The Arizona Senate on June 11 approved a bill intended to help protect the Army’s Fort Huachuca by allowing Cochise County residents to form a special district to plan and provide ways to augment water supplies in the San Pedro River’s watershed.
The Senate’s 22-4 vote sends the bill (H2300) to the House.
A product of months of negotiations, the bill would establish a nine-member board charged with preparing a plan to be sent to voters in the proposed district in southwestern Cochise County.
The San Pedro is one of Arizona’s few free-flowing rivers, and its health has been vital for the Army base — a major employer in southern Arizona — because of a federal law that links the installation’s future to efforts to protect the river and its sensitive habitat.
State Water Resources Director Herb Guenther said creation of such a district could be a model for use in other water-short areas of rural Arizona.
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