TUCSON, Ariz.— Three of four monitoring gauges added by a judge last week to track the health of the San Pedro National Riparian Conservation Area in southeastern Arizona are already below court-ordered levels, violating federal water rights.

“These violations prove beyond any doubt that developers and the U.S. Army in Sierra Vista are stealing water specifically reserved for the San Pedro River,” said Robin Silver, co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Tragically it’s the residents of Sierra Vista who’ll suffer the most and they deserve to know they’ve been sold the false promise of water that's just not there.”

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Brain’s Dec. 12 court order brings the total number of monitoring wells and gauges for the conservation area to 13, eight of which are below required water levels, according to new data from the United States Geological Survey.

When Congress created the 57,000-acre San Pedro National Riparian Conservation Area in 1988 it required that federal water rights be reserved to protect the San Pedro River and its globally important aquatic and riparian biodiversity. A 2023 court ruling first quantified those water rights and last week’s ruling added more protection.

Current flow levels and mandatory levels for the new monitoring gauges in violation of the court order:

• Charleston: 2023 flow 4,517.6 acre-feet/year (mandatory flow 6,826)
• Tombstone: 2023 flow 3,395.4 acre-feet/year (mandatory flow 5,948)
• Babocomari: 2023 flow 239.6 acre-feet/year (mandatory flow 431)

The declining water levels show that historic cumulative groundwater pumping of approximately 2 million acre-feet is overtaking efforts to mitigate the excessive water use. The U.S. Army’s Fort Huachuca, the single largest user of San Pedro River water, has taken 400,000 acre-feet since 1940.

Fort Huachuca continues to grow despite a federal appeals court siding with conservation groups in their challenge to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granting fake groundwater credits to the Fort.

Gov. Katie Hobbs has refused to create an active management area to preserve groundwater in the Upper San Pedro Basin. The governor was forced by Center litigation to review the 100-year designation of water adequacy for a 7,000-home development in Sierra Vista that lacks enough water to support it, but she has refused to review and revoke similar inaccurate designations for 51 other subdivisions.

Hobbs’ administration also continues to allow the sale of new homes in in the area, despite inaccurate subdivision public reports. These reports are essential for people to know if the value of properties they buy in the Fort Huachuca/Sierra Vista area will decline because of inadequate water supply.

“Our leaders are leaving the San Pedro River unprotected and future homeowners subject to water restrictions, while these well and gauge levels continue to drop and stream flows disappear,” said Silver. “There’s still time to save this vibrant ecosystem, but Arizona and the Army have to stop pretending there’s an endless supply of water.”

The San Pedro River is the last free-flowing desert river in the Southwest. Endangered species that depend on it include Southwestern willow flycatchers, Huachuca water umbels, desert pupfish, loach minnows, spikedace, yellow-billed cuckoos, Arizona eryngo and northern Mexican garter snakes. Millions of neo-tropical songbirds rely on the San Pedro to complete their yearly migrations.