SDCP - Steering Committee Meeting Notes March 16, 2002

SDCP - Steering Committee Study Session
Casas Adobes Baptist Church, Palo Verde Bldg.
Saturday, March 16, 2002 8:30am to 11:30am
Meeting Notes

Participants: See attached sign-in sheet, David Steele Maeveen Behan, and SIMG staff.
Speakers:   Ted Eyde, President, Gadsden-Sonora Holdings; David Cushman, Cultural Resources Technical Advisory Team; Randy Gimblett, Chair, Recreation Technical Advisory Team; Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson; Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry.

Documents made available to the Steering Committee members at the meeting:
* Letter from Dr. Melnick, Morrison Institute to David Steele of SIMG
* Letter from David Steele to Clerk of the Board Lori Godoshian
* Presentation from Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan Cultural Resources Technical Advisory Team
* Updated Agendas
* Comparison of Multi-Species Conservation Plans and Implementing Agreements

Meeting Commenced at 8:30am
Meeting commenced with 37 Steering Committee members and 18 members of the general public. David Steele opened up the meeting by introducing himself and reviewing the agenda.

Logistics for the next meeting:
Saturday, April 6, 2002
8:30 am to 11:30 am
Tucson Estates Multi-Purpose Room
5900 W. Western Way Circle

Mineral Exploration in Pima County
Introduction-Jonathan DuHamel: Talked about exploration for mineral deposit, mineral wealth and production.
·        Had maps that showing the areas of critical habitat for mineral exploration and production in Pima county. The maps showed areas considered essential by the US Geological Survey, areas critical according to the local geologists, those that the USGS thinks have hidden mineral deposits, undiscovered mineral deposits, based on certain evidence and the industrial minerals, that need to be locally sourced.
·        Overlay of this map on the biological preserves shows areas of conflict and large areas of no conflict. The mineral potential of the county is important, provides jobs, taxes, and drives part of the economy. Also there is a property rights issue.
·        Jonathan introduced Ted Eyde, President, Gadsden-Sonora Holdings, past president of the Society for Mining Metallurgy and Exploration, an international society of professionals.

Presentation-Ted Eyde, President, Gadsden-Sonora Holdings: Addressed aggregates and industrial mineral resources or non-metallics in Pima County.
·        Aggregates are commonly called sand and gravel. Arizona is the third largest producer of aggregate in the United States after California and Texas.
·        Aluminum clay deposits used for bricks and in the manufacture of cement. Ground calcium carbonates--marble, used for filler extenders in plastics, joint cements, adhesives, swimming pool plasters, power plant scrubbers, limestone for cleaning and as architectural aggregates used in fronts and lentils in buildings, ground cover, and animal feed supplements.
·        Pantano clays near Benson are the only source in the entire State of Arizona of high alumina clay suitable for making facing bricks and tiles. Alternative source of alumina for Arizona Portland Cement. Dross is what you get when you melt aluminum.
·        2000, according to the US Geological Survey
Produced:                                                        Value in Millions
59 million tons of sand and gravel

304

8 million tons of crushed stone

48

·        Evaluation of aggregate resource potential of the Tucson metropolitan area which includes Marana, Oro Valley, Tortilita, and Green Valley done in 1995, shows that Tucson, Pima County has some land use constraints built into the county that may cause significant increases in the cost of construction and public works in the next decade.
·        There are 70 of these pits, formerly mines, filled with garbage in the washes where they get plenty of exposure to water and cause a real potential contamination all along the Santa Cruz River.
·        All minerals are withdrawn on federally owned lands. There are no operating properties on the reservation or in the Saguaro National Monument and the San Xavier Indian Reservation.
·        The sand and gravel deposits and debris that washed down the mountain leave a big fan at the base of the mountain.
·        Driving on I-10 toward Phoenix is where the Canada del Oro enters the Santa Cruz River and there's a very large pit there that's owned by Tucson Rock and Sand. That has been mined for many, many years and it's near depletion.
·        Fee land is when the surface and the mineral are owned by the same company or individual. They own the surface and the minerals as well.
·        We posted the location of all aggregate deposits on maps of what's called the surface geology because that's what you're really concerned with. Sand and gravel is near surface.
·        This word litho logic means layers of the same sand and gravel that you could project. We located on the ground and then we projected it off and away from the property. Checked the air photography to locate any large channels that might be there or areas where drainages came together which were very prime areas to look into. Examine the producing aggregate deposits to determine whether or not they were suitable to making concrete. Determine the land status and ownership of the potential aggregate deposits.
·        The Indian Reservation has significant sand and gravel occurrences on. We're boxed in on the east principally by the national forest lands, the Sahuaro National Monument East, San Xavier, and Santa Rita Experimental Range,
·        The Catalina Foothills were originally called stock raising homestead lands. These were lands that ranchers could acquire from the federal government in parcels of 640 acres or one square mile. Except the minerals underneath were not conveyed. So in spite of the fact that they're privately owned lands, the sand and gravel belongs to the federal government.
·        After the sand and gravel is gone, they filled these things up with garbage, car batteries with lots of lead in them, all sorts of biochlorinated phynalic materials, plastics, paper, organic matter of all sorts which decomposes and forms methane, the Hilton Hotel just before you pass the Pantano Wash is built on a landfill that was active in 1959. Of course, that emits methane and they actually had to design a methane drainage area on that. That wasn't probably the best place that you could do this but they built the hotel there anyway.
·        In Arkansas River near Pueblo, Colorado they actually made a deal with the Colorado State Parks Board after they mined, they filled it with water, stocked it with fish, they installed trails in it, beautiful area. The same thing is done in Boise, Idaho.
·        We have 70 landfills along the Santa Cruz many of which are managed by the county. You have a sewage facility here but the discharge is so high in ammonia nitrogen that aquatic life can't live in it. They fixed that in these other areas. Fortunately they have a little more water to dilute it.
·        Most of the large aggregate producers such as Vulcan Materials and others have large real estate departments to develop these lands. Because of the gravel on the bottom of these things, you could recharge CAP water, you could recharge sewage if it was treated and the ammonia and nitrogen removed from with.
·        So there's a real opportunity in the Tucson area to develop along the Santa Cruz River and make real parks out of it with running trails along it and things like that. You'd have not conservation you'd have enhanceservation, which means it would be better afterwards after it was mined than it was before.
Discussion and Questions:
Question: What about mine tailings like down there in Green Valley, running that material through your process? Is that possible? How to you acquire mineral rights on your property.

Ted: Mine tailings are ground very, very fine. You have to have coarser aggregate because it's the aggregate that contributes the strength to concrete. To acquire mineral rights for sand on gravel and federally owned land you get a materials purchase contract, pay the federal government 50 or 75 cents a ton for the material removed. On state lands for sand and gravel and common materials, you pay approximately 60 cents a ton royalty for those. But you have a purchase agreement with them. That's the only way that you can acquire these things on federal or state lands. On private lands then you deal with the owner and you'd probably pay him about the same thing or possibly he might sell it to you. Split or state lands are difficult to deal with. I can only discuss the sand and gravel operations and the aggregate

Question: Calmet leased the state land site near Copper Creek School. Oro Valley has now purchased that to make a park. They hope some day if they can pass a huge bond. We noticed some really strange looking things left behind like lime green ponds, or a funny color of water, like neon lime green and there was smoke that was produced. There was a lot of public pressure to get that Calmet operation shut down. As you pointed out, it's not compatible with urbanization. What was that that was left behind?

Ted: That was probably their wash water. In sand and gravel operations you usually have three pits. Your first pit is a settling pond for the coarser materials. The second pit usually gets most of the clay and the third one is usually clean. In Arizona, if you've ever had a pond in your yard, I will tell you it turns green because that's called algae. That's what grows in it because the nutrients are there and the sunlight is there. It's harmless but it doesn't look good. It probably depends on the kind of algae.

Question: Could you tell us the percentage of the area and to what extent the life of those areas are from a protection standpoint?

Ted: I can't tell you the number of acres in the Tucson area relating to sand and gravel. It isn't terribly large because most of them were filled as I said. But it was what it was filled with that was   the problem. The rule of thumb for most sand and gravel operations in Arizona and most other places, they require approximately 80 acres of space to provide for the equipment and to provide for the pit and to provide usually a reserve at least 20 years. So 80 acres is a minimum size that they usually can deal with.   Used to be able to get 20 years of life out of it in the Tucson area. It all depends upon the amount of growth that you have in the area.

Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson:
I want to give you just a sense of where the Board is in relation to the economic analysis that needs to accompany any Environmental Impact Statement permit.
·        It's on the agenda for Tuesday. What I fully expect is that we will move forward. We have 2 choices. We actually have all the data. We've given it to Morrison in a GIS format, multiple layers, over 600,000 layers, bits of data.
·        We can do it in-house or we can do it an RFP outside. If we do an RFP that will probably delay us by 45 days to 6 months depending on the responsiveness as we seek that RFP. What I will personally make is a commitment but understand I have to count to 3. So even if I make the commitment, that's not the Board making the commitment. If we do make the decision to move forward with an RFP we will make sure that we appoint 2 people from the Steering Committee to be on the review team that reviews the RFP so that you will be there and the public would be heard.
·        Second, several of you have asked and contacted my office and I think other supervisor's offices asking that the voluminous material that we produced be made available free of charge. Here's what we're going to do. We're in the process of putting it all on CD so that you can take it and stick it in your computer at home and look at it. This is where I need your feedback. We want to set up maybe 3 or 4 sites for lending libraries where we will deposit all of the materials that we compiled to date and you or anybody can go and check out those materials. We're looking at libraries perhaps, or perhaps you have some better ideas. Then we will try I can't make a promise that we'll be successful it's really quite expensive. When I started looking into the cost of reproducing it, the color copies are really very, very pricey. We may look at in some instances on some documents that you feel are important making them not available for free as color copies but perhaps as black and white. If you get the copies from us or from the library, feel free to photocopy them. We're not going to stand on copyright here. It think it's important that we all have all the information we need so we can make the best-informed decision. Let me hear from you your sense of as we move forward we try to put the copies in various locations where you think or maybe you can tell David and he can let us know afterwards where you would like to have this stuff available.
·        I just want to reiterate, the Board is committed to moving forward with the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, particularly with the Section 10 permit, that's our focus now. We hope it's your focus. I want to congratulate you for the decisions you made last week. We're moving forward.
·        With the economic analysis what we're going to be doing.   Maeveen and staff have prepared for you the economic analysis that other communities looking at MSCPs have done. The Board is committed to the conservation plan as a whole, which is much broader in scope than just Section 10 Environmental Impact Statement permit. We are committed to getting that Environmental Impact Statement permit. We would have liked to see a recommendation by July 1st, but understand we're probably looking at sometime between August and December. By the time you come back to us with recommendations.
·        What we want to see in terms of the economic analysis is what happens with a no action alternative. I think you agreed on the 8species alternative and then the 55 species. I think those are 3 good benchmarks. Certainly it's an interim process and we can look at things in between but I don't think that's going to be very helpful.
·        I think you want the very maximum coverage of the 55 and then look at the 8, which is probably the minimum in terms of what's on the endangered or about to be listed. Category in the end if we do nothing.
·        Again, I want to thank all of you. If know this has been a along process and sometimes not a cohesive process. But thank you all for sticking in and because of you I think we're going to have a vision for Pima County that's going to make us a very, very special place. Thank you

Cultural Resources Technical Advisory Team David Cushman: Cultural resources staff person with Pima County talked about the cultural resources element and what has been done over the last 3 years. He reviewed the process used in collecting information and data then compared the cultural resources data to other kinds of information that have been collected during the course of the planning for the conservation plan.
* The reason why we have a cultural resources element in the conservation plan is because the citizens of Pima County value their cultural heritage. The county has had a long commitment to preserving cultural resources really since the early 1970s and starting in the mid 1980s passed land use regulations that affects rezoning and grading that apply to development and that require protections of cultural resources.
* Archeological sites of prehistoric and historic in age include: historic buildings and structures including engineered features and bridges, roads, historic landscapes, parks, and streetscapes. Traditional cultural places which are places important to the cultural practices or beliefs of living communities that are rooted in the community's history and culture.
* The cultural and historical and technical advisory team, about 26 people, with representatives from every major federal agency, as well as some state agencies, was created in June of 1999 to assist the county in developing the cultural resources element for the conservation plan. They're archeologists, historians, and architects, and experts in historic preservation.
* 5 support teams on an ad hoc basis to solve particular problems have been working very closely with the technical advisory team. He then introduced Terry Madusky, a member of one of the technical support teams. The staff has produced 9 technical reports and 5 other reports have been prepared on contract to Pima County.
* The process began by collecting, compiling and presenting in comprehensive manner the baseline information about the kinds of resources where information has been collected over the last century.
* There are very large sections of eastern Pima County that have never been formally investigated and which potentially contain large numbers of high value archeological sites. Experts believe that the highest concentrations of archeological sites are along the riparian areas in proximity to water.
* Over the years there have been over 2400 archeological survey investigations. A little over 12% of eastern Pima County has been inspected. Over 3500 sites, and we're finding one archeological site every 84 acres. There are 4000 historic buildings have been recorded, most in the Tucson metro area, 9600 National Register properties. There are 26 historic districts, 13 historic communities, 10 ghost towns, and 3 historic trails, and 5 traditional cultural places,.
* The technical team thought that it was important to tell the county which of the thousands of known cultural resources were the most important so that these places could be considered for conservation. PCRs, are places of such extraordinary importance to the history and culture of the citizens of Pima County that there protection is warranted in the public interest. 70 archeological sites were selected out of the 3500. They represent about 3000 years of human history in eastern Pima County
* 3000 known archeological complexes within 29 areas that span about 7000 years. The median size is over 5000 acres and collectively they cover about 181,000 acres, which is about 7% of eastern Pima County.
* He showed different architectural examples, buildings, houses, and bridges from different eras in Tucson a Pima County history.
* The archeological record is the only record that contains information on human interaction where the environment over long periods of time. There's no other source for that information.
* Areas with high value natural resources and cultural resources are places that we should be looking at for conservation purposes. There are other areas that have very high cultural resource value where the biological values are low so we're going to have to figure out other means of protecting those resources.
* Cultural resources in Pima County are very old. Every major time period since the end of the ice age is representative in Pima County. These resources have scientific, educational, recreational, esthetic, and even spiritual values
* Pima County is going to have to develop incentive based programs to encourage private land owners to work to protect these cultural resources and at the same time reactive land use regulations which control land use that adversely affects cultural resources.
* Conservation will require the cooperative efforts of multiple federal, state, and local government entities working with private landowners and the public at large in order to achieve common conservation goals.
* In summary, there is a need to develop an adaptive management strategy in order to make this work over to work over the next 30 to 40 years. Conservation is achievable as a long-term large-scale cooperative effort.

Discussion and Questions:

Question: My problem with rock art is when I investigated the state records or all the best records that are available on where rock art is all that really is known by anyone is possibly our location. Not even a GPS location of where the sites are. Nobody has gone in and recorded the rock art sites. GPS locations and these are being plundered at a phenomenal rate right now. I'm sort of suggesting that the county come up with a means of maybe a volunteer program to record known sites working with the Rock Art Research Association.

Mr. Cushman: As you pointed out, they're being lost now . So that's an excellent idea. Pima County has been working with a site steward program to get people on the ground to monitor cultural resources that are on county land, but it's the kind of thing that needs to be done on other public lands as well and to involve private landowners who are willing.

Question: Aren't these areas protected by law?

David: The location of archeological sites in particular are protected under state law because so many of them have been vandalized and all it takes is one person to do the damage even though thousands of people want to save something, if one person acts irresponsibly then the resource is lost. What's required is finding the balance between letting people know about these things and inviting them to participate in protecting them and keeping some of that information withheld from others. I'm not entirely sure how we do that but I think that what you can do is to inspire people to work with the county, in this instance, to protect this place through, for instance, the site steward program. But what you don't want to do to broadcast the location of these things publicly because then you end up losing the resource that you're trying to save.

Question: When can we expect the development and implementation of recommendations in a form that will be really useful to us in correlating with the biological in particular setting recommended levels of use or use restrictions and recommended management structures?

David: We can provide you with this information in a number ofdifferent ways. One of the easiest ways, of course, is to print out large-scale paper maps, which show in even greater detail the information that's presented here on these slides. That's something that we can make available to the Steering Committee and mount them on boards or give them to you rolled up. That's one way of doing it. The other way of doing it is to put that kind of information on CDs and make it available to you to see on computer screens, on laptops and things like that. Whatever your pleasure is but it's important for you to have this information.

Question: Are there no laws to prevent developers from turning archeological sites into golf courses?

David: No, there really aren't. There are laws that would require that excavations be done and information be gathered, etc. etc. but that's not conservation. That's just another kind of consumption. Turning archeological sites into reports that sit on shelves. We're talking about keeping these places in tact and on the ground. There are a wide variety of things that can be done to facilitate conservation and development at the same time and those are the kinds of things that we'd be happy to talk about with Marana and the state if they're interested.

Recreation Technical Advisory Team--Randy Gimblett, Chair:   provided background on what has been done in terms of the recreation task force.
* Studying how people move through environments, impact settings, looking at a lot of tourists activities, continued use, the increase use, recreation use, and the impact associated with those uses on lands, where people recreate, how long they spend, the kind of activities that they come here to do, and in particular the kind of opportunities that exist within the county to do those kinds of activities.
* Unbridled access degrades the natural environmental settings. Traditionally recreation has not been considered an important element, but it's extremely important because of social impact, visitor environment relationships essential to achieving balanced policies that are both biologically and socially sustainable.
* Balance between public use and environmental protection is needed. It doesn't mean inhibiting activities, it means balance with other activities and the resource values Public input and support are essential in providing resources required for recreation while insuring long-term protection.
* One of the biggest problems that we have in the recreation management arena is trying to understand the volume of use. How much use can a landscape take without it eventually deteriorating to the point where we not longer have the kinds of recreation opportunities and associated biological values that we need.
* Evaluate and assess current science and land/recreation management techniques but strike a balance between conservation and natural resource based recreation.
* There is an economic benefit as a result of providing a good amount of recreation opportunities that meet the demand. Access issues to both public and private-- where the potential is for access, where the potential is for conflict, and then how do we begin to deal with some of that in terms of recreation opportunities. Equitable opportunities for all people to participate.
*

Discussion and Questions:

Question:   Do you have participation from Game and Fish Department on your team?

Randy: Yes

Question: Have you addressed the impact of dogs on the landscape and the need for individuals to have a place where they can run their dogs as well?

Randy: That will be an issues that will probably will come in terms of the conflicts of use and the kinds of activities that people prefer to do in these types of settings and I don't know if that's something that we'll deal with specifically as an issue but it sure will come up unless Carolyn has the solution to this already.

Carolyn: I just wanted to announce that since Randy has been out of town there's an organization that has been formed, I think it's called National Adventure Dog Association. It's getting involved with the recreation technical advisory team and it's been formed to educate people about how to take their dogs and be good stewards or for their dogs to be good stewards. Also to lobby for access for dogs. That's a new one.

Question: When can the Steering Committee expect to get specific recommendations with regard to levels of use and management structures for particular areas.

Randy: There isn't a lot of information about that right now. So it's either going out and using some existing statistics that are out there, which aren't very good, or a matter of going ahead and actually collecting some of that data ourselves or employing somebody and we're already doing some of that now. I would say over the next six months you should expect to see some information about use levels in certain areas that are going on within the county. But I would say that this is sort of longer term venture in terms of I think you really need to go out and start seriously thinking about how to collect that kind of data, how to monitor that kind of situation.

Question: Are hunters also on your group and being considered, and on your team.

Randy: Yes. In fact, we have met with several of the groups already and will continue to meet with them over the next year or so.

Question: We're here to get information, so that we can include this information in our planning process. If this is just an exercise in giving us information, thank you very much for it but I think it's real important that if you guys want this included, and I think it should be included in any land use plan that we have it post haste.

Randy: I totally agree with you. If I had had the last three years to do this we'd have the recommendations for you right now. We're working as quickly as we can. We've convened. I think we've identified the issues. We're moving ahead. I can give you some facts and figures if you'd like that. But I have to tell you something that the information is simply not there.   In fact, it's a disgrace that the information hasn't even been mapped to begin with. So we as a committee are moving forward you with what we can provide you. As soon as we can do that, and I would certainly like that to be incorporated into what you're doing. We haven't spent any county money yet. This is totally committee, my work, my student's work, and the University's work. We've contacted a number of groups and we're still working with them. I have to say that some of the information that exists is collected in a different fashion than I think it should be collected in. It doesn't tell you much about the distribution of how that happens. It tells you that people are coming in there, but it doesn't tell you where they're going and what the impacts are that they're having. That's the kind of information that I think you need to start looking at these impacts and incorporate that into what we're doing with endangered species.

Questions from the Public:
Question: Where can a person get a list of the groups that you're working with?

Randy: If you contact Theresa here, she has a list of people who are working with us.

Question: Is the lack of scientific, systematic or comprehensive surveys, your principal obstacle?

Randy: That's one of the obstacles. But that's one that we've had to deal with that we didn't know was existing when we first began but now we're understanding that it's hard to provide numbers on something you don't have information for.

Question. How do you propose the dynamics of that, and particularly climate change will be occurring into this?

Randy: Those are going to be accessibility areas, they're going to be sensitivity issues related to recreation, there's a whole variety of layers, opportunities. We might even decide to run an opportunity spectrum analysis on the whole county to find out where opportunities exist for recreation based on natural resources. There's been a variety of efforts. We're already doing that in terms of mapping some of that resource. Regarding dynamics we'll incorporate as best we can the long-term statistics that have been incorporated. I think the biggest challenge right now is figuring out what we got. I think we need to think a little bit clearer about one thing projecting down the road but it's another thing figuring out what we even have to begin with. I think we're at that, I hate to keep saying it, but we're at that really baseline stage of saying, what have we got here first of all, and then let's reconvene and figure out where we need to go with that information in lieu of some of the information that we're seeing from the long-term projections as well as what other teams have provided.

The Morrison Institute Issue

·        .

The Comparison of Multi-Species Conservation Plans and Implementing Agreements was handed out to all Steering Committee members present. David Steele noted that at the last meeting the Steering Committee set up a schedule for stakeholder groups to begin the frameworks for their alternative proposals, alternative recommendations for habitat conservation plan, keeping in mind the July 1 deadline. The question of how the Morrison Institutes' action affect the timeline, where did Mr. Huckleberry think the Steering Committee could go, and what opportunities are there for the Steering Committee to help?

Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry: Let me try to answer that as distinctly as I know knowing that the Board is going to discuss it on Tuesday.
·        The timeframe with regard to the economic analysis we had hoped we would be getting information clearly probably in a month or 2 to coincide with your July date.
·        The Board has a couple of options before it on Tuesday. One is to re-scope the environmental impact statement economic analysis and then craft a request for proposals, send it out to the community, see who's interested, who wants to respond based on the scope. That we can do fairly quickly I think from our perspective because you can look at all these economic analysis plans and they vary from in Austin, 3 sentences, to a little more complex in other more contemporary plans.
·        The Board has a couple of options, I could say county staff, you got the data array mass and we have a number of individuals working within the county who are qualified from the perspective of economic forecasting impact analysis in our various departments. It could be done with our own staff, which means you're going to get your data and information a lot sooner, however, obviously, because it is done by county staff, it may be by some people suspect and then require some type of peer review in itself. So that's an option.
·        Another option is to do this request for proposal process. If that goes forward I have never seen a request for proposal get written, advertised, responded to, evaluated, and a contract awarded in less than about 90 days. That means that at the bare minimum a lot of this discussion is pushed back 90 days depending upon whoever then receives the contract. Then they have to say, well I can do this work in 45 days, I can do it in 60 days, I can do it in 90 days, and I can do it in 120 days. We will probably, in the RFP process, if the Board in fact goes to RFP we will probably ask them, can you do it in these many days and what would be the price? What happens, is it's a matter of the function of if they want it done quicker, they have to put more resources to it, and therefore the cost goes up.
·        So those are options that are raised can be achieved in the RFP process but if we were to start RFP today or Tuesday, it's probably not until about 45 days until we then have the array of respondents. Meaning firm X, Y, and Z and then on what they can do, what their view of this economic analysis is. Then in that array we'll probably ask for, if you can do it in 60 days what would be the cost, if you're given 120 days what would be the cost? My own general feeling, not based on anything at all, not based on science or facts or all the rest of that, is that we're probably looking at being pushed back to at least about December 31st from the same timeframe that you were thinking July 1st. I just want to be realistic and let everybody know that it's not as if we're going to snap our fingers and this is going to appear out of the blue.

Discussion and Question:
Question: If we do have to wait on the economic analysis, how does that affect our input on the Section 10 permit decisions? How do you respond to Rob Melnick's comment that the county data was not received on a timely basis so that's one of the reasons why they had to break their contract with the county.

Chuck: First the Section 10. The Section 10 can't be completed without the economic analysis. All the things that the Steering Committee can participate in as you read these documents on implementation, which is really one of the other steps that's important to you. Implementing agreement is that you get all these arrays of things that can be done to manage the resources in accordance with the goals which, in the case of a Section 10 permit, long-term survival of endangered species, or in the case of whatever you finally choose, to be a list of priority vulnerable species whether it's 55 or whether it's 8. So you still have a lot to be based on. I looked at the minutes and notes of the meeting ten days ago and I think you made significant, substantial progress that was almost light years in the space of an hour and a half. I think you still will have a lot of those discussions that occur. There's tons to do even without beginning to look at the economic analysis from the perspective of there are things that deal with implementing agreements that have and things that the county has and can do in the issue of what we normally do in regulating land use will have very little impact on the actual economic analysis. With regard to what the Morrison Institute says, I think it's pretty one of the things that we don't want to get into is a finger pointing contest, but the data is there, has been there, always was there, was delivered on time, was delivered en mass. If any of you know anything about the county's geographic information system, you know it's one of the leading systems in the country, it's base on fairly stable state-of-the-art technology. Stable meaning it's about 1990 technology. It's not as if we're trying to take a 2000 year experimental GIS system and push it on to somebody. I think it's fair to say that we completely what Mr. Melnick has said.

Question: If to write RFP, is the way to go, how can we get some insurance against this kind of thing happened again and what kinds of firms are out there that you can have some confidence in?

Chuck: We're going to completely spell out our GIS system.   It's dimensions, it's capacities, the data sets they have to use, and the data sets they have to manipulate, the 350,000 tax parcels, for example. If you begin overlying sets on top of that you get into what we call monumental data management tasks. We will probably participate in that. One of the things we may do is make the respondents come down, sit and listen and watch and go through our GIS system so they know exactly what they have.

Question: Could you go into a little more detail about the County doing this work themselves?   Do you feel that you have the capability to do that? Does the county have an economist with the capability? Would it be a team, would it be more accountable to perhaps some, I wouldn't call it peer review by the Steering Committee but some kind of involvement in terms of monitoring it any making sure that it's on the right track. Now that we're finally getting educated on things, we know the questions to ask. And then one final comment is that one fellow that's been involved in this, Harold Barnett, an economist, has been working with the county to a certain extent on the Steering Committee that it was brought up that perhaps that he could work with the county and help to frame the questions and monitor it as well. That's a lot of issues, but if you could respond to that.

Chuck: First, I think in accounting we obviously have the capability to do the analysis. Particularly the capability when it deals with the issues of taxation and land use and future land use and the differentials thereof and land use regulatory policy. That's our expertise, that's what we do. With regard to gaps, yeah there're probably gaps in certain economic elements that obviously we're not going to have the expertise in what we call ranching economic analysis or some of the others, maybe the mining, or this, or that. If we could then do very similar to what we've done in constructing the biological element of the plan. That has been to have kind of one over all particular consultant, which we did, we could act as the coordinating role and then bring in a series of sub consultants on typically minor contracts at not great expense. That's the model that I would say would be a "county economic analysis model." The other model is you just turn it over to a firm who comes in and gives you a bid and they put together the sub consultants. That's the only real difference. It's usually a lot more expensive on the firm side versus the county side. Historically we've seen that happen all the time. Then you're right. The problem is the trust of the county.,

Question: In terms of pacing our work, what else, if anything, should we expect from the economic analysis that will be tools that we need in order to go forward or in order to complete the work?

Chuck: That's almost that chicken or egg kind of question. I don't mean that to be funny. What the problem is that some of the tools you in this committee may say, well we think the only option is acquisition in certain areas. We can certainly calculate that in a dollar magnitude and give that to you. But there also may be other management strategies that could be employed that are significantly less costly than acquisition. I guess what my question would be is what we have do is get ourselves in a position to be able to portray the differential cost of those alternatives that you might come up with during this deliberative process. Somewhere down the road as we get into this whole alternatives and implementation, we have to become a lot more interactive with the committee as the county resource agency. Meaning if we say, we need to go out and buy these 6 ranches because we think there's something there. We can say, here's what we think the cost of buying these 6 ranches is, here's what we think the cost of the economic losses associated with the production, tax base, etc. We can give you all that. Then the next question will be, is there management structure that could be put in place as an alternative to acquisition such as development right acquisition? And then what do we think that's going to cost. Or is there something that's kind of emerging out of the northwest called stewardship agreement where it's perfectly legitimate in the northwest Oregon and other communities now to come in and buy down ranchers' grazing least cost from the state or federal agency. Just simply pay it as a matter of course, keeping them operating and ranching. Those are the alternatives we can portray for you. But we also need the feedback from you. But that's what you like to see as a committee.

Question: If the County staff does the economic analysis, could we use Pima County peer review? Would you agree that the Steering Committee should continue as though the July 1st deadline still exists and incorporate the economic analysis when that is completed?

Chuck: I would agree with that because again; these are just simulations it's like playing a simulation game where you basically say, these are a series of future alternatives that we want to look at. We do not have to have the economic analysis yet. And all of these things with this day and age of high speed data analysis computers, you can play as many future scenarios as you wish and then it gives you a feeling as you begin to narrow in on the alternatives, you begin to narrow in on what is reasonable and right, you may find that the economic analysis turns into 3 sentences just as it did in the Austin plan. I think it's I don't personally view this as a setback at all. I personally believe that the progress this committee made on Wednesday is a major step forward and so now what we need to do is figure out how to begin to work and provide a lot of answers to this committee collectively. When we talk about collectively I think a lot of people didn't believe me when this process started because we had the whole concept of county steering you in the direction. We had the next what I call the evolution of life was the county just abandoned you. Talk among yourselves for a year or 6 months 9 months. We have now, I think, the new era, which says just exactly how we started. You collectively as a Steering Committee represent the diverse views and values of this community and you should be the one deciding collectively what this plan looks like. So I think we're getting right back to that basic theory to where we can actually get to work, start throwing the alternatives up there, and saying I don't like this, I like that and reach a consensus on a lot of these things and reach consensus on implementation strategies and reach consensus about what we should acquire and what we shouldn't acquire and what we should do to manage the plan.

Question: A lot of folks have tried to separate the need for a Section 10 permit from the bigger plan of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. I heard Ms. Bronson specificallysay that what we needed to get was a Section 10 permit and to that end the economic analysis was going to show us the no action alternative, the alternative for the 8 species and another one for the 55 species. Is that not your understanding?

Chuck: Yes, the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan is a bigger, broader perspective long-range vision than just the Section 10 permit. However, the Section 10 permit is really kind of a focus of our present planning effort. For example, you heard a presentation this morning about cultural historical elements of the county. That has nothing to do with the Section 10 permit. But it is part of a bigger, long-term vision of the county and the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. So we also need to kind of keep that in mind too. You're right, the objective is, and the real meat of the deliberation will be the Section 10 permitting process. But it does not mean that your opinions are not valued in any of the other components of the plan or the longer, broader vision of the plan.

Question: Could you pleas address why the original study that the Morrison Institute was doing did not look at the revenue flows of tax revenues to the county?

Chuck: Sure, absolutely. The county is well equipped with a complete tax base analysis existing in future conditions as well as historical trends in valuation very, very easily. We are the experts in tax base, assembly tax base analysis. The entire we can tell you what the contribution the tax base was by economic component, by where it's located, and we can also tell you that if, in fact, that resource in basis is extinguished what it has on the balance of the base. So that's very, very kind of easy analysis and that can be done by the county. We'll be happy to do it. We always figured we're doing it anyway and we'll be doing it at the same time. We get that question every day, day in and day out. For example, I got that question beat into me time and time again when the county acquired Canoa Ranch down south in Green Valley where all of a sudden as a county were taking 5000 acres off the property tax rolls and we were basically going to then, in this particular case, burden the Sahuarita School District with all of a sudden that tax base revenue being removed and what it means is they need X amount of dollars. All the rest of the residents in Green Valley pay taxes. In this particular case we can demonstrate that the removal of Canoa Ranch from the tax base was equivalent to 5 single-family houses paying taxes in GreenValley. It had no impact whatsoever. Then we go into a futures analysis. A futures analysis says well maybe it develops very similar to Green Valley. We do that analysis and we show the cash flow coming in off property taxation. But at the same time we have to reverse those cash flows because of service demands. We find that on the periphery of the urban area growth, frankly some people will hate me for saying this, some people will say it's good, still doesn't pay for itself because we have all these long-term debt issues still out there and so we're still in this non-equilibrium mix of new growth basically paying its way. What we found is that in almost all future scenarios, even if you jack the intensity way up, you can never make the thing pay for itself as far as the property taxation. That's the issue we look at the county. You could make it pay for itself if you could somehow divide up into a five-acre lot and sell each lot for about $500,000 and the person buying the lot would build a million and a half dollar house. That was positive.

Question: It is my understanding that much of this data has already been published as a part of the conservation plan process. There has been some concern and Ms. Bronson addressed it this morning that there's going to be perhaps a greater lending library for the Steering Committee set up and she asked for input in that regard. What I would like to suggest, in the interest of time, is that those documents that have already been published which I believe cover almost everything that has been asked of you this morning, and I believe they've been published, some of them, for over 2 years. If we could get a single disk to SIMG that covered those documents understanding the cost of replication and then SIMG could, on request, burn a copy of that CD. It might be the most efficient and cost effective method of getting some of that data around.

Chuck:   Thank you. I want to make one comment and then I'll get out of the way. The comments about data basis and data analysis and data availability. Yes, the county has it all. One of the things we need to do is probably bring our GIS people back in here and give you a demonstration on Map Guide. This is available on the Net, anybody can gain access to it, and anybody can use it. You just punch in some --- and you're there.

Issues for future meeting agendas and new business:

Question: Have there been any other special interest groups that have requested to do presentations?
Question: The most pressing thing we have is this April 6th date and I would like to make a suggestion that we put back a month or move it ahead a month I should say so that we're looking at May for a timeframe that we can be presenting our preferred alternatives as stakeholders
Answer: As of this meeting there have been no other requests from special interest groups to make presentations, however there was concern from a few Steering Committee members that there would not be enough time for presentations under the schedule proposed by Lucy Vitale.
* Lucy Vitale wants the minutes changed to read: As of this meeting there have been no other requests from other special interest groups to make presentations. However, there was concern from a few Steering Committee members that there would not be enough time for presentations on the schedule proposed by Lucy which has been modified in or will be modified in light of the developments of the economic analysis.

Question: I've heard various statements today as to when we will have information necessary so that we might bring about a preferred alternative to the Board ranging from August to December. How can we narrow that a little bit so that we can do a better job of planning our time and doing things perhaps in a more complete manner given the advantage of this extra time. Who would we ask that question of? When can we expect to get a decent answer?

Answer: We heard when we met on Wednesday that we're looking at 6 months but that could change. The Board's going to consider this issue on Tuesday. After the Tuesday meeting there'll be some better indication

Question: When are you going to have a meeting in Arivaca?

Answer: We're going to have the Ad Hoc revisit, possibly just one central location given the number and frequency of meetings which has changed in the last month. The Ad Hoc will come back to the full Steering Committee with a recommendation for that.

If there are those that are ready to go on April 6th they should have the opportunity to do that and we give folks that are not ready another opportunity to do it.

Mary: I'm going to be responsible for putting together the presentation for April 6th for the Altar Valley. If there are any of you that have specific questions that you would be interested in, I would sure like to do my best to bring information about those. I'm going to be working on our presentation this next

Call to the Public:
* It is my hope that there will be logistics on how to spread this public density around when these teams are out there in the field going from spot to spot, both the conscientious ones and those that aren't.

Meeting adjourned 11:30am