| To: | The Honorable Chair and Members Pima County Board of Supervisors |
From: | C.H. Huckelberry County Administrator |
Re: Environmental Restoration in Pima County
in Cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
On December 14, 1999, Dr. Joseph Westphal, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, and Congressman Ed Pastor visited Pima County to review progress and implementation on a number of Corps of Engineers/Flood Control District environmental enhancement projects. These projects begin to form the basis for the riparian restoration and protection element of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. The federal resources of the Corps of Engineers are considerable and will greatly assist in implementing the riparian restoration and protection element of the Conservation Plan. While the Corps continues to be thought of as primarily a structural flood control organization, more and more of the projects sponsored by the Corps and those particular to Pima County are for environmental purposes.
The attached discussion paper entitled Environmental Restoration in Pima County in Cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, brings together and updates prior analyses of the Riparian Restoration Element of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan to include not only the considerations of the Endangered Species Act as administered and enforced by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, but also the Clean Water Act, as administered by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
As the lead local entity overseeing the development of the Plan, Pima County supports and promotes a regional Riparian Restoration policy which moves toward an ecosystem baseline that requires our basin to be in balance, and eventually results in some level of recovery of natural functions within riverine systems.
This report defines the scope of environmental and legal issues. It also describes a few of the riparian restoration projects underway between Pima County and the Army Corps, including: Paseo de las Iglesias; the Rillito River Habitat Restoration; and the Ajo Detention Basin. Finally, the report describes a method for further integrating efforts to address environmental and regulatory issues.
On November 16, 1999, a letter was forwarded to request a meeting with the District Engineer of the Los Angeles District to discuss a cooperative effort between Pima County Government and the Army Corps of Engineers to address the issues that were raised as part of the October 1999 United States District Court Order enjoining the Corps from authorizing certain Nationwide Permits under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act until a regionally based programmatic environmental impact statement is prepared. The letter stated that since Pima County is developing a regional multi-species habitat conservation plan, the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, we have a long-range interest in the programmatic assessment and in the consultation ordered by the District Court between the Army Corps of Engineers and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Because we have conducted a great deal of work with the local science community and are in the process of requesting proposals from biologists to conduct a regional biological evaluation, the existing habitat conservation planning process could serve to assist the Army Corps of Engineers as it assesses cumulative impacts of the Section 404 permit program on the endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl.