According to federal records, water levels in the endangered San Pedro River are now below court-ordered minimum levels in four of nine monitoring wells used to monitor the condition of the river’s national wildlife refuge.
A judge set those values about a year ago when he issued an order that established and quantified the amount of federally reserved water rights in the San Pedro National Riparian Conservation Area. The area encompasses nearly 57,000 acres, stretches about 40 miles, and stretches from the Mexican border to St. David, south of Benson.
The only way to bring the well level back to the level required by the court is to reduce groundwater extraction near the river, said environmental activist Robin Silver.
“Our politicians are leaving the San Pedro River unprotected and putting future homeowners at risk of having their faucets run dry while the water levels of these wells continue to drop,” Silver said. “There is still time to save this vibrant ecosystem, but people need to stop pretending there is an endless water supply. This new information shows it is slipping away from them.”
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US Geological Survey records from June 2024 show:
- Since the August 2023 order by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Brain alone, three wells have fallen below court-ordered minimums.
- A quarter is also below the limit, although it has risen one meter since the last borehole report in January 2024.
- A fifth monitoring well is less than a foot above the federal limit and its water level is six to seven feet below the last well measurements taken in 2011.
The water levels in these four wells range from less than a foot to about three feet below the limits set by Brain. Three of the four wells are also at least three feet below where they were in the early 2010s.
The water levels in two other monitoring wells are significantly above the national limit values and no information is available for the other two wells.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which owns and manages the preserve, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the well levels Tuesday.
The San Pedro River.
Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star file
Brain’s ruling followed a lengthy legal battle between the BLM and other water users, including a mining company and the city of Sierra Vista.
Silver, who announced the well levels in a news release Tuesday, said the most logical way to reduce groundwater extraction near San Pedro in a reasonable time frame would be to “downsize” Fort Huachuca, the region’s largest water user.
Silver, co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, has won several court cases over the past two decades, overturning various federal biological opinions that allowed the fort to operate at its then-level despite the presence of several endangered species near the river. The most recent of these rulings came in December 2023.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has revised the biological opinion after each of the previous rulings. In the most recent ruling, it was ordered by federal courts to “reopen consultations” with the fort on the river issue, which usually means revising the biological opinion again. Silver has said he plans to continue suing to overturn those opinions in an effort to reduce the number of jobs at the fort, one of the largest employers in southeastern Arizona.
Fort Huachuca is a major center for military intelligence, cybersecurity, and drone training. It is a joint forces facility that trains over 9,000 students annually and houses approximately 5,600 military personnel, 8,000 civilians, and over 11,000 family members.
The fort is home to the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, the Electronic Proving Ground, the 2–13th Aviation Regiment, the Joint Interoperability Test Command, and the Libby Army Airfield, which shares its runway with Sierra Vista Municipal Airport.
The new drilling data, Silver said, “shows how extremely dire the situation is for the San Pedro River…” Silver said. “Inaction on any level is draining the San Pedro and endangering the animals and plants that depend on this precious river for survival.”
Silver has also sued the Arizona Department of Water Resources and Governor Katie Hobbs to force them to begin the process of potentially designating the Upper San Pedro Basin as an Active Management Area.
He has also sued ADWR and Hobbs to force them to review and possibly reverse an ADWR decision made many years ago that found that a proposed community of nearly 7,000 homes in Sierra Vista had sufficient water supplies for 100 years. That determination was necessary for the project to be built, even though construction has not yet begun.
ADWR and the governor’s office have stated in court filings that the first lawsuit is without merit and have asked the court to dismiss it. They have not yet responded to the second lawsuit.
When asked about the latest well gauge reports on Tuesday, ADWR spokesman Doug MacEachern said: “As a matter of policy, ADWR does not comment on issues related to pending litigation.”
The river has suffered from reduced water volumes overall in recent decades, which many studies attribute to over-extraction of groundwater. Local, state and federal agencies have been able to reduce the river basin’s groundwater deficit over the past decade, but recent estimates still place it at about 3,000 acre-feet per year.
A 2021 ADWR report on the river concluded that water levels in the upper San Pedro Basin had declined by an average of 3.9 feet between water years 2007 and 2019. A water year typically covers the period from October of one year to September of the following year.
Overall, the ADWR found a “significant decline” in well readings after evaluating water level changes in 320 wells across the basin, the department said in a 2021 article published on its website.
The declining water levels show that the amount of groundwater lost since 1940, about 2 million acre-feet, has outpaced efforts to curb excessive water use, Silver said.
Fort Huachuca, the largest single user of the San Pedro River, has withdrawn 400,000 acre-feet since 1940, he said. Silver cited a 2010 report on water use in the basin prepared by a Fort Huachuca consultant that discussed water use beginning in 1902 and projected future water use from 2010 to 2105.
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