3/26/2025
Submitted by Melissa Crytzer Fry to the San Manuel Miner
Our Board Secretary talks to geo-hydrologist Chris Eastoe of the Cascabel Conservation Association for her guest editorial exposing the danger posed by large-scale industrial mining to the San Pedro aquifer.
3/24/2025
By John Leos for The Arizona Republic
In an article exploring both sides of the Faraday Copper/Redhawk Exploration Project, Board member Cathy Gorman makes an important point regarding how the historic protection of the San Pedro watershed has long served to offset environmental degradation elsewhere in the state.
3/18/2025
Submitted by Kimberly Schmitz to the San Manuel Miner
A Magma Copper Mine miner's daughter, who grew up in Superior and San Manuel, talks about why it is important to protect the San Pedro from being destroyed.
3/7/2025
By Katya Mendoza for Arizona Public Media
Arizona Public Media covers our Ecoflight survey of the Lower San Pedro Watershed, capturing industrial incursions into a pristine and unique wilderness that "encompasses 55 mountain islands surrounded by desert and grassland seas," along with "7,000 species of plants and animals." Public concerns associated with Faraday/Redhawk Exploration's plans to develop mining on Copper Creek, an uphill tributary of the San Pedro, are addressed in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management's release of its Draft Environmental Assessment of the Copper Creek Mining Project.
3/5/2025
Submitted by Craig Anderson to the Copper Area News
A local tri-community resident explains why community members who are rightfully concerned about "dry wells, contaminated water, hazardous air quality, decreased property values and possibly unsellable property"—in the face of the proposed Copper Creek mining scheme—should not be branded as NIMBY (or not-in-my-backyard) extremists.
3/3/2025
By Russ McSpadden. Special to the Arizona Daily Star.
"Several months ago, I checked one of my trail cameras in a canyon within the San Pedro River watershed and was stunned by what I saw: an endangered ocelot drinking from a spring, luminous even in the grainy nighttime footage.
"The sighting confirmed what conservationists, biologists and locals have long known: The San Pedro and its surrounding wildlands — from the Sky Islands at the border to the Galiuro Mountains and Aravaipa Canyon further north — make up one of the most biologically rich landscapes left in the American Southwest.
"It’s also under assault."
2/19/2025
By T.C. Brown, Copper Area News
In a recap of our Feb. 11 Public Meeting in Mammoth, T.C. Brown breaks down the major issues addressed by speakers. Among topics covered are the need to protect the San Pedro's unfragmented wilderness from over-development, how industrial mining will impact the watershed's underlying geo-hydrology, and how communities can advocate to hold governments and industries to account.
2/13/2025
Check out ABC15 News's coverage of our Feb. 11 Public Meeting in Mammoth. Talking before a packed house, LSPWA Board Members and representatives from partner organizations spoke out about the dire need to protect one of the nation's most unique riparian ecosystems from industrial devastation.
Did you miss the meeting? You can also watch video clips of the speakers and read our press release to learn more.
1/16/2024
PRESS RELEASE
The Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance (LSPWA) will host a public meeting Feb. 11 at the Mammoth Community Center from 6-7:30 p.m. to discuss its role in addressing past, current and future threats to the area, ranging from industrial-scale power lines and copper mining to the Air Force’s overflight plans for supersonic fighter jets.
12/4/2024
By Melissa Crytzer Fry. Op. Ed. to the San Manuel Miner.
In her letter to the editor, Board Officer Melissa Crytzer Fry calls out Redhawk Exploration for sidestepping crucial public concerns when it comes to ensuring future community water availability and the protection of the San Pedro's vital riparian ecosystem.
10/8/2024
Read the comments submitted by Chair Peter Else, on behalf of LSPWA and the Cascabel Conservation Association, to the Air Force on its intended use of ecologically rare and pristine wilderness areas along the San Pedro River and on nearby Tribal Nation lands, for daily training sorties involving supersonic military aircraft.
9/21/2024
Arizona Daily Star journalist Emily Bregel reports on how the aquifer that supplies the San Pedro River's headwaters in Sonora, Mexico, is being over-pumped by mining and how ranchers there are sounding the alarm.
9/9/2024
Catch an interview with LSPWA Board Chair Peter Else, in which he describes how a proposed mine along Copper Creek could irreparably harm its distributary, the San Pedro River.
8/9/2024
LSPWA Board Officer Melissa Crytzer Fry and her husband Steve share invaluable maps and insights with Arizona Luminaria and Inside Climate News, for their collaborative investigation into how the proposed Copper Creek Mine could end up imperiling both the city's water supply and the Lower San Pedro River Watershed.
4/19/2024
LSPWA Chair Peter Else explains why we revised our Mission Statement to focus on legal action and effective partnerships, following the Arizona court decision that is allowing SunZia to construct its massive transmission lines along the unspoiled banks of the Lower San Pedro River, a riparian ecosystem whose diversity and rarity knows no parallel.
4/18/2022
According to Earth Justice, "Groundwater pumping, harmful development threaten endangered fish and wildlife" on a river named by Americas Rivers as one of the nation's most endangered. Quoting LSPWA Chair Peter Else, "We must protect the last remaining natural and intact desert river ecosystem in southern Arizona. We must think beyond the span of our brief lifetimes."
12/15/2022
The Arizona permit for the proposed SunZia infrastructure corridor is being challenged by intervenor Peter Else and his supporters in Maricopa Superior Court. Fragmenting and degrading 33 miles of the most remote and ecologically sensitive portion of the San Pedro River watershed is not a "done deal". Far less damaging alternatives are available, including alternatives that would benefit Arizona to a similar degree as New Mexico and California. Significant legal errors were made during the recent amendment process. The intervenor knew that he needed representation by a law firm after the Arizona Corporation Commission included false and contested statements in their Order to approve SunZia's requested amendments.
→ Read the full text of the Complaint filed on January 24, 2023
→ Read the Opening Brief filed on May 12, 2023
→ Read the Arizona Court of Appeals Decision filed on June 13, 2024
2/11/2022
In this YouTube video, Peter Else discusses issues facing the San Pedro River in this presentation to the Sustainable Water Network.
7/16/2021
In an opinion piece to the Arizona Daily Star, Peter Else explains why the planned SunZia transmission lines would cause irreparable harm to the ecology and migratory flyways of the San Pedro River.
3/12/2019: Updates on LSPWA for Early 2019 — Mar 12, 2019 11:24:28 PM
3/9/2019: Alex reports on Wildlife Monitoring
2/6/2018: 2017 Update from the Officers of the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance
3/8/2016: Comments Submitted on Ray Mine Tailings Proposal
2/16/2015: Winter Meeting, March 2nd at Oracle State Park
10/27/2013: Meader Releases New Paper on Water Usage by Mesquite
10/15/2009: Summer Meeting of the LSPWA
10/15/2009: Scenario Planning for Climate Change