Fwd: san pedro action: ft. huachuca sued

[Robin Silver <rsilver@sw-center.org>]

For Release, April 21, 1999

Ft. Huachuca Sued to Stop Harm to San Pedro River

Lawsuit Addresses Base's Violation of the Legal Requirement to Evaluate
and Accept Responsibility for the Destructive Environmental Effects of
Increasing Local Military Contracts and More than 30,000 Local
Groundwater-dependent Troops, Dependents, and Associated Personnel

The Southwest Center for Biological Diversity (SWCBD) has filed a lawsuit
against Ft. Huachuca for violating the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) requirement to accurately evaluate and present the total
destructive effects of the Base's activities on the San Pedro River. To
date, Ft. Huachuca has refused to accept responsibility for the effects of
its activities outside its gates. The lawsuit will be filed this afternoon
in US Federal District Court in Tucson.

Ft. Huachuca represents the single greatest short-term threat to the San
Pedro River. Two threats predominate: 

1. Ft. Huachuca is responsible for the local presence of more than 30,000
groundwater-dependent troops, dependents, and associated personnel.

2. Ft. Huachuca's increasing local economic expenditures are the substrate
for the cancerous local groundwater-dependent growth that is killing the
San Pedro River. According to the Base's own economic documents, Ft.
Huachuca's direct economic impacts within Cochise County have increased by
39%, from $467.7 million in 1991 to $649.7 million in 1997.

These facts have been publicly recognized by several entities charged with
evaluating the situation: 

"While the fort's efforts to limit its impact on the aquifer deserve
recognition, the fact remains that the fort and the secondary growth that
it has generated in the basin still represents the largest human demands
on a declining water system" 

(San Pedro Expert Study Team, Dr. Hector Arias Rojo, Dr. John Bredeshoeft,
Dr. Ronald Lacewell, Dr. Jeff Price, Dr. Julie Stromberg, and Gregory A.
Thomas, J.D., Sustaining and Enhancing Riparian Migratory Bird Habitat on
the Upper San Pedro River, prepared for the NAFTA Commission for
Environmental Cooperation, September 8, 1998, Iteration)

"the Service [US Fish and Wildlife Service] believes that activities at
Fort Huachuca may adversely affect the southwestern willow flycatcher and
Huachuca water umbel on the San Pedro River and may potential[ly] result
in destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat designated for
the flycatcher" 

(Correspondence, Sam Spiller, Field Supervisor, Arizona Ecological
Services Field Office, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Phoenix, to Gretchen
Kent, NEPA Coordinator, Fort Huachuca, January 8, 1999)

Most of the Huachuca Water Umbel on Earth live along the San Pedro River.
The plant is one of Nature's "canaries in the coal mine," indicating the
general health of the River. Ft. Huachuca's related activities
"jeopardize" the continued existence of the Huachuca Water Umbel according
to the most recent Fish and Wildlife Service studies.

NEPA requires that every Federal agency publicly discloses and evaluated
the extent of and the cumulative environmental effects of its activities.
These legally required studies take the form of "Environmental Impact
Studies." In August 1992, in the "Final Supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement for Base Realignment at Fort Huachuca, Arizona" (FSEIS), Ft.
Huachuca deferred the legally required "analysis of current and future
impacts on a cumulative basis," until it finished a "separate Master Plan
EIS." In that August 1992, FSEIS, the Base advised the public that "Fort
Huachuca is currently preparing" the analysis and that it would "be
available for public review in 1993."

Contrary to these earlier promises, in the May 19, 1994, Federal Register,
Ft. Huachuca announced that it intended to "begin" preparation of the
Master Plan EIS (59 Federal Register 26214). Finally, on July 8, 1994,
SWCBD filed a lawsuit in an attempt to force Ft. Huachuca to tell the
truth and to obey the law.

In response to the July 8, 1994, SWCBD lawsuit, Ft. Huachuca then told the
Court that the draft Master Plan EIS would be ready for public review in
October 1995 with the final analysis to be done by April 1996 (Affidavit
of Ft. Huachuca official Thomas Cochran). Subsequently, in that same case,
Ft. Huachuca ultimately promised that the draft Master Plan EIS would be
available for public review "on or around August 1, 1996." (US Army' s
Motion for Summary Judgment, SWCBD, et al., v. Secretary of Defense
William J. Perry, et al., CIV 94-598 TUC ACM) Based on this final Ft.
Huachuca promise, US District Court Judge Alfredo Marquez dismissed the
case. In the case's final Order, Judge Marquez ruled: 

"...This Court is convinced that the Defendants' cumulative impact
analysis was incomplete, as a matter of law. The pertinent regulations
explicitly require that the effects of growth generated by an agency
action be contemplated and that potential impacts be discussed in relation
to their magnitude. It is hard to imagine anything more obvious than the
impact of Sierra Vista's continued growth on the nearby San Pedro River
and the federally protected and managed Riparian Area and species
there...Failure to address these major areas frustrates the intent of NEPA
to promote informed decision making...In future environmental impact
analysis, the Army must strive to address the cumulative impacts of
continued expansion activities on the River and Riparian Area, as well as
the accompanying development of the Sierra Vista area. The future
cumulative impact analysis should consider expansion in the context of a
continuum rather than as an isolated and independent activity. Creeping
development and unrestrained draining of the aquifer represents a real
threat to the Riparian Area..." 

(MEMORANDUM OPINION, Alfredo C. Marquez, Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity, et al., v. Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, et al., CIV
94-598 TUC ACM, August 30, 1995)

More than three years later, in spite of promises to a Federal judge, and
in spite of Judge Marquez' August 30, 1995 Order, Ft. Huachuca has still
not obeyed the law. Consistent with Ft. Huachuca's organized San Pedro
River campaign of prevarication, denial, and deceit, an analysis of the
Base's cumulative environmental effects and a Master Plan EIS have still
never been completed. To make matters worse, instead of doing as promised,
the US Army has attempted to bring even more troops and associated
personnel to the region without fulfilling the legally required evaluation
and disclosure. Within the last year, in three separate but related
actions, the US Army has attempted to bring, or to retain unnecessarily,
another 1,550 Ft. Huachuca troops and associated personnel. The three
actions consist of troops and associated personnel movement for the
Western Regional Civilian Personnel Center, 1995 Base Realignment and
Closure Commission activities, and U.S Army Reserve Units. Respectively,
and specifically, these activities represent 150, 198, and 41 troops or
employees; however, using the US Army's own multipliers, the 2.3
household-size multiplier and the 1.684 local economic multiplier, the
total troops and associated personnel from these operations totals 1,550
people. It is illegal to piecemeal activities without evaluating the
overall and cumulative effects of Federal activities. This is a violation
of NEPA. NEPA also requires that Federal agencies examine alternatives to
all proposed actions. Ft. Huachuca fails on both counts. SWCBD has no
other alternative but to return to Court to force Ft. Huachuca officials
to obey the law and to tell the truth.

For Information: 

Robin Silver, M.D., Conservation Chair, SWCBD (602) 246 4170

Mark Hughes, Esq., Staff Attorney, Earthlaw (303) 871 6996


Background

The San Pedro River is the last living river in the Southwest. It is home
to the most extensive surviving expanse of the rarest forest type in North
America, the cottonwood/willow gallery or broadleaf riparian association
forest.

The San Pedro River is acknowledged to be one of the last great relatively
intact, surviving ecosystems on Earth. Four hundred and eighty nine
species of birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, and reptiles reside there.

Nearly one half of the 800 total North American bird species frequent the
San Pedro River at some point in their lives. The San Pedro River supports
the second highest number of mammal species in the world. This is second
only to the montane forests of Costa Rica.

Unfortunately, the San Pedro River is in trouble. US Geological Survey
stream flow data shows that low flows in the San Pedro River have
decreased 67% in the last fifty years, from 1943 to 1992. (USGS Website)
Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) findings are similar. ADWR
models estimate that base flows in the San Pedro River have declined by
approximately 50% in the period of 1935 - 1991. (Correll, S. W., Corkhill,
F., Lovvik, D., and Putman, F., 1996, A Groundwater Flow Model of the
Sierra Vista Subwatershed of the Upper San Pedro Basin - Southeastern
Arizona, Arizona Department of Water Resources, Hydrology Division,
Modeling Report 10, 107p.) At the Charleston Narrows where exposed bedrock
forces the San Pedro River's entire sub-surface flow to the surface, the
effects of local ground water pumping are most apparent. In July 1997, the
San Pedro River at the Charleston Narrows was nearly completely dry for
the first time.

Ft. Huachuca is responsible for most of the population in the Sierra Vista
area. One of the recurrent themes of the Ft. Huachuca's San Pedro River
campaign of prevarication, denial, and deceit implies that the San Pedro
River is less threatened as Ft. Huachuca has lost troops to general
military downsizing. Ft. Huachuca's own Annual Economic Impact Statements
refute this implication. As the military has experienced a general
downsizing, Ft. Huachuca's military contracts and out-sourcing in the area
have increased dramatically. In other words, while Ft. Huachuca has lost
some troops over the last five years, its impact in the area has actually
increased dramatically. The Sierra Vista Herald reports: 

"The post's direct impact on the county has gone up from 1991's $467.7
million to 1997's $649.7 million..." 

("Fort still powerful economic partner," Bill Hess, Sierra Vista Herald,
May 1, 1998)

These figures documenting the increase of 39% in Ft. Huachuca's direct
economic impacts within Cochise County, from $467.7 million in 1991 to
$649.7 million in 1997, come from Ft. Huachuca's own publicly released
documents, "Impact Statement Fiscal Year 1991," and "Impact Statement
Fiscal Year 1997."

With the increase of 39% in Ft. Huachuca's direct economic impacts within
Cochise County, from $467.7 million in 1991 to $649.7 million in 1997, the
situation has become so lucrative for the local business community that
they are predictably positioning themselves to increasingly feast from the
local Ft. Huachuca gravy train. A June 7, 1998, Sierra Vista Herald
article, titled "Merger helps fort firm," by Bill Hess is illustrative: 

"FORT HUACHUCA - Last summer BDM merged with TRW and the result gives the
military a stronger contractor for the Joint Interoperability Test Command
on post, a company vice president said...He [Vice president and general
manager for TRW's Logistics, Support, Test and Evaluation Division, and
former director of the Department of Defense's Command, Control,
Communications and Computers, James S. Cassity Jr.] said even though the
military continues to downsize he does not expect the same to be true of
the contractor community.

In fact he expects more contracts which could lead to increase in the
company's work force." 

("Merger helps fort firm," Bill Hess, Sierra Vista Herald, June 7, 1998)