IF IT PAYS, IT STAYS

Ecotourism is a major new player.

A 1992 study titled Nature-Based tourism and the Economy of Southeastern Arizona by the University of Arizona established that the economic impact on total industry output in the Sierra Vista area associated with nature-based visitors to Ramsey Canyon and the San Pedro RNCA is nearly 3 million dollars per year. Julie P. Leones, one of the authors of the previous study, notes that the most important ecotourism resources in southeastern Arizona are birds and their habitats.

Walter Kolbe, owner of the San Pedro River Inn has witnessed the transition of the San Pedro River from agriculture to internationally recognized bird habitat. As a young boy in 1947 he accompanied his father to the Hereford Ranch to buy a cow. He remembers the San Pedro as dry wash with one cottonwood or willow tree about every quarter mile. The dairy later became a hobby farm and then, except for the Inn buildings and surrounding property, became part of the Riparian National Conservation Area managed by the BLM.

The restoration to a Fremont cottonwood-Gooding willow riparian area was the result of cooperation between different agencies and individuals such as the land owners, the BLM, the Nature Conservancy and local State and Federal politicians such as Congressman Jim Kolbe, formerly a state representative.

Folk Economics still at work in The Tonto Forest

The proposed mine site is 2.5 miles from the Superstition Wilderness area and will sit astride the watershed west of the preserve flowing down to Lake Roosevelt via Pinto Creek (show at the left). Lake Roosevelt is part of the water supply for the Valley and a major recreation area easily accessible by residents of the growing metropolitan Phoenix region. The draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Carlota Copper Mine Project has simulated views of the leaching pad from three points, but not the view from Lake Roosevelt itself which is visible in the distance. It is surprising that no value has been put on the water that is about to be used by the mine. Like the 100 million tons of ore which will sit on the leaching pads long after the mine is closed, the water will never be put back. In addition, according to the Environmental Impact Statement, an evaluation of the potential losses to waters of the U.S and jurisdictional wetlands for these areas can not be determined at this time. The mine will exchange irreversible degradation of a 1,428 acre area, the lowering of the water table, and an undetermined loss of waters and wetlands for 280 jobs over 20 years.

Is If it pays it stays - the new politically correct environmentalism?

Ramsey Canyon, a wild animal and bird habitat near Sierra Vista managed by the Nature Conservancy (pictured to the left), is trying to establish the balance point between public access and preservation. There are only 13 parking spots at the visitors center. No one is allowed off the trail which may be closed, for example, to allow a nesting trogon to raise her young. There is also an interesting debate on whether or not to tear down an abandoned cabin which became a home for a mountain lion and her cabs as well as for a raccoon and some nectar-eating bats. A water storage area has become the breeding ground for a rare leopard frog which no longer has the deep pools on Ramsey Creek in which to breed. The difficulty is that by attempting to increase the pay out and increase visitor levels, the quality of the natural experience can be seriously diminished.

In the central part of the state east of Phoenix a different scenario is playing itself out. The corridor from Apache Junction to Globe already includes the Superstition Wilderness area, the Boyce Arboretum and beautiful vistas visible from the Top of The World. With its ready access to the Phoenix Metropolitan Area there are many opportunities to develop the ecotourism potential of the region. Pinto Creek , a natural corridor from the Highway 60 to Roosevelt Lake, could be a key component of any plan.

Pinto Creek is a rare and beautiful place but the reasons for preserving it are not just the sentimental musings of a few solitary environmentalists. Unlike the San Pedro, which recovered from the irrigation and overgrazing, the Carlota Mine will permanently degrade the stream and the alluvial water table on which it depends, precluding any future development as a site for ecotourism.. If managed with care Pinto Creek can, like the San Pedro or Ramsey Canyon, become part of an ecotourism destination bringing millions of dollars to the region and to neighboring communities. Organizations such as Citizens for the Preservation of Pinto Creek and Powers Gulch, and Attorney Deborah Ham are trying to intervene in the process but it is an uphill battle. Unless their intervention is successful we will never see the potential of Pinto Creek realized or be able to test the theory if it pays it stays.

The reason that the task of preserving Pinto Creek is so difficult is that residents of the state seem to have a split personality when debating environmental questions. The same alliances of conservative and liberal citizens who united to preserve the McDowell Mountains and other metropolitan parks may elect anti-environmental representatives to the legislature and to the office of Governor. Some politicians become schizophrenic in their attempts to represent their constituents. They must preserve the environment while opposing the environmentalists. They require that science and economic theories be the basis for environmental education but at the same time reject scientific data that supports global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer.

One explanation for this behavior is that the State and all of the West are in a time of transition. At the theoretical level these changes are documented by Thomas Michael Power in his book Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies, The Search for a Value of Place. The book outlines the relative decline in importance of the traditional extractive industries, mining and agriculture, and the rise of the service industries. These changing priorities will eventually force the western movers and shakers to set aside the folk economic belief that the "natural resource industries are the bedrock of regional economic prosperity." The change was put succinctly by Bill Morrisette, the Mayor of Springfield, Oregon whose town survived the logging ban. "Owls versus jobs was just plain false. What we've got here is quality of life. And as long as we don't screw that up, we'll always be able to attract people and business."

The reverse of the title of this article is that if it doesn't stay it doesn't pay. When the Carlota Mine is gone the devastation it has left behind will remain. The contest for the life of Pinto Creek is more than a battle for a threatened riparian area. It is a proving ground for two conflicting theories of economics one of which will dictate the future of a key region of the state.

(See the editorial under the "ARCHIVE" heading "HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW -THE STORY OF AN ENDANGERED STREAM" by E.B. Lewis for more details on Pinto Creek.)