The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering a conservation group’s request to revisit a 9-year-old federal permit authorizing a huge development in Benson.
Tony Davis at Arizona Daily Star reports such a review could seriously delay or theoretically stop the project, but also potentially satisfy many environmentalists’ concerns about it.
The Tucson Audubon Society seeks reconsideration of the federal permit in part because the Corps approved it over objections from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Some objections were raised less than a month before the permit was approved.
Among EPA’s many concerns raised in three letters was the project’s potential to reduce water flows to and dry up the imperiled San Pedro River. That issue remains a hot topic of debate today..
At stake is a federal Clean Water Act permit that the Corps issued for an earlier version of what’s now known as the Villages at Vigneto Project along Arizona 90 southeast of Tucson.
