The time has come for the leadership in the Verde Valley to embrace Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley's pumping of the Big Chino.
If those opposing the pumping choose not to, and decide instead to continue the meaningless and destructive posturing that has gone on for the last 10 years, they will ensure the death of the upper Verde River.
It's not a joke.
I wish it were.
For 10 years, a faction of well-intentioned protectors of the Verde River has thrown energy into stopping the Prescott tri-cities from exercising their statutory right to construct a pipeline and pump the Big Chino aquifer.
In the beginning it was a noble cause, based on a love for one of the last flowing desert streams and the need for information on how best to protect it.
But we now know many of the relevant facts, enough to understand that it is not the tri-cities' pumping that is going to kill the Verde River.
In the end it will be our inability to understand human nature, our inability to back down and change direction and our inability to create a united front.
In 1998 when the squabble began, the Big Chino was using 6,000 acre-feet of groundwater, most of it to irrigate farmland.
The ranches sitting atop the basin's deepest aquifer were in the hands of families that owned them for one primary reason -- to raise crops and cattle.
Here we are 10 years later and the map has changed. Some of the ranches have already sold to buyers who now wish to peddle the water beneath and develop the land above -- selling all to the highest bidder.
More are coming.
According to the Arizona Department of Water Resources the current approved allocations of Big Chino groundwater, and the allocations that have already been applied for, is over 65,000 acre feet.
Keep in mind little of it is actually in use toady.
Three years ago the U.S. Geological Survey, using the best scientific knowledge available, determined that the entire basin absorbs about 25,000 acre-feet a year of recharge.
Do the math. Once 25,000 acre-feet a year starts moving out of the basin, it will no longer be a case of if the Verde River will dry up, only when.
Prescott's 8,700 acre-foot allotment, and the still existing 6,000 acre-feet in use, does not equal 25,000.
We didn't know the recharge rate in 1998. That's why the fight started. But we know it now. And we know it is within reasonable assurances that Prescott's pumping will not be the river's end.
But what about the other 40,000 acre-feet still pending.
We have two choices. We can continue to manage our water from a position of weakness, where both sides have differing interests.
Or not.
There is only one way to assure Prescott and its partners that the Verde Valley leaders are serious about saving the Big Chino, and that is to embrace their pumping project. Whole-heartedly.
Once Prescott's straw is in the aquifer they will have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo in the basin. And the Verde Valley will have the only ally they are ever going to have.
Efforts to purchase development rights and legislate a solution would be carried out from a position of power, a united county with mutual interests.
Should the well-intentioned protectors of the Verde River prove successful in stopping Prescott's pumping of the Big Chino, it would spell the end of the river, as we know it.
Once the tri-cities pull out, they will sell their interest in the water farm they currently own, pull up stakes and go somewhere else to look for water.
They will no longer care what happens to the Big Chino.
The developer who buys the water farm will likely sell off the water beneath and the land above, as will the other sub-dividers waiting in the wings. The basin will go to the highest bidder.
And after the well-intentioned protectors celebrate their success, they should plan for the river's wake.
Those who have spent so many years opposing the tri-cities plans must decide very soon if their real intent is to stop a pipeline or to save a river.
It would be worth everyone's time to give it some thought.
