The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is reviewing a 2006 permit it gave the predecessor of the big Villages at Vigneto development in Benson, a corps official has told the Tucson Audubon Society.
But in a letter this week to Audubon, the official didn’t say if it is granting the full reconsideration of the permit that the environmental group wants.
The corps official in Los Angeles wrote that his regulatory staff “is in the process of gathering information and reviewing the circumstances and conditions of the permit in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, within our regulatory authority.
“While I cannot estimate the duration of this review, my staff will notify you once it is complete,” Lt. Col. Dennis Sugrue, acting commander and district engineer of the corps’ L.A. District Office, wrote to Karen Fogas, the Tucson group’s executive director.
A corps spokesman, Jay Field, said Friday no one was available to elaborate on the letter.
Sugrue’s letter comes nearly two months after Audubon wrote the corps seeking reconsideration of the permit on the grounds that the project’s size has grown 50 percent and conditions have changed since it was issued. On Friday, an Audubon official, Christina McVie, said she was encouraged by the letter.
The letter came almost two weeks after the project’s developer, El Dorado Holdings, wrote the agency taking a contrary view. El Dorado’s Michael Reinbold wrote July 2 that 4,139 acres in the 12,300-acre development that weren’t covered by the original permit can be permitted later, “if and when this area is developed.”
The original permit was granted for a project known as Whetstone Ranch, along Arizona 90 near the Whetstone Mountains. Since that time, El Dorado has bought that property from its original developer and renamed it Villages at Vigneto. The permit was granted for 8,200 acres. Vigneto plans to develop 12,300 acres.
Those 4,139 acres not permitted originally will need evaluation to see if a full-scale, Clean Water Act permit for them is needed, he wrote. But development of the 8,200 acres isn’t dependent on a future corps decision on the rest, he wrote.
If the corps adopts El Dorado’s position, the company could develop the 8,200 acres starting as planned in January. But an environmentalist opposed to the project on Friday denounced Rein-
bold’s position as illegal, a sign litigation could result if the corps agrees with El Dorado.
Reinbold wrote the agency on July 2 that development of 8,200 acres could proceed “as its own ‘single and complete’ project.” While El Dorado has presented Vigneto to the city of Benson as a 12,300-acre project, the conceptual land plan for the 8,200 acres effectively remains the same regarding housing density, infrastructure plans and wash impacts, he wrote.
Reinbold’s letter said other documents cited by Audubon in its May 19 letter are “inapplicable or erroneous.” El Dorado will send a more in-depth critique of the Audubon letter and the studies and other documents it cited within 60 days, Reinbold said. The Star obtained Reinbold’s letter under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
The letter’s purpose is “to update you on the project and allay any concerns you may have that the project has changed in a manner that would merit re-evaluation of the ... permit issued to the project,” Reinbold wrote Sallie Diebolt, chief of the regulatory division of the corps’ Arizona branch.
El Dorado’s approach is “a classic attempt at piece-mealing,” said environmentalist Robin Silver. The term is used by opponents when a developer tries to get parts of a project reviewed separately instead of as a single project.
“This is not only immoral. It is illegal with regards to (the National Environmental Policy Act),” wrote Silver, conservation chairman for the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which has separately sought a revocation by the corps of the 2006 Whetstone Ranch permit.
Tucson Audubon is cautiously optimistic that the corps’ letter means the agency will thoroughly review all information available regarding this proposal, said McVie, the group’s conservation chairman.
“We would encourage the corps to do a full environmental impact statement on the project. We’re not just talking about a development but the health of one of the last great places on the planet,” said McVie, referring to the internationally recognized San Pedro River.
“They presented this to the corps as a 12,000-acre master- planned community, and it needs to be evaluated as such,” McVie said.
In other details from Reinbold’s letter:
- The developer’s officials have started discussions with the Nature Conservancy — which the conservancy has confirmed — about a possible groundwater recharge on state land between the project site and the San Pedro River. The belief underlying such water recharge — now done with treated sewage effluent in Sierra Vista — is that it could offset some of the effects of groundwater pumping of the project on the river.
The concept is at a preliminary stage. It’s not known whether the State Land Department would be open to such a project or who would run it.
- While some changes have occurred in the region regarding endangered species and critical habitat, a biologist retained by the company has tentatively concluded the original biological evaluation by Whetstone’s consultant “remains valid” — that there’s no designated critical habitat or endangered species in the 8,200-acre area. The biologist is preparing a new biological evaluation.
Tucson Audubon contends the project needs to go through a full, new endangered-species review with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That’s because since 2006, two species have been listed as threatened in that area and jaguar critical habitat has been designated on 650 acres of the 12,300-acre parcel.
- The developer has shown on maps the location of 1,624 acres that the project will preserve on site, including washes and adjacent buffer areas. The developer will record preservation plans on restrictive covenants.
- The threatened yellow-billed cuckoo has been seen on a 144-acre parcel along the river the Whetstone developer bought as mitigation land. It’s expected the project’s formal mitigation plan will improve the 144 acre-habitat.
