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By Georgie Wood
(ggannwood@yahoo.com)
During a short period when Aravaipa Creek had receded some before it really flooded big on January 19, 1993, a girl was surprisingly seen making her way down the creekbed by foot, and carrying a pair of skis. It was BLM Ranger Sue Morgan who was on her way to the Jep Whites’ property where her vehicle was parked because she was going on a ski trip! After well-liked Andrew “Andy” Wigg had let it be known in January of 1992 that he was going to quit his long-time BLM Ranger job in the Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness (ACW), BLM’s Katie Fenn filled that job for a short while before Sue Morgan became the Ranger previous to the January 1993 Aravaipa Creek floods.
A few days after the ACW re-opened for hikers on March 7, 1993, Pinal County finished a temporary road just upstream of the Whites’, but hikers leaving their vehicles parked where they shouldn’t have caused a big problem. At an Aravaipa Property Owners Association (APOA) meeting on December 4, 1993, Brad Gair of Pinal County reported on the original three options of solving the road washout upstream of the Whites’ property. After the county had decided on option three, to blast the face of the bluff where the road had washed out and use the extra rock to repair the washed-out road section near the upstream Larsen property, the county crews had created a small pond above the diversion, which a man who was doing a tortoise count saw and reported to Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the county was forced to remove their diking by hand!
As I previously stated, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 greatly influenced what could be done along and in Aravaipa Creek which was considered to be an important refuge for native fish. On April 15, 1994, the FWS issued their Final Biological Opinion, and FWS directed that the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) construct in Aravaipa Creek two physical drop structures, in close proximity, that would act as barriers to upstream non-native fish movement. Despite the fact that the Aravaipa creekbed was usually dry for quite a distance from the creek’s mouth at the San Pedro River, they believed non-native fish could swim into the San Pedro River from the Gila River, and then make it up Aravaipa Creek to where the endangered fish were. The design of the barriers had to be mutually agreed upon by BOR, FWS, and Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFW), with appropriate input from experts in different fields. Of course, there was the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the law that requires Federal Agencies to evaluate the potential environmental consequences of major Federal action and requires full public disclosure about the proposed action, accompanying alternatives, impacts, and mitigation.
Land owners along Aravaipa Creek felt their opinions didn’t amount to much to those Federal Agencies. In fact, it was said that at one APOA meeting, a FWS woman remarked that no humans should be allowed to live along Aravaipa Creek!
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