Real big water news and a Cochise Voter Guide

In this issue…

_Lifestyle
Should the news be free?
_{Water News}
Willcox Basin gets an AMA
Douglas AMA gets a Management Plan
_{Land News}
Walking the San Pedro River
Solar bombs and sonic booms: Round 2
 
_{— The Ground Party Pulse —
 
Arizona Civics}
Cochise Voter Guide
County elections
State elections
Legislative elections

Should the news be free?

I was never a news junkie, but I mostly stopped consuming it altogether about a decade ago, at least the political stuff. It didn’t feel very healthy, I guess.

Lately I’ve been thinking about news the way I think about food.

Advertisements and algorithms are like pesticides and growth hormones. They bring the price down, but they can corrupt the product.

And lots of people don’t really care about their food being organic or local — they just want the lowest price.

I suppose it’s the same with news.

I remember those newspaper vending machines when I was a kid, where you had to put in a bunch of quarters to unlock the box and grab a copy. But by the time I was a consumer of news, everything was on the internet.

Personally, I don’t spend a ton of money on news, maybe $12 a month for a few subscriptions. And I’ve gotten pretty good at sneaking around paywalls on news sites. This is mostly because I just don’t have a lot of money.

I know there are plenty of people, like me, who can’t afford to patronize all the news sources out there, including all the great independent writers and journalists. But I’ve been surprised to hear some people that, simply, “the news should be free.”

How are the journalists supposed to pay their bills, I ask.

“Advertisements,” they say.

Well — I guess that’s a cultural attitude. But I suspect that a healthy sustainable local community will need local, organic, free-range, grass-fed, non-GMO, unpasteurized news.

Fortunately for me, I enjoy writing, I try to make it fun, and I find intrinsic value in helping information get circulated around communities. But every other weekend, when I block out a day and a half for researching, writing, and publishing the Ground Party Papers, and another half-day to recover, of course these questions go through my mind: Can I afford to do this? Should I be focusing on other projects? Is this valuable to people?

One of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2024 was: “Think like a mountain.”

Here in Sulphur Springs Valley, things have changed a lot over the decades and centuries. The landscape, the people, the rain, the wildlife, the waters, and the air. But the mountains, not so much.

The mountains just sit there, and they watch, and they provide. They gather up the water to feed the aquifers. The maintain space for the trees, and streams, and animals, and mist.

And they don’t need anything in return.

So when I’m feeling doubtful about anything, I try to put away my anxieties, and find strength in my inner mountain.

And I trust that others are doing the same.

And it’s all good.

Thank You very much to the people who support this project. It helps cover the costs involved, including $40/month for the platform hosting, $20/month for the AI that generates images of our mascot, Cochēz, and the $50/month for snacks and coffee at my local cafés where I do my writing. Most of all, the support lets me know that it means something to people.

Willcox Basin gets an AMA

On Wednesday, the Department of Water Resources issued the news that many locals were anticipating: the Willcox Basin is heading towards an AMA designation.

I covered the story in an article for the Arizona Agenda, published here. I included a selection of quotes from locals reacting to the news. Here’s one:

On facebook, there’s been a mix of responses. Many are excited and relieved. Others don’t love the idea, given that an AMA was voted down in 2022.

But since that election, lots of people, including farmers and city officials, have changed their minds. And locals have continued to put pressure on the government to do something.

In 2023, Governor Hobbs created a “water policy council” that spent all year creating new groundwater regulation legislation, an alternative to AMAs, which was supposed to be more appropriate for rural areas. But this year, the legislators who chair the Natural Resource Committees in the House and Senate refused to hold hearings on those bills.

All parties at the capitol are saying that a new legislative solution still needs to be pursued, but Hobbs has decided to “stop the bleeding” in the meantime by pushing for an AMA.

What will that mean in the near term?

No new acres can be put into agricultural production as of Wednesday. Next month, the Dept of Water Resource will hold a public meeting to get feedback on the initiative, and then make a final decision in December.

If the AMA stays in place, so will the freeze on the expansion of irrigated acres.

And next year, we’ll likely see some serious negotiations at the capitol as pro-sustainability and anti-regulation factions try to work on agreements to new legislation or changes to the existing AMA laws.

On the south side of the valley…

Next week, the Douglas AMA will have a public hearing on their first 10-year management plan (1MP).

The ADWR has issued their proposal for the 1MP, and it lays out its main conservation goal: Reducing the DAMA’s annual groundwater demands from 68,000 to 64,600 acrefeet — a 5% total reduction, or 0.5% annual reductions from 2027-2037.

If you’d like to attend the hearing or submit comments electronically, here’s your info:

I’ll be issuing a video with my thoughts on the Douglas AMA and Management Plan soon.

Walking the San Pedro River

Election season got you down?
Bummed out by how long summer is dragging on?
Relax and cool down along the San Pedro River with a menu of river tour options, compliments of Friends of the San Pedro River.

Learn more at: SanPedroRiver.org

Solar bombs and sonic booms:
Round 2

I previously wrote about the proposals in Cochise County for a new commercial-scale solar power project, which the County Planning & Zoning Commission rejected, and the U.S. Airforce’s proposal for expanded military drills in the “Tombstone MOA” area.

The comment period for Airforce’s proposal has been extended to November 12th, and you can leave comments here. You can read my detailed analysis of the proposal here.

Dahlia Solar has filed an appeal the P&Z Commission’s decision to deny the project, and the county supervisors will hear the appeal on October 29, next Tuesday.

The County’s Planning and Zoning Division has recommended that the supervisors reverse the commission’s decision and grant a special use permit to the project.

If you’d like to attend the meeting, here are the details:

And you’ll have to submit your Speaker Request Form no later than 9am that morning.

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