In this issue…

_{Builder News}
Bisbee goes alternative building
Styrofoam solutions
_{Water News}
Why does the earth fissure?
Willcox Basin residents talk AMA
Griffin gets her own protest
Another well goes dry
Fatal flooding
_{Local News}
Finding Boo Boo
No more mosquitoes
Wildlife and the Wall
Benson residents sue city
Food City: from haunted to hopeful
_Events
Water Fair; Music Fest; County Fair

Howdy, from the editor

Another month, another edition of the Ground Party Papers — the only independent news source in Cochise County with a mythical rodent as a mascot.

I hope the summer rains found you well. I certainly enjoyed them, and hope they’ll stick around a few more weeks. It’s much easier to get outdoor work done with a little bit of cloud cover.

Today we’ve got a roundup of local news and events. Next month, if all goes according to plan, will officially be Cochise County Opt Out Month, and I’ll have a special Opt Out themed edition for you.

If you’d like to be featured in next month’s edition, send me a photo and a paragraph about what you’ve been working on. A little bit of show-and-tell is good for the community spirit!

P.S. Thanks to everyone who took 5 seconds to click that ad link last month. Painless, right? Those clicks put $81 in my pocket — that means I finally made minimum wage for my work. Not bad, readers. Not bad at all.

Rising material costs have motivated Step Up Bisbee, a non-profit that builds affordable homes, to explore alternative building materials. “Eterna Blocks” are cement blocks made with a recycled styrofoam composite, manufactured in Graham County.

"Within six days, I have a house that I can start putting a roof on, and from that point on, I've cut down probably three days worth of work on the inside,” said project manager Bill Benson of the new construction approach.

If you’re interested in some DIY experimentation with styrofoam (or expanded polystyrene) concrete, first you’ll need to get some foam. Check your local retail stores to see if they’ve got any you can take off their hands. Then, you’ll need some way to grind the foam. In the video below, you’ll see how one DIYer made their own foam grinder, and how they make batches of styrofoam concrete bricks.

If you live up in the Sunsites area, you probably heard about a sinkhole that formed on 191 and Richland Way. The Willcox Basin is prone to earth fissures and has more than any other basin in Arizona because of the over-budget groundwater pumping which is sinking the groundwater levels. As the groundwater declines, the earth subsides — that is, the elevation of the soil sinks lower. Underground, the earth will begin to split because the bedrock under the soil is uneven. Eventually, those cracks widen until they reach the surface. If you’ve ever seen one of the famous Willcox Basin earth fissures, no further explanation is needed.

Sinkholes can be related to earth fissures, or they can just be superficial depressions. We often see them near roads because a road’s pavement can cover over subsidence until the underground cavity gets big, or heavy flooding causes enough erosion that the road is no longer supported enough and begins to crack and collapse. In this case, a school bus had the misfortune of being the “final straw” that broke the earth fissure open.

Elsewhere in the Willcox Basin, land subsidence and earth fissures split people’s properties open, sometimes splitting their homes open. Some say that unlimited water pumping is a natural property right. Others say not having their homes damaged and their wells go dry is a property right. Well — which right is right?

Local Opt Out builder Rich Samartino recently attended the Arizona Department of Water Resources’ community meeting for the Willcox AMA to discuss the upcoming Management Goal and Plan process. In order to balance their water budget and stop groundwater declines, the Willcox Basin will eventually need to reduce its groundwater use by roughly 70%. Currently, the ADWR “draft goal” is to reduce groundwater use by roughly 35%, or “50% of the overdraft” over the next 50 years.

Currently, the average rate of groundwater decline in the basin is just over 5 ft per year, but if your property is closer to the agricultural concentration areas, your declines are typically greater, like the 15 feet of annual decline in this well near the Willcox Playa:

Samartino expressed his concern that this goal doesn’t reflect the needs of residents in the basin. ADWR’s response? Well, we feel your pain, but anything more than this will cause too much pain for the agriculture industry. It’s not the most convincing argument, especially considering that the City of Willcox’s economy is driven primarily by interstate traffic, and the majority of rural residents are retirees. Not to mention that continued groundwater declines will hurt the local agricultural economy as small farms are forced to sell out to mega farms who are more likely to source materials, labor, and services from out of state.

Meanwhile, Representative Gail Griffin has been pushing her usual line that we’ve got plenty of water. Is it true that the water level in the Willcox Basin is now below the depth of the average well? Sure, but residents can just pool their money together, dig a collective well, and haul their own water from now on, Griffin says.

Earlier this month, Griffin held a private meeting in Sierra Vista to educate her political colleagues on her water policy talking points. Outsiders like myself were turned away at the door. Across the street, Griffin had what may have been her first protest. About 15 local residents made signs and stuck around for a couple of hours, asking Griffin to please stop giving away the county’s groundwater.

I spoke off the record with some of Griffin’s colleagues outside of the meeting, and I’ll only say that Griffin is increasingly in a minority within her own Republican party when it comes to attitudes about groundwater policy.

At Fort Huachuca, a monitoring well on the San Pedro River has gone dry, which seems to confirm claims from the Center for Biological Diversity that too much groundwater is being pumped, which is endangering the river. Over in Portal, I’ve heard that some private wells have recently gone dry. Portal’s annual “Heritage Days” event focused on drought and groundwater, with presentations from Dr. Erinanne Saffell, director at the Arizona Department of Climatology, and Dr. Neha Gupta from UofA.

And folks, do be careful in this long monsoon season. A flash flood on a dirt road in Benson swept away the car of 37-year-old Nichole June Robles, who tragically drowned in the flooding. There were no other passengers in the vehicle, and Robles is survived by a husband and two children.

Local News

Bear necessities: The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office recently responded to reports of a mama bear and cub in Stump Canyon, getting into folks’ unattended picnic baskets. The mama bear was found and relocated to the wilderness, but the cub, nicknamed Boo Boo, is keeping a low profile.

Your blood isn’t enough: Not only are mosquitoes annoying, and their bites itchy, but they can also leave you feeling unwell. In Douglas, testing in local mosquito-hosting waters has shown the presence of West Nile Virus. If you’d like to keep the bugs away, my current preferred bug spray is the Hello, Hello brand mosquito repellent for kids. The active ingredients are only natural herbal oils, no DEET, and each can lasts much longer than the other brands I’ve tried. I buy the stuff from Walmart in Douglas.

Animal crossing: Wildlife advocacy organizations are doing everything they can to make sure animals are still able to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in order to find water and food. Others are concerned about how the further development of the border wall might interfere with the trans-boundary flows of the Santa Cruz River. “We are trying to slow the wheels down, but it seems like it will be inevitable,” Myles Traphagen of Wildlands Network told the Herald/Review.

Kicking up out dust: The newly formed Benson non-profit Health Over Wealth Benson, along with some local residents, have filed a lawsuit against the City of Benson, alleging that the city didn’t follow proper law and city regulations in granting a variance to Aluminum Dynamics for their 88-foot tall secondary aluminum smelter. And city residents again showed up in force at the second Arizona Department of Environmental Quality public comment meeting about the proposed aluminum plant. “I have felt that it's important for us to speak out on this because, unfortunately, our local government let the community down by not doing their research on this company and what all this plant entails,” said resident Kristin Bidegain.

Food City, redux: Douglas mayor Jose Grijalva recently announced that a bid was placed for the 1300 San Antonio Ave. property, former site of Food City. The bidder is Carniceria Wild West LLC in Tucson. Perhaps Douglas will soon have an alternative to Walmart once again.

Today’s traffic report: At 6am this morning, a semi-tractor tilted on its side, leaking a significant amount of fuel on the northbound lanes of Highway 90 at milepost 292, south of Interstate 10. Highway 90 north between Highway 82 and the interstate will be closed until further notice.

One does not simply fall into a 300-acre pit: The famous Lavender Pit in Bisbee doesn’t look too hard to break into it. A quick shimmy over the fence and you’re set. An unnamed man recently helped himself into the pit and soon found himself stuck at its 900-ft bottom. He did have cellphone reception down there, somehow, and the sheriff’s office was able to extract him with a helicopter. The story of how and why the man found his way into the pit remains untold, but I was very amused by KVOA’s dramatic characterization of the story:

Events

Water Fair
If you want to learn more about water, there’s a water-themed community event on October 8th in Sunsites. I’ve been invited to speak at it, so maybe I’ll see you there.

ThisWeekInBisbee Fest 2
$10 advance, $15 at the door, suggested donation, no one turned away!
Get tickets: bit.ly/4ocGIHa
ALL proceeds go to the bands/artists!

Pre-party Silver King Friday Sept 26 - Free!
8 TS Henry Webb
9 Moonflower Mirage
10 SCYLD

Saturday Sept 27 Jonquil Motel - doors @ noon
Alexandria 12:30 - 1 pm
Astra Kelly 1:15 - 1:45 pm
Worlds Clyde 2 pm
Alex Wilkerson & Them 3 pm
Moramarco 4 pm
Fatigo 5 pm
Tapestries 6 pm
Melissa Reaves 7 pm

After party Live Band Karaoke at Bisbee Grand - Free!

County Fair
The county fair starts tomorrow and runs through the weekend.

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