline service through Arizona for years, Arizona Corporation Commission spokeswoman Rebecca Wilder said in an email. She said this could help lower costs for Arizona consumers.

And finally, the new pipeline’s added capacity could help Arizona consumers cushion themselves in case California demand surges again and natural gas supplies from other sources, such as Canada, start dwindling.

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