San Pedro conservation area.

House Speaker David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, backed SB1268 and dismissed opponents wanting to stop economic growth. He said the area has sufficient water to "put people back to work" if the restrictions are lifted.

"We're starting to talk about intruding on our personal property rights," he said. "This is private property we're talking about. Those are fighting words."

Colorado River - Our Water Crisis- azcentral.com

Numerous groups, public and private, have worked for years to cut groundwater pumping and protect the narrow ribbon of desert cottonwood trees on the San Pedro, an internationally recognized migratory bird attractant that dries up seasonally in spots.

Fort Huachuca has cut its own pumping by two-thirds and spent millions of dollars helping groups such as the Nature Conservancy recharge water into the aquiferwhose springs sustain the river.

Still, pumping drains more than what nature puts back every year, and a University of Arizona hydrology report commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity said the Tribute development would extend the river's seasonally dry stretches by 10 percent.

The development would use about the same amount that Fort Huachuca has given up.

Endangered birds threatened?

Robin Silver, a Cochise County landowner and co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, said undercutting groundwater management around the river threatens not only endangered birds such as the southwestern willow flycatcher, but also the viability of the Amy base.

Rather than drying up the Southwest's last free-flowing river, Silver said, Congress may opt to shift military missions to other Southern posts without such water scarcity.

"They literally have put a bulls-eye on