Southwest Center for Biological Diversity* For Immediate Release: December 28, 1994 Ft. Huachuca's Harm to San Pedro River Confirmed by Sierra Vista City Consultant! Surprise Results Offered by Consultants Hired to Do Opposite The military assigned to Ft. Huachuca and their dependents account for 43% of the area's population. The San Pedro is the last living river in the Southwest. In February 1994, University experts testified that Ft. Huachuca and the surrounding communities are already negatively impacting the San Pedro River. A short time later, the City of Sierra Vista, Bella Vista Water Company, Inc. [the area's largest developer], and Pueblo Del Sol Water Company hired consultants to support expansion of Ft. Huachuca and the resulting growth. Instead, the developers' own consultants have given them a dose of reality: continue growth without painful and expensive restraints and the San Pedro River dies. The consultants, ASL Hydrologic & Environmental Services and R. Allan Freeze Engineering, Inc., concluded: "There are inherent conflicts between groundwater pumping that accompanies economic development within this connected hydrologic system and the water resources required to sustain the riparian ecosystem..." The consultants also warn: "...The implementation of a water resource management system that preserves the ecosystem of the SPRNCA [San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area] could potentially result in significant economic and social consequences for the current and future residents of the Sierra Vista Subwatershed." For Info: Dr. Robin Silver, 602 246 4170 *The Southwest Center for Biological Diversity is a non-profit, public interest, conservation organization whose mission is to conserve imperiled native species and their threatened habitat and to fulfill the continuing educational goals of our membership and the general public in the process.
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