Conservation Plan Costs Coming Home to Roost
Arizona Daily Star (co-written by Alan Glen)
4.24.2002
On March 12, the Star ran an article concerning the withdrawal by the Arizona State University-based Morrison Institute from its Pima County contract for a Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan economic study.
The article reported, "County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said that real estate attorney Si Schorr may have been right last summer when he called on the county to seek bids for someone to do the study."
Although this concession is flattering, the selection process (which failed to follow the spirit of the procurement code) was not the seminal concern.
The major issues confronting the plan continue to be a lack of specificity and the need for economic study.
The county has spent millions on the plan - still in a September 2000 draft - but has yet to say just how it will work or what it will cost.
The Morrison Institute could have provided answers. The county prevented this by not providing a detailed description of the plan.
A graphic example was evident in the institute's unavailing request to PimaCounty (on Nov. 14, 2001) that it be told of the "cost of plan implementation."
Providing this information did not require (as inexplicably claimed by the county) a sophisticated computer program. It could have been furnished by Federal Express or Pony Express.
The supervisors recently prepared a request for proposals for an outside economic analysis. Any study must address, as one major proponent asked, "Just how much will the plan cost?" The lack of cost information portends more bad news for taxpayers. Preliminary county estimates were that implementing the plan could cost a half-billion dollars. The county later ignored this and, without giving specifics, stated that the business community's fears about the plan's price tag are unfounded.
The county administrator was quoted on Aug. 8, 2001, in the Star as saying, "The development industry focuses on cost because they believe it to be the Achilles' heel of the plan." Indeed. One notable illustration of the plan's potential cost is the oft-delayed and much-needed Thornydale Road improvement project north of Ina Road.
After clearing a swath of trees along the right-of-way, because one pygmy owl has been located near the project (not exactly a wilderness setting), the county agreed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to acquire about 36 acres of "mitigation" land at an estimated cost of $2 million to $3 million for about 9 acres required for the project.
The county also agreed to redesign the project, removing median openings and widening median widths, planting thousands of trees and shrubs, reducing left-turn bay lengths, avoiding activities during owl breeding season and reducing speeds.
The estimated cost of complying with these measures is, conservatively, another $1 million. The county, however, was likely under no legal obligation to incur either of these costs, since there currently is no critical habitat for the owl. In fact, a Fish and Wildlife official was quoted as saying the county appeared to be in compliance with the law.
The next stretch of Thornydale north of Cortaro Farms Road to be improved is estimated to cost even more than the first leg of the project.
So why did Pima County agree to spend $3 million more rather than stand up for its legal rights, as did the Amphitheater School District in its construction of a badly needed high school in Northwest Tucson?
To be consistent with preliminary concepts of the plan, the county has been complicit in Fish and Wildlife's attempts to impose a so-called "80-20" rule across Northwest Tucson, requiring every project across a large region to either limit vegetation disturbance to 20 percent of the site or provide off-site mitigation land at a ratio of 4 acres for every 1 acre of disturbance.
While the "rule," which appears in no publicly available document, has neither a proper scientific nor legal basis, it has evolved into one of the central ambitions of the plan. But, at what cost? PimaCounty taxpayers are entitled to an independent, credible, cost-benefit analysis by recognized experts as soon as possible. This will require the county to publish the details of exactly what the plan will actually do and cost.
Irrespective of one's views on the plan, whatever the plan really is, the citizens are entitled to know just how much it will cost and how it will work.
* Si Schorr is a partner in Lewis and Roca LLP in Tucson. Alan Glen is a partner in Smith, Robertson, Elliott & Glen, LLP in Austin, Texas. They often associate in representing clients in PimaCounty who are affected by the plan.