What was planned as an angry protest turned into a
jubilant celebration on Nov. 18, after Arizona Public Service
agreed to restore Fossil Creek, nearly dry for more than 80 years
(HCN, 11/22/99).
“It’s huge,” says Lisa Force of
the Center for Biological Diversity, which had planned to picket
APS headquarters before the decision was announced. “It’s a first.
A historic agreement to completely restore an Arizona stream.”
Decommissioning the two small hydroplants on
Fossil Creek will restore critical habitat for threatened and
endangered desert fish and wildlife. It will also bring back the
creek’s unique travertine formations, which create dramatic pools
and waterfalls.
Ed Fox, spokesman for Arizona
Public Service, says even without outside pressure, his company
would have decommissioned the facility. “There is an ethic,” Fox
says of APS. “It may not be the same as environmental groups, but
there is a concern for the environment and the social fabric of the
places where we live and breathe.”
APS has
agreed to restore full flows to Fossil Creek no later than Dec. 31,
2004.
As for the center’s demonstration, Force
says, “What we had originally planned as a protest has turned into
a thank you, an APS-we’re-still-watching-you kind of thing.”
*Karen
Mockler
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Fossil Creek will flow again.
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