The lower San Pedro flows year-long in this stretch near Dudleyville. Photo by Melissa Crytzer Fry
Those unspooling ribbons of green edging the San Pedro River?
Most of us take them for granted, but these lush, vegetated areas alongside rivers and streams are called riparian zones. They stabilize banks, filter pollutants, and provide critical habitat for diverse wildlife, making them incredibly productive ecosystems.
Riparian zones, however, are extremely rare, making up less than 0.4 percent of Arizona’s total land. In the San Pedro Valley, we’re lucky to have three: the San Pedro, itself; Aravaipa Canyon; and Copper Creek.
Some might argue against the health of the river’s riparian area, saying, “The San Pedro is dry. The river doesn’t run.” And while it’s true that flow is mostly seen during monsoon, there are many areas outside of San Manuel, and in Mammoth and Dudleyville, with year-long water capture and flow. What’s more, their forests still thrive, even with decreased surface flow.
But even when these riparian sections of the San Pedro are dry, they serve other crucial functions. They recharge groundwater, control floods and prevent erosion. The native mesquite bosque and cottonwoods along the river provide enormous carbon capture that filters our air. These magical, green forests amid brown rolling hills also provide some of the state’s most critical movement corridors for wildlife.
“The Valley’s riparian areas are shrinking due to upstream urbanization, water depletion, and climate change,” said Steve Marlatt, a wildlife biologist and board member for the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance. “Additional threats due to new mining activities could compromise them further.”
Without these desert riparian areas, our local way of life would change drastically. Hunting, birding, and recreational opportunities would diminish. Dried-up riparian areas speak to the larger dangers of dried-up municipal and private wells.
Aravaipa Canyon, one of the few areas with an Outstanding Arizona Water designation, is also home to seven endangered fish species. Photo by Melissa Crytzer Fry
The Safford Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Office spent dozens of pages in their June 30 final Environmental Assessment for the Copper Creek Project heralding the importance of riparian areas.
“Their value is disproportionate to their size; 80 percent of vertebrates spend some portion of their life in riparian areas in Arizona,” said the BLM Safford Office. Their Resource Management Plan continued, “Riparian areas are valuable because of their importance to watershed protection, water quality, wildlife, recreation opportunities, and livestock management. Special management attention is needed to ensure these fragile areas are protected and improved while providing for their use.”
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And yet, Safford BLM rejected a Riparian Area Exclusion Alternative that would have prohibited project-related vehicle traffic within the Copper Creek channel and adjacent uplands to avoid impacts to sensitive areas. Instead, they approved 67 exploratory drilling sites for Faraday Copper/Redhawk.
This action paves the way for a future operational mine that, according to Faraday Copper’s 2023 Preliminary Economic Assessment and Technical Report, will place an open-pit mine directly upon Copper Creek and destroy the entirety of the downstream Copper Creek riparian region.
The Copper Creek riparian area includes mature cottonwoods, ash, sycamores, and saguaros that are 200 years or older, along with palo verde, seep willow, acacia, and a host of additional plant life. Photo by Melissa Crytzer Fry
As a tributary that feeds the San Pedro, Copper Creek is crucial to this area we call home. If full-scale mining occurs, the creek will be lost forever, and that loss will trickle to the San Pedro and also the connected Aravaipa Watershed. Can we afford this loss in a desert that has undergone 25+ years of megadrought?
“The San Pedro is the last major undammed desert river in the American Southwest,” said Marlatt. “It’s worth protecting for humans, but also because it hosts two-thirds of the bird diversity in the United States. That’s some 100 species of breeding birds and almost 300 species of migrators. That’s amazing.”
Melissa Crytzer Fry is a Mammoth resident, a professional writer, and chair of the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance, committed to protecting our shared, incredible landscape. https://lowersanpedro.org Get to Know Your San Pedro is a regular feature of Copper Area News.