December 9, 2004
Group sues notice it will sue city
Says JWK purchase ‘condemns’ Verde River
by CINDY BARKS
THE DAILY COURIER
PRESCOTT – Within 24 hours of
the City of Prescott’s decision to buy
land and water rights at the JWK
Ranch, a lawsuit threat was already
on record.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the
Center for Biological Diversity filed
a notice of intent to sue Prescott and
Prescott Valley over their plans to
pump water from the JWK Ranch.
The notice came just one day after
the Prescott City Council’s
unanimous decision to go ahead with
its purchase of the Paulden-area
JWK Ranch.
According to the notice, the
communities’ commitment to buy the
JWK Ranch “condemns the Upper
Verde River to death.”
Michelle Harrington, the rivers
program director for the Center for
Biological Diversity, stressed that
the two communities have yet to
come up with a plan to deal with
what the notice terms as a
“predictable and inevitable Upper
Verde River dewatering.”
“They don’t have
a definitive plan (for mitigation),”
Harrington said late Wednesday.
“Who’s to say they’re going to be
able to come up with a plan?”
The impacts to the Verde River
have been central to Prescott’s
consideration of plans to buy water
rights in the Paulden-area Big Chino
Basin. A num-ber of people who
turned out for Tuesday’s meeting
voiced fears about the future of the
Verde River, which originates in
Paulden.
Because the notice of intent to sue
came in late Wednesday afternoon,
neither Prescott Mayor Rowle
Simmons nor City Attorney John
Moffitt had yet read the notice
Wednesday night. But both noted
that the city is currently working on
a plan for mitigation of any impacts
to the Verde River.
“The city – as Councilman (Bob)
Roecker said at Tuesday’s meeting
– as well as Prescott Valley, have
always remained steadfast in their
commitment not to impact the Verde
River,” Moffitt said.
And he termed as “ludicrous” the
Center for Biological Diversity’s
argument that the city must have a
mitigation plan in effect before the
start of pumping