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A Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit from the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity and other parties that sought a court order to start state proceedings toward designating the Upper San Pedro River Basin as a state-run Active Management Area.

Creation of an AMA in the basin would have required the Arizona Department of Water Resources to set goals and a detailed management plan for reducing pumping along the San Pedro, in the face of declining river flows and dropping well levels. An AMA would also have the power to impose water conservation requirements on homeowners, farmers and other businesses in the area.

The 1,825-square-mile basin covers the river’s watershed north from the Mexican border to the Narrows, a spot where the river narrows sharply a bit north of Benson. It lies about 50 miles southeast of Tucson.

In his ruling Monday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney concluded the environmentalists failed to make the case that ADWR should be required at this time to start work towards creating a San Pedro Basin AMA.

Blaney ruled that an alternative method to creating an AMA is available, so a court order to start work on an AMA now isn’t justifiable. He also said the Legislature gives the state broad discretion as to when it needs to conduct reviews of whether an AMA is needed — even though it’s now been 20 years since such a review was conducted.

“ADWR advocated for this outcome, so we are naturally pleased with this decision. Nevertheless, the matter remains subject to appeal so we will refrain from further comment,� department spokesman Doug MacEachern said Wednesday.

The office of Gov. Katie Hobbs, who was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit and had sought to have her office removed from the case, said in a statement, “We are pleased with the Superior Court’s decision to dismiss this lawsuit. The case was a distraction from the critical work we are doing to protect Arizona’s water.

“Gov. Hobbs remains committed to ensuring we use the right tools to protect our water resources, and has consistently championed a resilient water future since taking office,� the statement said.

Robin Silver, a board member for the Center for Biological Diversity, called the ruling “another sad day for the San Pedro� and said his group will consider appealing the decision to the Arizona Court of Appeals.

His bigger frustration is that the governor has not taken major steps to protect the San Pedro when the ADWR, with her backing, has ordered creation of an AMA in the Willcox Basin and limited housing development in Maricopa County to protect its declining aquifer, he said.

“It’s not comprehensible,� Silver said. “It’s not like the San Pedro doesn’t need an active management area. It does. It’s not like she can’t create an AMA by executive action. She’s already proven she can do that in the Willcox Basin.�

Responding, a spokesperson for the governor said, “The administration is actively monitoring the San Pedro Basin, funding water conservation and recharge measures to protect the river, and increasing cooperation with Mexico via the Arizona-Mexico Commission to find ways to protect the San Pedro River.

“Governor Hobbs is advancing significant reforms across all areas of water management, and is pushing for more tools to protect water supplies in rural communities. While the legislature did not get a bill to the Governor’s desk to reform rural groundwater protections last year, we remain optimistic that a bipartisan solution will be achieved in 2025.�

Silver said Hobbs’ measures amount to “smoke and mirrors� and do nothing of substance to protect the San Pedro now “while the river is dying.�

The river has suffered over the past few decades from a chronic problem of over-pumping of the underlying groundwater that has created a long-term deficit between water supplies and demands. While various conservation measures have trimmed the deficit in recent years, many scientists say the river could or will dry up incoming decades if measures aren’t taken to eliminate the deficit.

In his ruling, Blaney found that the environmental groups filing suit have an alternate means of getting an AMA created — gathering petition signatures in support from 10% of all registered voters in the basin. That would trigger a referendum on whether to create an AMA — the kind of measure that succeeded at the polls in 2022 in the Douglas Basin but failed the same year in the Willcox Basin.

Because the Legislature provided an alternative pathway designating an AMA, “plaintiffs’ argument that this court should issue ... relief against the executive branch is less compelling,� the judge wrote.

Also, Blaney wrote, the state laws that environmentalists relied on in filing their suit give ADWR discretion as to when to conduct a review of whether an AMA is needed.

The law requires the ADWR director to “periodically review� all areas not included in AMAs to determine whether they meet state criteria for creating one, but the law doesn’t say how often “periodically� is, the judge said.

“Although plaintiffs are correct that ‘periodically’ generally means ‘occurring at regular intervals’ or ‘from time-to-time,’ the duration of the intervals is left to the discretion of the director,� Blaney wrote. “Plaintiffs ask the court to improperly substitute its own opinion regarding how regularly the director must conduct the review — a determination for which the director and his staff are better equipped to make.�

Silver said the ruling “doesn’t pass the straight-faced test.�

“There is no way any legislature would pass a law including the word ‘periodically’ based on an expectation that a future review would not be done for decades, especially when the situation on the river has changed so dramatically,� he said.

Attorney General Kris Mayes had taken a similar stance toward the AMA issue in an April 2023 letter to ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke.

Noting that the state had reviewed whether an AMA is warranted in the San Pedro Basin in 1988 as well as in 2005, she added, “Two studies of a single basin in a forty-year period does not satisfy the statutory duty� to periodically review whether an area merits designation of an AMA.