Update on Proposed Commercial Well next to Montezuma Well

On March 15^th , 2010 the Yavapai County Supervisors voted to grant Montezuma Rimrock Water Company a Use Permit to operate a commercial well less than 300 feet from Montezuma Well National Monument. The Supervisors chose to ignore County ordinances requiring setbacks for the well head from neighboring property boundaries, and other County ordinances including the requirement for public participation in the process and required notification of significant parties affected by this action including Montezuma Well National Monument itself.

Claiming over and over again that the permit application was a land use decision and not a water issue the Supervisors seemed to be unaware that the land use is for a commercial well which obviously is a water issue. If this logic is considered legally correct by County and State Laws, clearly, there is a need to modify these laws as this logic is obviously incoherent at best. Arizona law in regards to land and water is entirely archaic, perhaps even Neanderthal. Arizona law does not even recognize the connection between groundwater and surface water.

The Yavapai County Supervisors didn’t want this messy issue on their plate and ignored their own statutes and ordinances, accepted the testimony of their Developmental Services staff which was riddled with incompetence, malfeasance, and outright misrepresentation, and basically just punted the issue out of their court.

Although this was never mentioned at the hearing, the reasons now being given for the Supervisor’s decision to ignore their own laws are health and safety. If this was really the case, then the Supervisors should have denied the permit so that a much better scenario for the residents of Montezuma Estates can be implemented. There is an Arizona Water Company source pipe 2000 feet from the area that can be hooked up for a fraction of the cost of bringing this new well online and building another arsenic treatment plant. MRWC should either turn the system over to Arizona Water or make a deal with AWC to buy the water from them. Anything but bringing online a deep high production capacity well that has the potential to harm Montezuma Well.

MRWC is mired in a mess of regulatory problems with ADEQ (Arizona Department of Environmental Quality), the Arizona Corporation Commission and ADWAR (Arizona Department of Water Resources). They have been in violation of Federal Arsenic treatment standards for years. They have consistently violated permit requirements. They charge their customers way too much-certainly much more than Arizona Water charges. This is a company that we can not trust to operate a high capacity well right next to Montezuma Well, which of course is about water.

Fred Shute and John Dougherty have retained the services of prominent environmental Attorney Howard Shanker to represent them in appealing the decision of the Yavapai County Supervisors in granting this use permit. We believe that instead of bending over backwards to avoid their responsibility to enforce their own laws, that they should have understood the importance of protecting Montezuma Well at all costs. Clearly the setbacks have been violated and that is reason enough to make the decision as a strictly land use issue.

Other parties affiliated with Sacred water Coalition are filing separate action including an injunction to stop the process and investigate the background of MRWC. There is indication of significant doubt as to the legitimacy of the original transfer of the water company from the homeowner’s association to the private domain of the current owners. Native American leaders are also formulating their own approach to stopping this well from ever going on line.

There has been much discussion about the source of the water for Montezuma Well and this proposed commercial well. There are basically two aquifers in the area from which well water is produced. Most wells are drilled into the aquifer in Verde Formation which overlaps the deeper water source in the Redwall limestone formation which is the source of Montezuma Well. This new well has tested already at a capacity 600-750 gallons per minute. The surrounding domestic wells and MRWC’s other wells in the area barely produce a fraction of that because they are in the Verde aquifer. Obviously the water sourcing the new well is coming up from the Redwall. United States Geologic Survey and National Park geologists have acknowledged that there is a fault system somewhere between the MRWC well and Montezuma Well. Examination of the geomorphology of the area strongly suggests that this fault system intersects with the new well site.

Montezuma Well produces a volume of approximately 1.4-5 million gallons of water each day. The MRWC well at maximum capacity has the potential to produce 1.08 million gallons per day. They say that they only intend to pump as much water as they can sell to their customers which is much less than that. MRWC has proven that they can not be trusted, and what will the situation be in 25 years, 50 years,100 years??? What after seven generations?

We intend to stop this process and do what ever it takes to prevent this commercial well from going on line.

We need your support. If we allow the greed of developers to kill this national and international treasure then we are accessories to the crime.

March 30, 2010

From:  flshute@hotmail.com