Army Aims Funds to Lower Water Use
The Nature Conservancy to buy easements along San Pedro

08/24/01
Bill Hess

FORT HUACHUCA — The Army will pump in more than $1 million over the next few years to reduce the amount of water being pumped from the local aquifer off post, Maj. Gen. John D. Thomas Jr. said.

Money from an Army environmental program will be made available the beginning of the next federal budget year — Oct. 1 — to be used by The Nature Conservancy to purchase conservation easements on private property, Thomas said Tuesday.

“We’re the first in the Army to purchase actual conservation easements. Our goal is to look at areas five miles on either side of the San Pedro River,” the general said. The official announcement of the program was made today at a luncheon on post and in an environmental assessment published in the Sierra Vista Herald/Bisbee Daily Review today.

A conservation easement is a tool that limits water use and development in an effort to protect the environment. The Nature Conservancy has a good track record of working with the Army since the organization and the Department of Defense signed an agreement in 1988, Thomas said, adding the local representatives of the environmental group and post officials have worked together on a number of projects. “This project is a critical step in our continuing efforts to be good stewards of the environment and good neighbors in the Upper San Pedro Valley,” Thomas said.

Holly Richter, the Upper San Pedro project manager for The Nature Conservancy, said although nothing has been lined up to purchase conservation easements, “we are ready to go.” The Nature Conservancy will start looking at land that meets the requirements — a place where water use can be retired or drastically reduced, especially agricultural property with heavy irrigation, she said.

The landowner must be willing to either sell the property outright to the organization or agree to conservation easement requirements not to allow large-scale development of the land and not use water for major irrigation, she said. If an owner sells the land to The Nature Conservancy, conservation easements will be put on the property and it will be sold to another person who will have to comply with the restrictions, she said, adding the Army will not become the landowner.

In all cases the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which will hold the easements, will be responsible for ensuring that land owners who agree with the restrictions comply, Richter said.

“It’s a great collaborative effort,” she said. Conservation easements aren’t new to the San Pedro area. Jack Ladd, who for many years has been a cattle rancher, said he worked with the BLM on a conservation easement and was able to purchase more land for grazing.

The agreement is that he will neither subdivide the property for development nor irrigate it, he said. For 105 years, his wife’s family has ranched in Cochise County. Ladd said he and his son want to ensure the land is kept open and properly used without it becoming a site for development.

But he said land owners who agree to easements must realize the restrictions “are for perpetuity.”

Having a conservation easement on the property helps “reduce the pressure on the aquifer,” Ladd said.

Thomas said one of the driving factors for the post to obtain money for conservation easements was the biological opinion the fort and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made in late 1999.

As part of the biological opinion, post officials agreed to be responsible for 3,105 acre-feet of water use off the fort and would look for ways to reduce that amount. The fort also agreed to reduce the on-post water use to 1,755 acre-feet within a decade. An acre-foot consists of nearly 326,000 gallons of water.

Thomas said Fort Huachuca will be credited with any water reduction due to off-post conservation easements purchased with Army funds.

It is too early to know how many acre-feet will be involved in conservation easement agreements because none have been negotiated off post, he said.

It is anticipated that the fort, through The Nature Conservancy, will be successful in reaching the 3,105 acre-feet reduction goal that the fort is responsible for off the installation, the general said. With innovative work, the fort’s impact on the aquifer, and consequently the river and its riparian habitat, may be reduced to zero by finding ways to eliminate some water use in the basin, he said.

A reason the post has been successful in finding ways to reduce water use is the fort’s environmental staff, who Thomas called “very talented, top-rate professional scientists.”

The environmental staff was looking for additional ways to reduce water usage the fort is responsible for off post. Looking at comments made by the Harvard University’s Alternative Futures Project of the San Pedro River Basin, a study funded by the Army, the staff came up with the idea of seeking money to purchase off-post conservation easements, the general said.

The study indicated agriculture was a major user of irrigation and said ways have to be found to reduce that water use, Thomas said. “The Harvard study helped us focus on those efforts,” the general said.

Tom Cochran, the fort’s environmental division chief, said, “Depending on the willingness of private property owners to sell applicable land rights, this project could reduce the impact on the region’s groundwater aquifer up to 4,000 acre-feet per year. Conservation easements are a positive step to reduce water pumping near the river in a meaningful way while still preserving property rights and the traditional ranching lifestyle that is so important within the region.” Thomas also noted the million-dollar-plus conservation easement purchase program is not the only money the fort has for environmental use.

“We spend up to $6 million a year on environmental issues,” he said.

The conservation easement money allows another avenue of attack to ensure the San Pedro River and its riparian area is protected, Thomas said.

The fort has a three-prong philosophy to lower water use, which includes:

• The effort to find more ways to reduce water on the fort with such projects as waterless urinals, low-water-use shower heads and front-loading washing machines that use less water

• Large-scale projects such as a new water treatment plant that will return thousands of acre-feet of treated effluent to the aquifer from which the fort pumps

• The new off-post conservation easement program.

The post is well ahead of the 10 years it was given in the biological opinion agreement to reduce its on-fort water pumping to 1,755 acre-feet a year, Thomas said. In 1999, the fort pumped 1,893 acre-feet, and the amount pumped was down to 1,843 acre-feet in 2000, according to post records. Fort Huachuca still must lower its usage by 198 acre-feet in the next eight years in order to comply with the biological opinion agreement.

The fort will continue to be an active in the Upper San Pedro Partnership in helping to find ways for the civilian communities in the basin find ways to reduce water use, Thomas said.

“Fort Huachuca has stepped up and will continue to do so when it comes to water conservation,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be at the front. It has to be because it is critical to the fort’s credibility.”