SIERRA VISTA — The head of a consortium of ejidos in Sonora, Mexico, says the Upper San Pedro Partnership is advanced when it comes to addressing protection of the San Pedro River.

“In our country, we are not advanced as you,” Antonio Cazares Camargo, president of the Union of Ejidos in Sonora, told partnership members on Wednesday.

Because parts of Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora are part of the Upper San Pedro Basin, both countries have a vested interest in ensuring the international waterway is protected, he said.

But what Mexico needs most is financial help, Cazares Camargo said at a joint meeting of the partnership and members of a Mexican water commission.

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Saying “we (Sonora) waste a lot of water,” he said both countries have to help.

James Callegary, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said the U.S. Congress knows the importance of shared water basins in the two countries and approved legislation to help to the tune of $50 million.

Unfortunately, Congress has yet to appropriate the money.

Sierra Vista Mayor Bob Strain, who is the chairman of the partnership, said the importance of protecting the river’s quality and quantity means action must be taken to have the funds appropriated. The $50 million is not only for the Upper San Pedro Basin. It also is available to any shared aquifers on both sides of the border from Texas to California.

“We might make some progress (with work in Mexico) if we had the funds,” Strain said.

Callegary said the U.S. funds have strings attached, requiring Mexico to come up with a 50 percent match for projects, which can be in-kind work or actual money.

Strain made a presentation about the partnership, telling the Mexican guests about what the organization has accomplished and the work ahead for the group.

In response, two members from the Mexican commission briefed the joint meeting about what is happening in their part of the basin.

Omri Flores Sánchez, the project chief for the Council of River Basins in Sonora, said Mexico established a nationwide water commission in 1992. The commission is part of a law that was enacted to promote social responsibility in protecting the country’s numerous water regions, he said.

In the state of Sonora, there are three regions, and one of them includes the Mexican portion of the Upper San Pedro Basin, he said.

The importance for both sides of the basin “to speak with one voice” will ensure solutions will be integrated, he said.

To him, the partnership and the Sonoran equivalent can become the first binational success story.

The basin area in Sonora is part of the Commission of the River Basin of the San Pedro River, Flores Sánchez said. The commission and partnership must “integrate all of our needs we have in the basin,” he said.

What the partnership has learned and shared will be incorporated into how the commission will look at its responsibilities, he said.

Flores Sánchez and Lucas Antonio Oroz Ramos made their presentation using PowerPoint at the joint meeting. As the engineer for the Organization of Northeast River Basins in Sonora, Oroz Ramos said the Mexican portion of the aquifer includes about 30 miles of the waterway’s flow north into Arizona and covers nearly 5,000 square miles.

The two major population centers are Sierra Vista in Arizona and Cananea in Sonora.

Although the estimated number of wells in the Mexican portion of the basin is not as much as the 4,000 to 5,000 private wells in the Arizona section, he said studies of technical information show areas in Sonora are suffering from a cone of abatement, which in the United State is called a cone of depression, meaning water is not reaching the river to the detriment of the waterway, he said.

As drought has impacted the river in Arizona, the same holds true in Sonora.

“We are in an historic drought,” Oroz Ramos said.

For Strain and others of the 21-member partnership, a  consortium  of  federal, state and local agencies as well as environmental groups and local businesses, what is happening in Mexico to help find solutions to the basin’s problems provides hope.

Oroz Ramos said the goal of the Sonoran group is to see if a U.S. member of the partnership can become a representative to the Sonora group and for a member of the Mexican commission to be part of the partnership to have a better dialogue between the two organizations. However, he said, there will have to be authority from the Mexican federal government to allow a U.S. citizen to be a representative.

Callegary said it will be good for both organizations to have a closer relationship because the issue is a transboundary problem.

For Cazares Camargo, working together to ensure the river served the needs of people and the environment is critical and the joint effort will help dispel rumors on both sides of the border.

He noted that in the past many people in the Sonora portion of the basin thought “Sierra Vista wanted to steal the water in Mexico” to support its growth. Now, he said, he knows better.

BILL HESS can be reached at 515-4615 or bill.hess@svherald.com.