Bruce Babbitt now a private citizen developer

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As U.S. Interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt threatened a federal takeover of the San Pedro's management back in 1999 to keep development and pumping from drying the river up.

Now, as a private citizen and development consultant, Babbitt is pushing for a subdivision northwest of Sierra Vista that several local scientists say could ultimately harm the San Pedro, the Southwest's last major, free-flowing desert river.

Babbitt is working as a land planner and minor investor in a 1,600-home, 5,000-acre development that is likely to draw from a 630-foot-deep well lying 2 to 3 miles from a leading tributary of the San Pedro.

He's been a spokesman for a group of California and Texas investors who bought the land for $35 million. One of them is Richard Blum, a San Francisco financier, chairman of the California Board of Regents and husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The development would be in the Rain Valley Ranch, whose easternmost point is two miles west of the well. But because much of the development would center in an area farther west, water would be pumped uphill five to seven miles from the well to serve homes on the ranch.

The well was drilled three months ago in Whetstone, north of Sierra Vista.

Once the dormant real estate market revives, the investors plan to develop a low-density "conservation subdivision." Babbitt says it will be a model of sustainable development with minimal environmental impact.

A consultant working for the development says the pumping won't lower the water table enough to harm the cottonwood-draped San Pedro — but several Tucson-area groundwater experts disagree.

Although the river itself is nearly 10 miles from the pumping area, those experts are concerned about the effects on the much closer Babocomari River, a major tributary of the San Pedro.

Environmentalists are also concerned the project will fragment the ranch's increasingly rare grassland wildlife habitat.

A local conservationist, Mary Ann Black of Sierra Vista, is trying to find backers willing to purchase development rights on the ranch from Babbitt's group. She envisions a conservation easement, in which the landowners hold onto the land but agree not to develop it in return for getting tax breaks on it.

That's a goal many observers say will be hard to achieve during the current economic slump. Black said she might also work out a land swap between Babbitt's investor group and other private landowners. She declined to discuss details.

Babbitt has told the Cochise County Planning Department he intends to set aside 50 percent of the land as open space, in accord with county rules for conservation subdivisions.

In return, the developers could build one house per three acres — 1,600 to 1,700 homes total — instead of the usual limit of one house per four acres in rural areas.

"We intend to implement water-conservation measures. The water impact will be very minimal," Babbitt said in an interview from Washington, D.C., where he works as a consultant. "The final numbers aren't there, but I can tell you that the plans are very low-density with sustainability models.

"That's why I'm interested in it. I think we've gotta learn to do development correctly," he said.

Critics, including a rancher, environmentalists and private well owners, call Babbitt a hypocrite.

They recall his strong words when he came to Bisbee in 1999 to speak at a binational conference on the San Pedro. He told the group that if local and state officials continued to allow growth to sip away the San Pedro, the feds would take its management out of their hands.

As Interior secretary, he said then, it was his responsibility to defend the river, "this extraordinary piece of God's creation."

Today, rancher Mike Hayhurst claims Babbitt has betrayed the environmental movement. "He drilled this well. It's pretty hypocritical," said Hayhurst. "It will all work out. It will all be legal. But in the end, it sure isn't right."

Hayhurst serves on the board of the Upper San Pedro River Partnership, a group of businesses, environmentalists, scientists and officials searching for solutions that would keep the river flowing while population grows.

He lives along the Babocomari River, about 6 miles east of the well drilled for the Rain Valley developers.

As he walked along the still-lush stream that's blanketed with tall grasses and 100-foot-tall cottonwoods, Hayhurst shook his head as he pondered the river's fate. While the river has never run dry near his ranch, it's now dry much of the year in the well area, which used to contain fish.

Studies have shown that Whetstone well area, the Babocomari and the San Pedro all draw from the same aquifer, said Russ Scott, a U.S. Department of Agriculture research hydrologist.

The well pumping could affect the Babocomari and several springs that also feed the San Pedro, said Don Pool, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist.

The effect on the river would be similar to what scientists predict will eventually happen from pumping in Sierra Vista and Fort Huachuca to the south, Pool said.

However, studies done by the developers show that the pumping won't lower the aquifer enough to have any noticeable effect on either river or on neighbors' wells for a century, said Ron DeWitt, a Tucson consultant for the development.

Nonetheless, Lucinda Earven, a horse veterinarian in the Whetstone area, says she is concerned because her private well, and those of most neighbors, are shallower than the Babbitt well, making them vulnerable to being pumped dry.

But she sees little hope of stopping the project because it is likely to meet most local and state requirements for new development in Cochise County.

For one, the developers aren't required to prove that their project won't harm private wells or the rivers. They are required to prove that their wells and surrounding private wells won't lower the water table so much that the Rain Valley development won't have enough water for 100 years.

But Earven, who has lived in the area 21 years, is organizing neighbors in hopes of making people aware.

"There may be nothing we can do about it, in that Bruce Babbitt — probably better than anyone in this state — knows how to work the system," she said.

As Arizona governor, Babbitt negotiated and signed major laws governing groundwater supply and quality.

He has run environmental groups before and after his 1993-2001 tenure as President Bill Clinton's Interior secretary. In that job, he persuaded Clinton to set aside numerous national monuments. Today, Babbitt chairs the World Wildlife Fund. He once was president of the League of Conservation Voters.

In an interview this month, Babbitt said he has never advocated a stop to development.

He said the developers will follow strict rules limiting landscaping, grass and swamp coolers for homes, and calling for gray-water plumbing capability.

"I'm saying that we've got to do development in the most careful, intelligent, sustainable way possible," Babbitt said. "All the plans we develop will be public. We will set a new standard for water conservation and use."

The San Pedro River is a treasure to naturalists because it draws 250 bird species and has the second-largest variety of mammal species in the country.

They're drawn by dense stands of cottonwood and willow trees, native grasses and shrubs. The United States declared 40 miles of the river a Riparian National Conservation Area in 1988 after buying it.