Question 7

Domain: What/who are, or may be, barriers to advancing sustainable economic development in connection with a healthy river, e.g., laws and regulations, property rights, institutional (e.g., ditch companies, water companies, historic uses, etc.), cultural intransigence? Q 7: What or who do you see as current or potential barriers to advancing sustainable economic development in connection with a healthy river( for example, laws and regulations, property rights, institutional like ditch companies, water companies, historic uses, etc.), changing cultural values? (If response is that “there are too many,” ask for top 3-5…interviewer’s discretion)

Having so much land owned by public entities is a barrier. Not having a lot of private property, anywhere in the Verde Valley, not just along the river. It makes it a little bit difficult sometimes. Potential supports...we need to talk about County, too. County is an important potential supporter, too. Laws, regulations, property rights are a barrier, but we shouldn't step on them either. That's something real important to me...individual property rights. I know someone who owns 40-50 acres along the river. He probably has 6-8 acres, 2 miles of river frontage in Cottonwood. He probably would not welcome anyone doing anything including removing invasive species. I can't imagine him going along with that. Those kinds of individuals own that land. I don't know the laws and regulations so I don't know what the barriers would be there. That's beyond my area of expertise. Certainly ditch companies could be barriers. Very difficult. Potential barriers doesn't mean they are barriers, because they may not be. Talk about water companies. They have what they consider to be the rights to their surface water and that certainly is a challenge that has to be dealt with. The courts are dealing with that to a certain extent. That's been going on for 20 something years. No telling how long that will be. Money's always a challenge. I look at our economic times and that's kind of the biggest challenge right now. I really see cultural values already changing. People are starting to think about going green. They have been for several years, going green, being more aware of their use of electricity and finite resources. People are more involved in farming, making their own vegetables and that sort of thing. Which is another sustainable thing is growing your own food, your own garden. Cultural values are already changing. People are becoming more aware, more aware of the value of the river as a recreational resource. I'm seeing it happen, but I don't think it happened on its own. It's because people like you, like me are out there working on it for 20 years. I think the famous shift happened because of all of that. (shared Barb U'Ren's perspective on shift from agriculture to construction and now going back to agriculture) I think that is what is happening. Almost all of the large ranches have been cut up. ???? rented a house at the Verde Ranch in the Verde Villages part of the Verde Ranch, before the Village was here. Grosetas are the only ones that still own large tracts of true ranch land of cattle. Monginis own, but they don't run anything, do agricultural stuff. Andy and Marybeth (Groseta) are so passionate about it. It is their life. The Monginis still have some land in pasture and they still have some animals. They're the only two names that come up as truly being part of the old guard in agriculture. When I think of Mongini, I don't think of them as being agriculture. They were. They had a dairy, down in Bridgeport.I think that the barrier I see is one of ignorance. I think we need to... There are young families that haven't thought about taking their kids to the river. They just haven't thought about it. It's just not experienced based. Those are barriers. I also think that the ongoing balance of environmentalists for the lack of a better word and constructivists, the people who want to draw from the resource as opposed to those who want to protect the resource. I think sometimes both of those groups are

passionate. What it tends to scare off are the people who simply want to enjoy. There needs to be balance in that debate so we don't drive people away from the enjoyment of the river. I see that there could be a balance. I see their ilk. That's my views. The other things that are barriers are laws, regulations, they are otherwise going to be there. I just chuckle when I look at the ditch companies. When I was a kid and grew up in Phoenix, the greatest time was the time you spent in the irrigation ditches, floating down, finding crawdads. I don't know if those are disparate things for kids to learn again. Or learning that the ditch it part of the river. That's my feeling there. I don't know enough about it to tell you what particular pieces.I think as we were talking, stuff was going through my mind. Personally, it lies in the Cottonwood area. I don't know how to get down to the river because I think a lot of it is private property. How do I get down to enjoy the river? Where's public access to the river? Signage. Knowledge. Education. The changing cultural values...yes. The times have changed. Taking them down fishing is still there, but not as prevalent as it used to be. There are possibilities if we have areas developed to do the things like that. With a lot of these schools, Boys and Girls Clubs, to churches, to go have a fishing day with the kids, and have activities set up with kids to talk about the nature of the river...the birding, the birds, the grasshoppers, l the butterflies, and all the stuff that is down there for educational, for cultural and to change the values. If we can capture these kids young and show them the value of this river system and the multi-faceted aspects just in a single river ecosystem. To educate those kids and to educate the adults. Changing the barrier, the dominant paradigm not just with kids, but also with the adults haven't had that experience or have lost it. To take the time to sit down, whether you sit in a chair and enjoy the water running by you and the sound, or have a fishing pole sitting there in the ground with a bell on top, and taking a nap until the bell rings. You can tell I'm speaking by experience. There's a huge potential barrier right now as I've mentioned earlier, I don't know the extreme ins and outs to where I can really expound upon it, but I know that there is a potential of a huge water company...there's 2 huge water companies in Arizona. One of these is trying to get the water rights to the Verde watershed...the name just left me...it's a big underwater system. It's a downriver company that is 120 miles south of us that's trying to claim the rights to all of the water up here, so they would have that. That is one of the, if not the, biggest potential...not even an obstacle...but a hardcore killer to the Verde water system. The Chino headwaters system, Chino aquifer...something like that...it's a huge potential killer to the Verde River. That's at the headwaters. Threatened from both the top and the bottom.I think, I hate to say it, I do love that green backyard. I think ditch companies. This is an interesting one to me. When I lived out in Cornville, we had a well. My brother worked for SRP. I used to...in the beginning in the Verde Valley, you did not have to register your well. You dug a well, and you had a well. And then SRP said you had to register your well. We were furious. What do you mean you have to register...U: And he was my big brother. What do you mean you're coming in to make us register our well, Chip. It's none of your business. So we'd go back and forth on that and so now as you step back, or step aside. You think about if wildcat wells go in every place, you aren't going to have. We didn't know then. Our knowledge base was limited and I think that might still be true. Knowledge bases are limited. You put a well in and think we've got an abundant supply of water and think we're all floating on a little lake and that you can take out as much as you want. So I think some of those issues. I don't know a lot of the laws and regulations. I know when things are grandfathered, you know, what do you do with that grandfathered.U: Again, I think we do in this area, we have a change in culture. It isn't the same as it used to be back when it was really that agricultural and ranching area. So sometimes I think we have to be very delicate in our balance in how do we bring those two together so that they can sustain. That whole industry can pick up. You know there are crops that are not, that don't need as much water as others. Grapes. So

there's a prime crop, absolutely. So this agricultural piece could really come back strong when you think about the wine industry, you think about the restaurants that might serve that wine industry. The organic foods that they might want, local grown. So I think there's a whole piece in there really has not been tapped yet, as a very rich area for tourists to come who are going to be leaving a clean footprint and those industries working together along with the beauty of the area with the whole natural aspect. We've got a prime location for some great things to happen. U: The kids now...they're not farm kids anymore. They look a lot different than they did. Even out in some of our rural areas, those families have moved. Their kids have grown up and they've moved out of the area. So we lose some of that richness of youth coming up and staying and adding their creativity and their energy.

U: That's a real good point because I think it's difficult to get down to the river often times. And then most people don't have a license, a fishing license, don't know how to go about getting a fishing license and that's a very calming activity.U: And maybe that's something we can talk about, something you could do that you could tie in with. Verde River Days has really tied to do that because they have the whole pond that they let people fish in. Then if you do that a couple of times and really kind of promote some connections with the schools. You can do that. Schools are open to those types of things. You could say, "You know what. This is our fishing day." We're going to learn about...you'd have some people who would say "No, I don't want my child to fish." That's okay. At least you've got others. If you don't want to fish, you come and learn about how the habitats work there. Some different things to get people back out to love their area.To me the biggest barrier is just educational. A lot of people don't understand the effect of the river. If you're a landowner, you're so worried that somebody's going to do something to impact you and in a way you don't realize that it could be encouraging and positive for you. And they shut down. That's always a big hurdle for anything. I think people concerned for water usage in general. Education for those that are concerned about over usage but it all come to their education. If people really knew how we could better treat the river and make better use of it, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will run out of water or that effect their land values. I'm not an expert in any of this, by some of the examples that were given, definitely the water companies that are linked. The top three would be the water companies, SRP, municipalities. That would not be a strong question for me to answer. Don't know any laws or regulations. Yavapai County, back to the well situation, I think they've recently...Maricopa County has recently...rewritten those types of agreements for land owners. Again some of them are down at the bottom end of the Verde around the Rio Verde, Fountain Hills area. I'm not sure up here. The county would be a big player.A lot of what you mentioned there can't be overcome as far as institutional philosophy can't always be changed. As far as property rights, that's something that every private property owner that has land adjacent to the Verde River would like to see, some kind of connection to the river other than what they believe.C: Why would they? The private owners 1. want to see the value of their land increase. With a greater education as to the value of the river, they would see that growth exponentially. If you are a landowner and you are next to the river, you automatically have an appreciation for that river to begin with otherwise you wouldn't be there. Was there another barrier?C: Yeah. I think you really hit on it, yeah. We have to realize that it's a cycle. That you have to develop an awareness before you get on to these ideas of a Verde River walk or a sector of the Verde River which is unique and it's cyclical. The more that you begin talking about it, the more that the awareness grows and the more you can do, and the more you can say before it becomes a snowball effect.

State laws dealing with surface water appropriation are based on conditions and realities of the early 1900’s. These need to change to allow better stewardship of the VERDE RIVER. There needs to be a legal mechanism that demands protection of VERDE RIVER flows. The legal disconnect between groundwater and surface water is a real barrier to success. The VERDE RIVER should have its own appropriation, but there is no legal way to do that in today’s Arizona. An Instream flow right for the VERDE RIVER is in order.Invasive species are a real concern. They displace natives and take up a lot of water. Natives “belong” in the VERDE RIVER system, not invasives. He really wants to see the native fish re-established in the river.I think (laugh) is this going to be public? I think there's a misunderstanding a lot of times on both sides of...and I'm going to just go with the irrigation companies, the diversion companies--that take water out of the river. I go to the meetings for the save the river groups and they're all upset at the irrigation companies and I go to the meetings for the irrigation company because we get water from the irrigation ditches and they're all upset about the save the river group because they want to shut down the irrigation company. I think we need to be able to meet in the middle some place. And I know there's a lot of distrust and "this is the way it's always been down and that's the way we're always going to do it". I think there's a way, like I tell the folks at the save the river group when they're vilifying the ditch companies which we are one of, because the Hickey Ditch is almost entirely does serve Dead Horse State Park with 66 2M: 3 of the water rights. And there's a way to...what I tell them is that we need to help the ditch companies to get to their cooperators to learn to water more efficiently because right now the ditches were designed and developed for large irrigation projects. The ranches or farms were big, big, big farms. And they had the rotation so that if I was going to water to start my rotation at midnight, then by God I was up at midnight putting gates in to get my water and two days later my gates were gone and the next person was irrigating. What's happened it those big ranches and farms have been subdivided so much that everybody comes home at 5:00 or whenever and goes to water. They throw in a gate and irrigate their whatever because they can. If they would all follow their rotations, the companies wouldn't have to divert so much water. M: There used to be. Now that they're divided up...there's still a rotation. The example is Cottonwood Ditch. I don't exactly know what the rotation is but from the head of the Cottonwood Ditch where Scott's Crossing was midnight Sunday to midnight Wednesday and then from Scott's Crossing down was from midnight Wednesay to midnight Sunday. So that you had the different times. And now with the ranches divided, everybody just goes out there and diverts.M: There's no way they can do it. There's so many laterals going off there that you couldn't do. That means you have to have so much head to provide the water for everybody on the ditch at the same time. M: The first half would know that they irrigated these days, and the second half would know their days.M: Maybe that would be a way we could help the ditch companies by having some sort of a class to teach people how to irrigate responsibly. For native grass, it doesn't necessarily need to be watered every week. Either put 8" of water on it every 3 weeks. There's ways to help people and I think that may be one way we can help them.M: The Hickey Ditch volunteered to be one of the first ones to do that.M: The down side of that is that we had a while back Jim Allen from the Soil Conservation Service did a study in '79 or '80, looking at different ways to put in diversions that were more permanent and there's a big...like a concrete structure where some sort of French drains or whatever and that sounded like a good idea. But once you put in that permanent structure, if you have to repair, you have to get a 404 and this and that and the other. As historic irrigation structures in the river, if it blows out, you fix it. No permitting required, whatever it takes to fix it. So that's a down side to discourage people from taking

that permanent choice because it makes it so you'd have to take a 6 month process to get a permit to fix your irrigation. It's a matter of the Corps of Engineers having to update their regulations and expedite them so it didn't take 6-9 months to get anything done. Some ditch companies are private and haven't taken any FEMA funds for any of the flood damages because they don't want to have that federal nexus involved with their management process, which I don't really blame them. You can get shut down.It seems like the only thing we've talked about is getting people on a boat on the river as an economic way to make money, right? I haven't heard of anything else. You could have a fishing guide. Somebody that can take people out and catch trout. I've seen or heard of 2 of them around.P: That's really the land, not the river.P: Out of a spring, I don't know.P: No it's the landowners' water. It's not the river's water. It's the landowners' water. It's those guys water who 100 years ago that dug the ditches. They took that water and claimed it and then the subsequent owners today still own that claim on that water.P: They're not going to have any water either. I mean maybe they'll get all of it and the birds won't get any. I don't know how that's going to work. When it comes down to just a ditch.P: Yep. I don't see a lot of new development. Sell the existing places. And it's the headwaters up there in the water management area. Maybe there's not going to be that many new wells. So maybe that's a good thing that a lot of people have drilled wells that they've sold to the city. So the city can get the water and sell it to the people. Maybe there won't be that many more claims on the water that will help sustain the flow. But the more people that tap into it, there's going to be less, right. The more people that have a sprinkler out there, another run, it's going to be gone and won't physically come back. Who knows how much is down there, who knows how big Big Mama is. It may mean that there's enough water there that's going to last us 1000 years. I don't know what those studies, hydrology studies have shown. I know that there's the old water witch guy, Huggins, and his life time studies are all in chartsP: Yeah. He used to have all those charts that showed the magnitude of that flow through the whole Verde Valley and farther from Flagstaff through Prescott. Maybe there's some information there that would be beneficial. I guess the most thing you'd want to know is that we're going to have water. P: I don't know. P: Yeah, maybe Walmart could buy some of the water. One bottle at a time, just dump it in.P: And maybe to protect the wildlife if it gets so low that somebody will drill a 25" wall down into Big Mama at 1200 feet and put in 3000 gallons per minute into the river and solar counts for some money. It it's artesian that hits down on Big Mama, so much pressure, it's artesian. So you just open up the gates and let it flow. I don't know if all the land's going to fall in around it.Exactly why they're doing it. What you're going to come up is a study that's going to make a lot of key points and it's up you to publicize that study. Nothing is standing in the way really. You have financial support now and you're bringing the best brains in the Verde to bear on the subject. There are people who don't want the connection between a healthy river and a healthy economy to be made. It's just a numbers game in any population or group, there's going to be a certain percentage of naysayers and a certain number of people that think you're full of it for trying to do what you're doing. I don't know who they are. I'm not sure this is appropriate for this interview, but you remember the whole thing about sand and gravel and everything. I had my life threatened several times by various people that we both know, some of whom are rather notorious for those types of things. I'll never forget when the dealers of Valley Concrete turned around and donated that parcel that they had in mind to parks. The day that that guy got up and made a little speech about how he didn't use the word, but he clearly had an epiphany about the river and he clearly realized that it was more important to be used in a different way. I almost started crying. That would have been unthinkable back in the day when the status quo was all that they knew. That's what awareness of this river and about this river and whatnot can do to human beings. It can create change in their hearts. How that occurs is somewhat of an artistic process.

I'm not so sure you can say if we do this and this and this, we're going to have XYZ change in this number of people and they're going to step forward. No, you're probably never going to get to that point. You have to have faith in process and you have to know that your faith itself is going to produce the result that your vision sees. It's a fundamental visioning process. If you all believe that that process will work, it will. If people say this isn't worth the time and it's no! t going to work, why are we wasting our time, then it won't work. But if you believe it will work, it will. You have to forge forward knowing that it is half faith as well as half action. That's what we always did back in those days. We just assumed that we just had to put our shoulder to the grindstone and put our head down, put the rope over the shoulder and just tug and go and push and be consistent and say the same thing and make it positive, joyful process of celebrating the river instead of critically berating somebody for their negative behaviors. We tried to really minimize the use of negativity. We tried to create the feeling of satisfaction and enrichment in peoples' lives by having this resource rather they use it once a year or not at all, it's part of the spirit here. It is! Remember when I was running for county supervisor in '92. I had a campaign slogan I dearly loved, "Yavapai Pride". I made up buttons for that. I thought, you know what, this is a fabulous county. Let's just celebrate our pride for this place. Let's not be...we've got problems, but we don't have to run around wringing our hands and going oh woe is us...these problems are insurmountable. If we show our pride and feel our pride and try to live our pride in this place, we can overcome those problems as a people. They're just problems and everybody faces problems. It's the same way with this river. Maybe "Verde Pride" would be a cool thing. Where is your pride in this river and its tribs and all? This is an incredibly fabulous, unique, one of a kind resource that can't be duplicated anywhere in this country. We love water and up in Idaho, there's a million rivers and water coming out of everywhere. There's vast quantities of water, but there's still nothing like the Verde up there. That's a whole different ecosystem. The sense of place...this is the only place like this that there is. Well, this is one that I don't want to be necessarily quoted. Sometimes there's a balance between environmentalists who don't want anything to change and then economic development that requires some change. If we're talking about bringing people in that sometimes kind of butts heads. My thought is that the people who would enjoy the river tend to be a little more responsible. We want responsible tourists. We don't want the kind that are going to trash everything and then leave. I think that for the most part, the people that will appreciate the river are a little more upscale, the wine types, the birders. They tend to be a little more responsible. I think that that's the market that you go for. There are laws and regulations and all that legal stuff. That can kill anything.L: I have not looked at it carefully enough to be able to say specifically. I just heard rhetoric from all sides.I think that some of the ones that I mentioned that all have an interest in it and would be good to promote it if things started going that way and the river started to dry up, they may look at it like we still want the customers but we don't want them to know that information to scare them away.T: It's human nature that what you're trying to sell has some flaws with it that you try to cover that up or disguise it some. But for the good of the whole, it's good to have the river there. Not everybody want's their piece of the pie. Which is in conflict sustainability of the Verde River.T: Even though I'm a law enforcement officer, I don't deal with those type laws very much. I don't know what they are and how those are regulated and enforced.I think the appetite for growth -- one of the things that really concerns me, for example, is the plan of the development of all the state land that is east of Cottonwood. When they came out with their proposal to the state land department of how they were going to develop that it was shocking. There was no plan in there for the sustainability of water or even where they were going to get the water. That's going to have a huge impact on the Verde River and the aquifers and the water supply in the

Verde Valley. So, as a competitiveness between the communities for expanding their boundaries and growth, I see as being a major impediment. [population increase impact] Ultimately, we're going to have to have some population control. We're going to have to determine what our resources are and then we're going to have to put limits in terms of how much we can grow to live within those means.I really don't see any barriers. I think everybody's operating in the context of making sure that it stays flowing and probably the biggest group that is sometimes seen as the enemy is SRP. They really have to make sure that it stays flowing because they have millions of people to serve down in the valley. So, I really don't see a barrier to that. I really don't. I think we have challenges but I think we're moving in a direction -- our philosophy here in Cottonwood is to reuse the water as many times as we can possibly reuse it. That's really the direction we're going in. As much as we can reuse it, that's what we're going to do. We are going to try and minimize our impact on the river as much as possible. We have certainly taken on the perspective, too, or the possibility that we may have to import water. But I think it would be in the con text of making sure that the river stays flowing. Tourism businesses, business development organizationsWell I think historically the mining interests have felt compelled to do things in a very traditional way - kind of a protectionist sort of thing for what they know and appreciate as a sound business practice. But potentially, every single user, shareholder in the irrigation ditches as well. If everybody is just going to fight for a limited resource instead of looking at the ways that we can come together and ensure that it's sustainable, then I think we all have a piece of it. I think you and me and everyone sitting on a small irrigated parcel, we have to think that we're potentially part of the problem or part of the solution and we're going to have to make some conscious choices about that. [what event/organization does this?] Well, I really liked what I saw happening at the Central Arizona Land Trust workshop back in November that was held up on Page Springs area. I thought...Were you at that? [no, I couldn't go that day] There was such a broad spectrum of presenters and it ran the gamut from people that spoke about historical water rights to someone from the county assessor’s office talking about the classification and taxation principles and there were organic farmers and there were traditional farmers and The Nature Conservancy. It just ... this really amazing group of presenters came together and I think that was funded by the Yavapai County Community Foundation. It came through Central Arizona Land Trust. They were the sponsors for it but I think it was a Yavapai County Community Foundation grant. So, I really think that approach, whether it's Central Arizona Land Trust or your organization or somebody else, I think when it emerges from a kind of a grassroots alliance of concerned citizens, to me that is way preferable to a government agency or even a corporate entity doing it. I think if Salt River Project had been putting that workshop on or some other, a government agency, I just don't think it would have had that same feel that it did from being concerned citizens coming together. [education component driven by grassroots vs. corporation for own interest] For me, that's absolutely true and I love the role that the community college has had in that in the citizens' efforts because at the community college you have the opportunity of using the physical space to be really all encompassing with bringing people together and not just using the venue for one particular perspective but over the course of a year, you see the topic addressed with a variety of different presenters. The National Park Service, a year ago, was in there with a 2-day workshop and study around the Tavasci Marsh and then later you have Arizona Town Hall come in and they're looking at the regional impact from another perspective of work that maybe had been done statewide and how that applies in our community. In a month or two I think we're going to have Project CENTRL in there with a regional discussion about the river and our Verde Valley. So, I think that you can have a multitude of conversation. I don't know that there has to be a single source leader emerge from it, but it would be, I think it would be beneficial if there somehow was a repository of information that would help like the average person kind of sort through it or get a sense of what resources were out there. I think it's pretty confusing right now. I could see that you were writing. Yeah, you know that, I don't even know in this age of electronic information, when we say a repository,

you know it might not mean that there's an entire corner of the library at the community college or whatever, but there has to be a place where we really are bringing that information together in a way that someone with a mild interest could start to get a good understanding of it. [complicated and interconnected] If there is so much information or so much disparate information that you can't really make sense of it, then I think the human nature is that you attach to maybe the group that you're paying dues to or the group...you can make your area of commitment smaller because that's what you have to do to make it feel manageable. So, you think, well, I'm a dues payer on the O.K. Ditch, so that's really all that matters to me is the O.K. Ditch getting enough water and do I have enough water for this. And I hope that in the next 10 years that we have a really good way of understanding what that immediate interest and area of concern is and maybe area of responsibility too, but then how you take it out to the bigger sense of community and the region. I really don't want us to lose the river. I don't want us to lose Clear Creek and I think we're going to make some fundamentally different kinds of decisions about how we do stuff. Who did I just mention - those same agencies, the federal government, the state government. They are stopping us from...It's like, I get the impression that any and all government, "I'm here to help you; I can do it better than you can." Really...no. Not at all times. If we can get them to back off. It's like our state parks. We gave them the park because we couldn't afford it. Now, we can't afford it. O.K, give it back to us. You still have pride. If you'll allow the people to show their pride in ownership. But, if you constantly put rules on them they will deliberately, absolutely defy you. You didn't catch me on that one - that's the mentality. There is a lot of them. I think it's more -- you could actually clarify everyone of them and put this same thing -- property rights, therefore you've got government rules and regulations; ditch companies, you've got shareholders and rules and regulations; the water company -- all of them goes to rules and regulations so you do not have ownership of something.Property rights. People. Historic Uses. Changing Cultural values -- you've got some serious, serious barriers because the culture is that no one gives a dam about the river. Do you remember Toxic Tommy Mulcare? Case in point. And, the Mulcares are an old family. They've lived here for a long time. (cannot decipher name), Monginis, these are all ranching families and they don't, I don't think they care a whole lot, and they still pull a lot of weight in that community. And, we know, and this is a state phenomenon and a national phenomenon, that environmentalism at the expense of quick, immediate economic growth -- forget about it. And, unfortunately, quick economic growth is what towns like as well. Toxic Tommy Mulcare - and that guy gets elected to the school board! And, his brother is on there right now. The Grosettas, that's an old family. They're all on my old school's school board. I would say that beyond all the stuff you have mentioned here I would say that it's the old culture, it's the old mentality of "this is ours and ours to use" that's going to be the hardest sale. A lot of the people in the Verde Valley aren't old Verde Valleans anymore. When I was growing up, it was just filling in. But, it wasn't ...the names of (unclear), Mongini and Grosetta..they don't carry as much weight as they used to carry. So, maybe I'm a throw-back. One of the most difficult things about living in the Verde Valley is that you have an elderly community that doesn't want...if it comes down to spending community dollars to protect something, they are not going to do it. Even if it's like a school bond -- I can't tell you how many years we've seen school bonds fail, fail, fail.... It's really embarrassing, but it's a reality,I could almost say "ditto." And, therein lays the challenge. It's just that. The ditches for 200 years, or however long, and it's worked this way for a 100 years, why not let it work the way it's been working but... I do not sit on any of the ditch boards but I have worked for the Verde Ditch company back when I was in college. I did work with Mr. Maybery under the adjudication for the Eureka Ditch and the Verde Ditch back when I was still in college and needed a job. Well, I guess, I'm not pointing fingers, but the issue, the biggest problem with ..the potential barrier is ignorance. If people were informed about the dire consequences of a dry river or seasonally flowing river, they might act more rationally and not as much in their self-interest. So, I would guess ignorance

and greed are the two biggest barriers to fixing the problem -- and Arizona state law needs to be updated. It's antiquated. If you look at the ditch system, which, I believe that the ditch companies are moving in the right direction. That is an old system that needs to be revamped and looked at. Aside from the laws, which, of course, those are a product of, let's say you looked at how this country has changed and grown technologically and in many other areas since 1870, and then you look at the ditch systems in the valley, and they are like the Iron Age. I mean, would you want to go a dentist in 1870? That's how antiquated these systems are. So, I'd rather go to a dentist now rather than going to a dentist in 1870 and having a tooth knocked out with a hammer after a half pint of whiskey. These things need to be brought up to modern times like everything else. Changing laws is tricky business because people have vested interests, vested rights and so, I don't know if it is an insurmountable problem, but it's definitely a problem. You know, you can't say that this is anybody's fault; or we should have done this or should have done that. It's hard. Once systems become entrenched, it's hard to pivot and none of us like change. We don't like it when the hot water heater goes out or the tire gets flat on the car or your kids get the measles. It's a hassle. And, this is one of those things. It's hard to adjust quickly. That's how tires go down -- not adjusting quickly enough.Well, I certainly agree with the property owners rights. That will be the first one that will come up. All of the property along the river is privately owned. And those people think it's their right to fence things off; fence people out; and so it's a hard case scenario to divide property rights is against everybody else's access to the river, that's already been proven. There just aren't many places that you can get to the river which is o.k. as long as we do have some access but you can't go very far south on the river without running into all kinds of fences and things...you can't get through. So, I would think with that your key there... Examples read for questionnaire -- all those things have their effect and have to be balanced out. I see it more as a balancing out than I do as any kind of a real, how can I put it...It's like a ball is suspended from a string and there are all these different forces. It will move back and forth depending upon how active and how involved, and again that's the consumer of the benefits from the river. If this group of consumers decides they like this better and they plunk more money down, well then the ball will come in their direction. And then, the other entities, if they really want it back, then they are going to have to ante up to keep it in balance but it's a moving situation and I don't...even so far as legislation on the use, that can change it drastically and swing it way to one side. But, it will drift on back as the rest of the world wakes up and says, "Wait a minute; we want our share back." [example] Let's just say that the traditional use of the water by the ditch companies...that's one of the major issues of the water in the river, and it has been dominant for so long and now that are challenges made to it and that's going to affect it. I don't think it's going to stop people from irrigating, but it may affect the way that we take the water out of the river and the way we use it. [abuses to use of irrigation - regulations by ditch company] It is used in the historical allocation -- that controls the way that it is used. Now, what happens with that water once it goes in the ditch - whether it's used to irrigate a crop or it's used to irrigate a yard, if the agricultural production were compensated in an appropriate way or an appropriate amount for its product, then there would be fewer yards and there would be more agricultural production. But the truth of the matter is that the value of the agricultural production is so limited that people can afford, nibble onto that, and turn it into a yard which is not productive in terms of agricultural production but in terms of increased land values and tax base to the community it may be more productive. It's so involved and it is such a complex structure. It would be very simple for people to take a portion of their yard...it would take such a small area of their yard to produce a significant amount of their produce but until somebody comes up and demonstrates to them in a way that there is some social or economic or cultural advantage to growing their own and eating their own vs. growing and buying it at Bashas or at a farmers' market, wherever, they are not going to do the work that's involved with growing their own food. [cost of production] I'm eating butternut squash every night that I grew last summer that is sitting

out there in the garage where storage is no problem whatsoever and for, well what’s packet of seed cost, for a $1.89 I can grow enough squash to feed the two of us in just a little bed alongside the house if I wanted to and it is so simple. Now, what is the value of butternut squash if you buy it at the store now -- probably $1.29/lb or something like that. So, I eat a hundred pounds of squash in a year ...some people don't like it...and it's so good. Again I think that the transparency is there but I don't think people, they just don't ...people just aren't motivated that way. It just isn't important enough to them and for things to get bad enough...I think back to the Depression in the 30s. People survived by what they could grow beside their house in their yards and gardens and they had no choice. It wasn't available to them. They could not afford .. in other words, if it were to the point now where people couldn't afford to go up to Bashas and buy that squash then they would be a lot more interested. But then if things are that bad and you've got it growing in your yard and go off to work, what's going to happen to it when you're gone? Somebody is going to come in a take your squash. Back then there was a granny that lived in the house and she knew how to use the shotgun behind the door to get the varmints -- two and four legged ones -- out of the garden. You know the old vision of the hand coming up and taking the pie off the windowsill -- that was based in reality. If you set your pie on the sill to cool, somebody might come along and take it. So, that's how hard things, how bad things worse. They were desperate. And so, I would rather that we have obesity and people be lazy and eat out of Bashas than have that kind of desperation again. So, that's why I say. It is not a matter of trying to deal with that end of the spectrum. We are dealing with the people who say, "Well, I'm not going to eat that crap. I want good stuff and here is what I'm willing to do. Either I'm willing to pay the premium price or do it myself and have this good." But, that's a very, very small portion of the population. I don't think there is any way that you are going to educate or convince or change that mass of people. Bashas and Walmart exist because people use it. If people didn't use it, they wouldn't exist. When they say they say want to be involved with fresh produce and local produce, and so forth, they are saying we are luring a few more customers into our store and this is our goal. [local restaurants buying local produce] If I had a restaurant, I would not be interested in doing that for the simple reason that it's not economically feasible, there is no consistency in production, there is no consistent quality, there is nothing that you can count on. The supply is not there. There are a few restaurants that base their system on that [elite customers] and they do well with it, but overall I don't see Bashas produce department buying from the likes of me because my production is not regular. They can't call me up and say we need three cases of something and 'bing' it's there. They cannot efficiently operate by saying, "We had better call Frank and see if he has some pecans this week." But, your customer has to be seasonal and they are very much driven by what they saw on the last TV program or a recipe they saw in a magazine and when they go into a store and want coconut, they want it now. If they say, "Well, coconut is not in season right now, darn..." Somebody complained the other night that they when they go to the farmers' market everybody has tomatoes and potatoes but nothing else...there is no broccoli and no brussel sprouts. Well, in the summer broccoli and brussel sprouts won't grow here. "Well, why not?" And so, I really don't see that happening. That's why I have moved...most of the pecans that you see for sale at Costco and those sorts of things at a tremendous price have been in cold storage for one, two or even three years. They've come out of freezers. The Chinese bought the entire crop -- almost the entire crop from this country for the last two years, put it in containers, took it to China, put it in bags, sent it back and undercut us. I always say there would be very few housewives if American males had to pay the true cost of them. Two barriers are see are: 1) limited access to the river and the resources that we're talking about to create a draw; and 2) if the resource starts to disappear. If you travel to San Pedro, you will see, and if you look from my understanding -- I have to look at photographs because I did not travel the San Pedro 30 years ago, but there is a vast difference between what I see in pictures and what the San Pedro is right now. There are countless rivers in this state that are washes now that were, at one time,

perennial. There may be different reasons that they've gone dry but I'm more concerned about the reasons that ours' may go dry. [how do we graphically display diminishing resource of rivers?] We have, the Wild and Scenic steering committee that I'm a part of, we have a display right now it's, I believe 40' long, in the Prescott Library, and in that display photographs of the streams that have gone dry and scientific data have been posted next to each other showing indications that we're moving in that direction. One of the presentations that the Partnership's Outreach Committee has, one of our members, a geologist, he's working on a second presentation right now which we'll review Friday, but his first presentation that he did a number of presentations for organizations, was about a reach below Camp Verde that data shows dries up. It's between two gauges -- one owned by SRP, upstream is USGS and downstream is SRP, those two gauges show a little stream segment in the worst part of the summer and what we always understood to be the richest part of the resource goes dry. Where all the tributaries come together above it, it still goes dry. That's really a matter of our human uses of it. [positioning of display] The first display is separate from the information from the geologist is giving to other folks, although he is on both committees. But the visuals are what you are asking about and that visual has had its first stop in Prescott. We're looking to where to figure out where to put it in its second spot and my though is April is Water Awareness in Sedona. I would like to put it in the Sedona area. That meeting room in the Sedona Library has a lot of traffic during water awareness month. And, I'd like to have that on the wall there so the folks who visit can go through the interpretation of photographs. [do people in Sedona relate to the Verde River?] We're talking about over 10,000 people so I can't say yes or no. There are people that I deal with from Sedona that certainly understand the connection. And, then there are people that understand there is a connection with Oak Creek and the Verde River which is certainly is a huge contributor to the Verde River and they understand the responsibility of being on that leg of the basin. But, the overall public, when you talk about the Verde River in Sedona, I think there's a sentimental attachment to it because those are the people that are also sympathetic to the natural resources -- the red rocks around them, so they have an understanding of the value of natural resources. I don't think, even though there are a number of people the disassociate themselves from the Verde River because they are physically outside of the Verde Valley, I think, for the most part, citizens in Sedona recognize the connection. [can the display be replicated] For money. We have spent $2,000-3,000 of the Walton funding to put that together and we could probably duplicate it if there were enough venues. What we're going to do at the end of the month we have to take it out of Prescott and we're moving it so it is, we were just discussing night before last, how we can make it more mobile. There are dozens and dozens of photographs. It's not mounted on one piece. I'd like to see it mounted on one board so that it can be moved. It would be wonderful. I pointed to a couple of venues. I don't see anything viable in Camp Verde but the Cottonwood Parks and Recreation building, I'm not familiar with the building itself but if there's a place there, there is more traffic in that building than there is in Walmart. I would like to see it placed there for a while. [other venues -- why not Walmart, Bashas, Frys] Well, for this type of educational display, there is not enough wall space. Any commercial concerns utilize their wall space for revenue. They don't leave blank walls anywhere. It would work if we could put it in a place like Walmart but you're not going to find a 40' blank wall anywhere in Walmart except maybe on the outside of the building. Well, again, I'll just say that disappearing resources is the greatest barrier. Even the potentially disappearing resource. If you have investors just a scenario which is not actual at the moment, but, if you have investors that are going to build a business around ecotourism to the point of say actually having funds sunk into stationery objects, whether it be a particular type of resort geared towards that near the river or some of the streams, then utilizing that mindset or that business plan geared towards a resource that might start to disappear if the river volume is going to drop and what they're generating their business off of starts to dissipate in one way or the other, the birds or less fishing or whatever they point to for attractions starts to disappear, why would they even consider investing in something like that when it's not a sure thing.

I think the ditch companies are very, very -- I'm the vice president on the Diamond S Ditch -- it's like walking on glass in some of these meetings when we mention measuring the water. You mention one of the individuals who can be regressive and stubborn - those kind of issues need to be. They are such a big water user and big component of just straight water coming out of the river. Water companies I'm not as concerned about. I do have concerns with the actual water companies and their use but I think the ditch companies are clearly one of the biggest straight drainers of that water and I see a lot of waste and inefficiencies and to get them to ... But they are so historically stubborn and protective that it's going to take some time to educate them -- the members of the ditch companies as to ' hey, nobody is taking your water rights away' and there is so much overuse of water. When I drive around, people are pouring far more water than they need. They think this is an Amazon. The amount of water they're putting on their lawn is like the Amazon. Well, no, you don't need that much water -- that often and that deep and there should be some efficiencies. Again, this goes back to the agriculture value. They need to be educated about what crops are more appropriate to be grown and that's what actually concerns me about pecans because they are actually very big water hogs and maybe some of us should be taking down our pecan trees and planting grapevines. The grapes, though are not cool. The trees, the volume of water that a tree takes is a great deal more but I also think once the trees are established, they don't need to be watered as much as people are watering them around here. Their root systems are very efficient so a decent orchard doesn't need the volume of water that a lot of people are putting on here. Again, the need for education. A lot of these people don't get it. They don't need to water every week and put 6" of standing water on my yard. Also, so much of that water then requires over-fertilization because they have washed all the nutrients out of the soil by putting so much water on. That water is going into the water table with all those nutrients and it's going down into the water table so they end up over-watering and then being forced to over-fertilize ...and contaminating the river and costing themselves more money and more time because they are having to go out there and irrigate. They don't think that's costing them money, but it's costing their time and they're over-fertilizing because they have to compensate for the fact that there is no nutrients left in the soil. [changing demographics in region- educating newcomers to the region] I think it's nice. The Chamber doesn't have newcomer packets. I think it's nice to do that. On our ditch we started ...when a new person comes in they will be handed -- we want to give them a couple page synopsis.

There are people on our ditch. There's no way, after 50 years, you're going to tell them how to irrigate. You can do all you can but they're not changing their ways. But a new person coming in we can say, 'hey you can water once a week...you only need this much water...and maybe if you level your yard...and maybe you should plant these things vs. these thing's and we're trying to get that out to new owners on the ditch but that's a slow process because a lot of people say we shouldn't tell them how to water. A new person will be happy to have a one-two page about how to irrigate. How do you test if your soil is flat or not. We got a handbook from USDA I think which is the classic hand/soil test where you just grab the soil so we've been passing that out to people. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that your ground has plenty of

water. A simple map I've been trying to promote -- let's get that map out about how important the river is...it would show us here's where we were 50 years ago and here's where we are now and this river is really special.First of all, the people who trash it and I don't know if there is really a place that would be easy to take a family to. Yeah, we can go over to the Deadhorse if you have money you want to spend that day. But, I think money is a big thing, just access. I can't take my mom and dad to the river because my mom can hardly walk. I don't know of a place where she could get out and enjoy it without having to buy a pass. I wish we had a nice river walk... You know, I wish there were some...maybe it's an interpretation thing. What would happen if we had a park? I don't like to go on the water any more. I used to canoe every day after school in Minnesota when the water was not frozen. Otherwise, we had snowmobiles that we were on all the time. So, I grew up on a river. I've always lived on water. But, anymore because of something that happened, I don't go on the water any more. I just can't. But, I don't mind being by it. I love to hear the lullaby that we're hearing in the background -- the melody. But, what would happen if we had a free place where we could go and do...and paint...or identify bird sounds or, I guess a lot of people fish...or have a picnic like we did today. We couldn't be by the water. And, maybe because this is such a flood plain -- I've been here when you couldn't really walk out here. But maybe there is a part of the river where there is less flood plain and more banks. History. We could add some history to it. You know, I've been working on a family history. I found all of these bits and pieces and pictures and I've put together stories about each person and hopefully made a personality and history and story out of a photograph. Maybe we need to do that to personalize the river so that we can remember, "oh, this is where the so-and-sos used to have their place" and help us connect better that way. I think probably laws and regulations. I'm thinking of water rights. I'm thinking of, for instance, here in Camp Verde, how you have your historic water rights but those are always tweaked and messed with by the ditch companies and when new development comes in they are tweaked or the rights are traded. They are not appreciated and measured and so that ... I also, on a bigger picture I would worry about the forests because the forest service was actually originally created to protect watersheds...that was kind of what it was about and so I worry on a grand scale when lands are traded or they mess with those you are going to lose something that's not going to be replaced. You may be able to save a piece of it but you're giving away a bigger piece and it's all connected. So, I worry about those on the bigger scale and, then, of course, on a smaller scale you worry about your own community and how water is utilized, divided up and protected. I guess that's about the main things. There are always the water companies that are owned by towns and things - that probably isn't going to change for a while. So, you just would hope that on a larger scale that it would be appreciated and that would trickle down to your local - and I guess that's what you hope for.I guess barriers are not understanding how to use the river in a way that is sustainable and that comes from peoples' lack of understanding of the river. [understanding developed] Well, certainly we have to educate the water users -- the people who irrigate and sprinkle -- even the dry people. They're not "irrigating" like we irrigate, but they are still taking water. They don't have the understanding as much as, I think, we even do because we're official irrigators so we're given information about the irrigation

adjudication, concern about The Big Chino, and all these litigations that are going on. Now I know that SRP is working with the Eureka. It's fascinating. I don't know if it's good or bad but at least it is a step where they are communicating. People also have to be willing to listen; to be willing to understand. For a lot of people, they've got bigger fish to fry right now - they are trying to feed mouths and save homes. So, you can just keep giving them the information and hope that 10% of it sinks in. [what businesses here rely on or derive income from river -- other than farmers] I'm guessing when we have activities on the river everybody benefits. Specifically, the canoe races. That has to bring some economic boom for the day. Or, any time people come and fish or swim in the river they are bringing some money into the area. I don't think we do much other -- other than the canoe races, do we? Not Camp Verde. [regional use of the river] I have been to Deadhorse State Park a couple of times. I don't go there very much. I use ours a lot because of Lillee. We walk down to the river a lot and even without Lillee sometimes I vary my walk and I go to the river and go clear up to the bridge and do a lot of walking around the river. I cut through Whitakers and walk all the way up to the bridge. I can walk down and go around Grants. But they just now fenced off so I can't get around it. I have to get out at Mrs. Edge's now. It used to come out at Grippen. But now it's all private property and you can't get out now. The other use of the river is quading. I don't know if you've ever done this, but on the full moon night, or something that's white bright in the summer time, when it's hot as the dickens, if you go out to Verde Lakes and take a road that takes you all the way to the river and then you go straight down to the river bed, you can cross the river on your quads because the river is down in the summer time, and it is like an oasis -- it is just trees like this and there are paths through the trees and it's like a tunnel. The temperature drops; we stay on trails but there are tons of trails back there. You eventually will come out at Beasley Flats. It looks like a riparian area because there are a lot of marshes but you just stay on the path so that you don't get into any mud or anything like that. We love to do that and look forward to doing that every spring and summer. We pack a lunch and do it. The other one that we do is out on Salt Mine Road. Instead of making that sharp left where you go to Beasley Flats, you go straight and there is a ranch down there and a state park and I can't remember the name of it...Rockin...no it's like a one name... Brown Springs and that takes you to the river. And, the river is huge. There are trails...but I believe it's a State Park. So, you have an area where we will get off the road and park our quads and then walk to the river. And there are these enormous sandy beaches. So, we've done a lot of exploring. I used to do horseback but I can't do that any more -- the horse is too old so now we do a lot on quads. It's a long way -- probably 10-15 miles -- I believe it's called Brown Springs. You can look it up in one of your books. [sustainable economic development and how do these opportunities play into the river] I think that if it's managed to protect the river, to encourage people to use it recreationally, I'm find with it because I think if you use it, you appreciate and you'll take care of it. I think a lot of people use the river that we don't even know about. I'll tell you a really quick story. When I went to get Lillee's picture taken at Sears, the fellow that was taking her picture noticed I was from Camp Verde. He said, "I'm from Prescott. When I was a teen ager all of us kids always went to Camp Verde several times a year so that we could pay in the river." I don't know that we realize how many people use the river that are not from here. It would be nice to measure that. The biggest one is my perception, coming from the outside, knowing Arizona a little bit as a kid. The one that seems to hit me pretty hard right now is the political barrier to change -- drastic change in water right policy or water right law. If we all understood it well enough to know that, I think there is a resistance to changing it. Frankly, if the water right law, unknown...unknown quantity, there hasn't been...and I was listening the other day about this...this thing that TNC was talking about and trying to establish some of those right values and this kind of stuff. I thought, you know, has anybody decided how big the bucket is? You know, let's assume...and I'm trying to use some easy understanding. We know how many trees are out there to cut down to burn. But, do we really grasp the concept of the water right and its ... It's not inexhaustible. It's not sitting there waiting to tap forever. What is the

quantity in the Verde? What is the quantity in the state of Arizona? And then, from that becomes the ... I see that as a very difficult thing where in Colorado it's almost a known quantity. It's not quite on the river that was a free-flowing river. But, if you go to the Colorado River system, it's known exactly how much they think, they may be wrong, but they've said what is 'one' and everybody has a piece of 'one.' Even if they're wrong, it's a known quantity and I think getting to that point, we may never be able to do that in Arizona and that is a sad thing because ultimately when you don't make a line in the sand that says, "this is all the water we've got" you will inevitably keep pushing that to a point where you only know...until you run out. The question says, 'sustainable.' I think that's it. I don't know that it couldn't be done individually. I don't know that it couldn't be basin-wide. There is a lot of other things that will have their fingers in the pie. You list several of them. I don't see those, and maybe it's the law and regulations, or establishing some level of how big the bucket is...I think that until we get to that, all the other barriers, I think, can be done through education or otherwise in showing the benefit of establishing some level of "here's the bucket and we want to make sure we keep the bucket full at a sustainable level." Until we decide how big the bucket is, I don't know that the arguments with a ditch company, will be...it will have some level of effect, but it certainly doesn't go to a sustainability of our life and the economics here. It may keep us from getting to that inevitable point at which we run out, and then we realize how big the bucket actually was. But, and it may make that longer until Kingdom comes, so to speak, but I think until we've decided that ultimate size of the bucket and we do some good work there, the sustainability efforts are all just relative to trying to keep and prolong that little bit of the apple. Eventually, you will eat the whole apple. We can do everything to keep smaller bites to get so that the apple lasts us longer, but until we decide how big the apple is, I think that, unfortunately, we don't know if we've reached sustainability until we've decided what we think is the sustainable pumping or the amount of water, etc. I know that's a very technical look at the river, in my mind, but it's the one that I think, to go to me personally, my concern to be able to do my job in the state of Arizona through the rest of my career, it scares me. If I was to move to some other community, it still scares me that we haven't established some level that I could be comfortable that when the clock runs out, or the water runs out, that I'm not going to be stuck holding the bag and say, "Well, it's your fault." So, that's the kind of stuff that I think goes against the sustainability factor.The laws and regulations are getting out of hand. They're starting to cost more money than they're worth. Almost every law we have that has to do with development has to do with the automobile -- streets and things like that. The infrastructure that is created with that system, in the first place, costs quite a bit of money if the developer puts it in, which usually they do. The maintenance cost to that, the replacement of it over a period of time, is far more than its initial cost. That's one of the main things that are breaking communities right now. They can't keep their infrastructure up. They can't afford it. They've done every mistake in the world and they just keep doing it. Now, what does it take to change things? Maybe this is what it takes - they're going broke. Same barriers there have always been -- the Town of Camp Verde. We've had so many opportunities for economic development here that the town refuses to cooperate. I understand they want controls and responsible growth, but that doesn't necessarily mean... What they're doing is saying, "Well, we only want certain businesses. You can't...business will come as business comes. You can't say, "Well, I'm sorry we don't you, but we want you over here." You take what you can get if that's what your object is -- economic growth. Some of the business that I know have been just stymied have said, "Forget it, we'll go elsewhere." It's been clean businesses. One in particular was the K-Mart warehouse. They were very adamant. This is great. We want some place as close to the middle of the state as possible, on the interstate. It was a warehouse. They were not producing anything; they store and ship it out and it would have been a hub that employed anywhere from 500 to 1,000 people. It's not just the town. I know with K-Mart, for example, I know one of the stumbling blocks was that where they wanted to build, the land belonged to Henry Shill and Henry didn't want ... He was willing to cut loose with it, but

he wanted money ... a lot... I understand K-Mart going, if they'd got more concessions from the town, they probably would have took it, but with no concessions from the town...the town wanted basically everything...they wanted to rape K-Mart Corporation and, at the same time, Henry Shill was not budging. [available infrastructure] A lot of it had to do with no sanitation. The water wasn't an issue because K-Mart knew, they probably already had hydrologists on board who said, "We can put our own well in. We don't have to worry about town water." So, it was sanitation and the town not willing to concede. They could very well have put a septic system. Think about it, how much sanitary does a warehouse system need? They're not a hotel; they could have put a septic system in or even a water reclamation system that they put all over the world. The sanitary system goes in and works as a septic system but reclaims it and then that water is used for landscaping or whatever. But the town was willing; they weren't pushing the county and county controls, it was just a "we don't really care" and when business, especially a corporation like K-Mart says "We're not getting anything from them and we've got Tolleson over here who says we'll give you whatever you want, you know, because we want you here because we know it's going to promote not only jobs but other businesses coming into this area which is basically bare farm land..." It was right to 67th Avenue and lower Buckeye. In the past, they just didn't care. It was that push of "we really want to stay a small community." You want to stay a small community, but your children grow up and can't work here. They have to leave this small community to actually survive and work someplace else. You know, when it comes to construction trades, the only trade that actually employs and they employ outside of the town... If you look now, the huge, huge employers of this town which were all the construction and large construction companies, are gone. They had nothing going; even the big excavation companies like Rocky Construction, Mulcare, Fane, which not only in this county, but covered the entire state and adjoining states in road construction are dead and no work. McDonald Bros. is still open but they have no work. [sand and gravel] They had a little bit on the Burbacher property. Burbacher was nuts but C. A. McDonald made his money from Burbacher. When he basically built the farm and the catfish farm and the ponds and in doing so, he pulled the aggregate from the Verde, there at Burbachers to build all this stuff that Burbacher wanted. They he sold all of that aggregate and built his own business through that. But, basically, Ralph made C.A. because when he needed his work done, C.A. is the one who did it. There are two big lakes out there. C.A. made them and Burbacher subsequently drained them because he was an idiot. I think we have conflicting...we have people who want economic development; they can't figure out why Cottonwood is what it is and why Camp Verde is not. They want what Cottonwood ... the tax base. Every town employee wants tax base because we want a job and we want our pay increase back, our raise we want what we were promised when we took a job here. And then you have people who want to stay a small community. You can't have that both ways. And, I haven't paid attention...I don't know how our currently council is working. I don't know where they are leaning. I have talked to the new town manager. He understands. You can't be saying that. We don't have a tax base...the base we have right now is retail driven. If you don't have that, you don't have a town because the state and federal monies are going away. Property tax goes solely to the county and that's gone up exponentially for the last four years. Well I think most of it is...A lot of it has to do with the attitude, to me, is of our local government because the local government is to serve the people with services. People want police protection; people want infrastructure to get water and sewer to them which is done by the local government and other services and so the local government is dependent on taxes and in order to get taxes you need people to own property or live there, so to say, so it's a kind of a catch-22 type of thing. I think you might have some leaders that maybe are sympathetic but, maybe, at the same time, the general public wants all these things and it takes money to run it so more and more real estate, more and more companies to come in to support that system so, you know...I guess a lot of times it's, to control it would

be for your general public to say, "yes, we'll allow this kind of a company to come in versus this other kind of a company." [having the fortitude and political will to account for health of the river. Yes.Probably the only way that I'm involved with regard to my clients is flood insurance. I know that things have changed so that, area in Rimrock, for example, where people built and they were never in a flood plain and all of a sudden they are in that A zone, which you know is the highest flood. For me, I would not want to purchase property in a flood plain. I've seen that from the insurance standpoint enough that I wouldn't personally want to live through that. But, I think that, so you always have the concerns about building. You know, if you're going to try and do some type of tourism, you would want to make sure that it's close enough to the river to use the benefits that it offers, but far enough away that you're not going to be in a flood plain because that would require flood insurance. [what are benefits of the river?] I think it's beautiful and it's green which keeps things cooler. For people who fish and boat, I think it's wonderful. And, a lot of people want to live right on the river and they don't care that they're in a flood plain. To me, with all my years in insurance and seeing floods happen and that kind of damage, I would not personally...and I grew up in Michigan so I had water all over the place. So, I don't view it in the same way that a lot of people do, I suppose, because for us the river, lakes everywhere, you know we just had water every place, so I don't miss it particularly here and I don't really seek it out, I would say. But, I think that's unusual. I think more people, especially people who hunt and fish would be... [attracted to Verde Valley?] I didn't move here by plan. I was a State Farm agent in Pennsylvania and my mom is diabetic and epileptic and almost died and I called State Farm and said "anything." I'll take a lateral transfer; I'll take a pay cut; scrub floors in the regional office... She lives in Tucson and I just said I'll be within driving distance so they could have put me almost anywhere. I like where I live. Actually, I live in Sedona and I think it's a really pretty part of the state. I love that we get the change of seasons, but we don't get tons of snow. I wouldn't live in Flagstaff for that reason. You know, we're not so hot, like the Valley, which I would have a hard time dealing with also. So, I think we have a very moderate climate which is really nice and you know, housing is, relatively speaking, not as bad. I think we, and this isn't the topic of your conversation, but I think our educational system could be improved greatly which I'm sure is no surprise. I just think with Camp Verde, particularly, we have, and we've talked about this before, we're half-way between Flagstaff and Phoenix. What a perfect location...we're right off the freeway and yet we do nothing, I don't think, to draw people in. And, as I said, there's probably a lot more immediately around us that I don't know about because I haven't sought it out. But, I also think that if we actually had some type of tours where people could come up from Phoenix for the weekend, or even for a long day trip, and be shuttled from place to place, and see Montezuma Castle, the Well and Out of Africa, I think it would be wonderful and I think we could capitalize on that. But, it doesn't seem there is an audience to do that so...The water rights questions - both on ditch diversion side and the Holocene alluvium side. We are pumping water out of the river zone. If we had a well right here where we are sitting it could be seen as pumping water out of the river that we don't have a right to. It has to get sorted out. It's a potential barrier for sure but I don't know if it will end up being one - it could. I also think that at some point we are going to look at the beneficial uses of the water and we may look at things that aren't being farmed differently from areas that are being farmed. It seems like landscape wise we could encourage lower water use for the beauty side - to landscape our places. But I think when you tell people that we are growing to say we want to grow food too. So, we teach them how to grow food. There are a lot of pecans around here -- it is a water consumptive crop but it has historically been here and people here know how to manage them. They do have value. The pecan and wine festival is another tourism opportunity that I didn't mention earlier. There are opportunities. But for the people who don't have sheep or horses or things like that but they're flood irrigating their property each time - I've heard lots of stories about water being applied - a lot more than is needed. So that, I think, that could be a barrier in the fact that we are not using the water resource that we have to its full potential. Rights...Use it or lose

use are ways to look at it. I really don't think that the ditch companies are really trying to stand in the way of anything. They are just trying to defend their historic rights. Personal property rights - that's a huge issue here in the Verde Valley in general. The traditional population here really sees it as their valley and with an influx of newer population moving in, there has been an 'us and them' mentality created and whatever we can do to dispel or brush that aside a bit more is going to be a good thing too. But there are plenty of laws and regulations -- two that I mentioned - pumping and health and safety regulations...so anyway there are... it's a difficult thing to do because historically the people in this valley do not collaborate well for whatever reason - I don't want to try and guess what that is. I imagine it revolves around personal property rights and tenure on the land - that seems to be the driving factors. If people w/tenure on the land can start seeing things from the eyes of the new people and new people listen to stories about historic uses of the land,...that's the reason I mentioned Andy Grosetta -- I always encourage Master Gardeners to have him as a speaker because he brings it right down to the rich history and why the valley is here, ditches are here and people are here. It isn't because of the beautiful place that it is but because of its' ability to produce food, minerals, fiber and meat and all kinds of products. Just because I'm here now I don't have the right to tell people to stop doing that. I don't hear as many complaints any more, Jane, about public land grazing -- I don't hear as many as I used to and every time I do it's real easy for me to try and tell people how sustainable range grazing really can be. And so people do not like to see cow pies next to the stream and things they recreate on and that's understandable to a certain extent. But on the other hand, all of the wildlife species do their business there as well. It's a redistribution of nutrients and actually if you have a healthy riparian system it can buffer all of that. Anyway...I'm probably rambling.Interestingly enough, this one was in a very similar discussion with Steve. I talked about property owner rights. I would truly see that as a potential barrier because people don't want, you know, folks walking along their property to get to the Verde and that's the part that still confuses me because you can't own a waterway, so how can you stop somebody from accessing a waterway? Because, once you enter that waterway, you're really on nobody's property and so that would be the one thing that I would see as a potential barrier are the property owner rights. And, getting cooperation from those property owners and helping them understand that they are not going to have 50 million people, lots and lots of people traipsing through their property. It would be something that would be controlled, limited, maybe there is a way to put a gate up that they know that this is the only way they can access. That way that property owners, you know the rest of their property, isn't being marked up or utilized or whatever. We always forget about the critters that are along the river. They have to have a home. Laws and regulations, probably. I don't know the laws and regulations with regard to the waterways other than the fact that I know you can't own one. But, maybe if they're more friendly toward the property owner and vice versa, you know if there is some cohesiveness and maybe some mutual understanding...I don't know that that's an option or possibility...and it's going to go back to educating people to understand everything that there is to understand about it. And, not so much, forcing them to offer up a portion of their property or an access point or something like that, but maybe compromise. If you'll allow us to do this, this is what we'll do ... Well, you've got, for the good or bad of it, you do have people, there are many people and landowners around here who have been here for a long time and it's being able to convince them that are maybe some better ways to do things. I don't know that cattle and farming or raising was good or bad for the river. But certainly it influences the river. The cattle are going through it and if we have a scenic area and want everybody to swim down there, that's not going to be the area they need to swim through. So, some of the barriers would be that some of the old school thinking and a lot of those folks when they hear words and terms like 'sustainability' that gets back to the education that we're not really asking you to do anything radical or anything radically different, we're asking you to preserve it for the next group that comes through, the next generation, whatever. The reason they have it is because it

was passed down along to them. So, yeah, those are some of the barriers that I'm ... Another one is, and I'm finding myself going on either side of the fence here but, you know, one of the things that a lot of like about being here is the rural situation. So, accessibility to a lot of these things is a potential issue. On the good side, it keeps people away. On the bad side, it keeps people from coming in. So, that's potentially something that could hurt.I think if we back up and define those terms-- what does a healthy river mean, who are the stakeholders there, are we a part of the river, for example. ..I would say yes we are. And again, what do we mean by sustainable, and economic and development? If we answer those then we can start sharing that and it ultimately becomes the entire society, I believe. Who is it led by -- the thinkers and the doers. The people who are currently getting their hands dirty. I would love to see the landowners -- ag land owners organize in a way that could make a meaningful contribution. I would like to see the Tribe be able to join the discussion - come to the table and feel that there contributions are valued and respected.

ADWR and state law that does not recognize the connection between ground and surface water, 1872 Mining Act (and the lobbyists for the sand and gravel companies), Home Builders Association of Central Arizona and their mouthpiece Grady Gammage, ranchers who think eveything is a government conspiracy against them (consider the attempt to designate West Clear Creek as a unique waterway), the SRP and Prescott agreement and Prescott Valley and Chino Valley and Yavapai County pro pumpers,and their ideas of effluent recharge at the headwaters,  state and local budget deficits.

We're going to have political supporters, Tribal supporters, big money supporters, like Salt River Project, local citizenry, interests we haven't identified yet that we need to identify, those below the flow, those above the flow, Prescott, Chino Valley. I think we already have a pretty comprehensive list there. [what opportunities for entrepreneurial endeavors here] I think the answer to that question lies in what kind of leadership is going to spring up. Political leadership. We can either have piecemeal -- whoever happens to amble across, or we can really ... It's time to pull together, make some marketing packages and decide who we want here and then go get those people to come here. I can't answer that because it might incriminate me. I take the 5th. You've got to understand that the folks downhill from where you are, not one any specific entity, but just the county that is south of our great county, considers a lot of the watershed that surrounds Maricopa County is theirs. And they have the vote to do it. We believe that the state population, 2/3 was about, was in Maricopa and Pima County in the 2000 census. The 2010 census looks like coming in that 3/4 of the population are in those two counties. So, any legislation that comes down, i.e. water law or anything, it's most likely going to have a benefit to Maricopa or Pima County. It's the...I hate using this but it's Star Trek. It's the wants of the many versus the wants of the few or the one. Unfortunately that part of life. [knowing this what do we do] That's the million dollar question and it's not only just to the Verde River. That's the State Parks in the rural parts of Arizona; the roads, everybody in Phoenix sure loves to come up to rural Arizona -- beautiful country, that's one of the reasons they live...but, you know, when they can't get to work, when it takes them 2 hours to get down the road 10 miles...you know where the money is going to go. That's part of life. I'd say the city council, firstly, they're the ones that are supposed to be running this place and if they can't decide something than you get a mediator to run things for them. [regional level] What I would do, if you haven't already done this, I would get a representative from each town. Get a committee

together and then say, "O.K., what can we do to...what do you have in your city that everybody wants and all that? This is what we've done in ours and this is what we've done here." And, kind of combine all that together and say, "O.K., we're going to have a plan here." That's the thing. Like the (unclear) is a five year plan. And, we've got to get all the city members, or somebody, onboard to get this done. I mean that's what I would do and just see if it world work. Now, if they're going to fight and complain and all that, what they don't understand is they're ...we're all in the same bed and we'd better get along and that's a hard thing to do. That's why I'm saying if nobody can understand anything, then get a mediator outside the Verde Valley to come in and say, "Look, this is what did in our town." So, that's the only thing I can suggest. [regional planning models] I'm sure there is. I want to tell you this, Jane, this is the whole deal. Most of the people here, besides the unemployment thing that's going on, most of the people here do not want growth, substantial growth. They want managed growth. We don't want to be a Prescott. We don't want to be a Cottonwood. They're talking about population growth, basically. Sure, they want their cake and eat it too, but you can't get that all the time. There is nothing wrong with having some more houses. What we don't want to see...and I was born in Arizona and my father was born in Nogales when it was a Territory. So, I've been here a while. My grandfather was a mining engineer at Carlsbad, New Mexico. So, that was in the 1800s. So, that's an old thing. They don't want to see a bunch of people coming here because, for one thing, they don't ...how long did it take them to get the sewer system going? And it still has problems. So, you can't bring any ... you're talking about the economic growth. O.K. So, what if you bring some really nice restaurants and all this other stuff? That's going to increase your tax base and all that. But, if they can't flush a toilet, what good is it going to do? You have to have the infrastructure in there. I wrote a letter, they probably didn't like me, but those impact fees, that it is the only viable way to temporarily raise taxes. What I said in my editorial that I wrote to the paper a few years ago, I said why should a person who has lived here 10, 20, 30 years why should we pay for these new people coming in when we're the ones that support them. Otherwise, they are going to get some upfront support by impact fees. That's what happened in Phoenix. Everybody did the same thing. They build all of these subdivisions and then go we'll just raise their taxes and let everybody here do it and it's wrong. I don't care... Now, if a person lives here and they want to build something on their property, that's a kind of a gray area. I'm talking about new construction. I mean new construction on a new lot -- not a person's existing that they pay property tax on. Wouldn't you rather go to a place that's nice? Otherwise, you get what you pay for. And, if you're going to have to pay an impact fee to live in a better place, so what? The whole deal with that impact fee, just like we were charged $15 an acre foot fee because SRP...All these people are going well, where did that money go? Well, I heard but I can't prove it, that it was being dipped in by John Reddell. He was taking money out of that fund and paying himself and doing all kinds of stuff -- you have no idea. That's why a friend of mine got him nailed with the IRS. But, I mean all this stuff was going on. That's the whole thing. It's the same thing with this city council, if they have a fund, an impact fund or whatever, that money stays there to do specific things like fire, sewer, police, whatever like that. And, it's the same thing with our government. But, if you can prove to that person, here's your transparent...You can look at that account and see where that money goes and I haven't heard anybody say that yet. Say, o.k., here is some money here to help Camp Verde and you can look at it. If I was able to go look at that and say, there is the money, it's going to do something...It's just like these $25/quad off-road things. One of these days when I find out where the money is going, I'm going to go in there and say, what have you done with my money. Show me. They have beautiful trails in most states. I mean Utah ...such gorgeous places to go with your quad. I mean...and it's not wrecking the environment and all that. It's really nice and that's what they need. The same thing like here. If we could do...if we could get so we could see, look what we did. Look where all of the county money is going right now. Salt Mine Road. Drive out there. They cut all these branches because they're kind of growing together. They put in six or seven culverts. They're extending where the ditch goes across the road. They paved a mile...it's the most beautiful mile

road you've ever seen in your life way out by me. Why? They're resurfacing. I'm going to call Chip Davis, because I know him, and I'm going to say, "Chip Davis, thank you very much, but why? These improvements are past Fort Lincoln where there is no population. Beaseley Flat, that area, that's another big project cause you live out there..the road is gone. But anyway, if you drive out you won't believe it. They are working out there this morning. This is great...it's funny. So, I'm a happy camper.I don't want to talk about that personally but there were a lot of people we interviewed that felt like AZ water law might need some revisions in order to be able to allow for a healthy river to exist. And they didn't specify what exact laws they were talking about. NEPA is one. That's a big one. National Environmental Protection Agency. It's going to stop development in here because you have to go through so many processes to get approvals to do things. SRP is a big one...the water rights issue. That's a big issue. And, of course, like the pollution of the river from external sources. You know, diesel fuel spills, hazmat spills, who knows the pollution into the river from the crawdads and snails and things like that that don't belong. So, those are...but, as far as getting development in connection of the river, first it's got to be a healthy river. But, I don't think it's healthy, though. It's there. That's why they call it the Verde. It's green. It's healthy as far as it's flowing. But, I think people are just using it and abusing it. You see people bringing in crawfish for bait and they escape and multiply. I can go fill a crawfish trap out there in about two hours with about 50-60 of them. I've done that just to see. And then, of course, you have a hot bucket of water... I do a lot of stuff.Prescott. Isn't Prescott taking water out? I heard that in a couple of years the river is just going to be a creek because Prescott is going to take so much water. 2) What? 3) Like we were saying earlier...trash...polluting the water. 4) The biggest thing is the trash and all the pollution. 5) There have been a couple of dams built that's restricting the water in certain areas. [where are dams?] 6) Behind LaFonda's down in the Horseshoe Area. There is a new dam down there that I haven't seen before. And then there's across the street from the elementary school a couple of years ago. 6) Another one by Clear Creek - it's been there for quite a while. 7) It's a stick dam over there. It looked pretty big. 8) It's probably beavers. Certainly when people don't want to engage in conversation. So, there has to be that willingness to have the conversation besides rules, regulations, policies and guidelines. I don't know that there is anything that I would add.Well, for instance, you give us some good thoughts -- a lot of them are regulations. You know I think small well owners are a problem; they are just as much of a problem as municipalities or private water companies. They are so protected. They have to give no information about what they do and yet they are sucking out of the same aquifer so we need some kind of continuity in that we're all responsible. They [small well owners] don't want to provide information generally. They're very protective of their information. And then the irrigators...the ditch companies. 50% of that goes back into the aquifer, supposedly, and provide a greenbelt for the wildlife so it's not a bad thing. I think that it's just ...and I'm so happy they have water rights prior to SRP, even though I definitely think SRP and we have the same goal, which is to keep water in the river so that's a good thing, but the ditch companies have prior water rights to that and they are what makes it green but I guess the issue with them is that there is no measurable way to measure how much they are taking. So, if they're growing a lot of crops -- say mostly in the Camp Verde area, then, or even up here when the Cottonwood Ditch takes their share, sometimes the river is dry for a ways and how can we keep water in the river so that it isn't dry because fish can't swim on dry land. Water companies... Well, those are the ones I thought of. I think that public ownership of water companies is best...that's my personal opinion because private water companies, if you looked at their balance sheets, almost no funding went back into the system. It's just profit and they also don't have to provide fire hydrants. Can you imagine Verde Village was built with no fire hydrants and part of Cottonwood too because private water companies don't have to provide fire hydrants. So, it's just seems to me, studying both sides, that public is better and then you can control

more. Private, you just want to sell water. Public you want to pay off your bond but you can also adopt tiered rate. We have our ... signs about drought. So, in the months when we used to give all the notices from the private companies to not use water because the wells are dry, we've been able to mitigate those issues because we can pass laws that say people can't water from 9:00 or 7:00 until 6:00 at night. [signs as reminders of water conservation/resource] And we have worked with restaurants. We worked with ADWR and our local restaurants to get the spray nozzles that take less water. We've asked them to not provide water; they don't have to; but unless people ask. Now you go to a lot of restaurants and you don't get water unless you ask for it. Another guy that used to be on the council that works in a restaurant, they defrost food with running water. Can you imagine how much that wastes? But they're required to by the Health Department. But I'd think there would be some other way -- put it in your refrigerator ...plan ahead. [they have to have the water running?] Yes, because the water could get warm and make the food ... So, those are the kind of regulations and laws that we need to look at that - that kind of stuff.Good ol' boy. I can say that. I'm a homeowner; I live here; I pay $2,000 in taxes for what? I can't wait to get out of this town half the time and you know, nobody wants to go to Camp Verde. They want to go somewhere else. They go to Cottonwood; they go to Sedona; they go to Prescott. They don't want to go to Camp Verde. Who is in the way? The Good Old Boy Club and they need to let go of the past if they want this place to survive because this town is dying on the vine. Nobody wants to be here and a very short time, if it keeps going the way it's going, nobody will be. It will be a ghost town. Political and personal divisions. Camp Verde, in particular, has always been a divisive community. There is always this faction and this faction. My husband has been here a long time and he always tells me that it's amazing just to sit back and watch and, in some ways, it's sad and it's a barrier. He likes it because it just keeps Camp Verde from doing anything because he wants Camp Verde to stay the same. So, you can either call it a barrier or you can call it an advantage, I don't know. And I think you find that divisiveness between the communities here too. Of course, each community has to look out for their own. And each community has a totally different flavor and take on the world. Those are probably the biggest barriers. [contention] It's also what keeps us from getting river trails. I think I told you before that when Bill Lee was here, he was ready to break ground. And there was only one little strip that was stopping anything and he was ready to break ground and at least build what he could build. And do it, instead of doing a study and building this and finding $5m to build the river trail, he was just going to take the backhoe out there and put down some sort of covering for the trail that would allow it to -- it could be washed away and put back again. Going back to one of your earlier questions, if somebody wants to get something done, who do you got to; who do you talk to; what's the process to get something done? I don't know what the process is and that's an interesting question because a lot of people out there might have an idea or might want to do this or that and don't know how to go about it to make it happen. [repository of ideas] I like that.Well, I think people who don't understand the issues are the biggest barrier and they live everywhere. They are living on the Verde River and used to taking water out to turn their lawns green. They are people who throw oil from their cars, when they change the oil, onto the dirt in the back yard. They are businesses who operate here who release elements into the atmosphere or into the groundwater or they flush it down into the system...It's really people who don't understand how all of this connects. It goes back to all of that [science education]. So, I haven't ever met someone who, when faced with new information, really clings to an ignorant point of view that wants to do people harm. However, that said, the vast array of people we have in this community from all walks of life and from all educational backgrounds, need an approach that is as varied as they are to engage them productively. That is a huge obstacle by itself. It isn't really a person - one individual who is at the vanguard standing in the way of progress in this, it really is the vastness of the project and the need to craft a message to communicate to people in ways they can receive. That, I see, as the giant obstacle -- understanding the project, first

off, and then being able to craft messages that people can receive. [considering nonprofit orgs and their unique missions and audiences] Right now, I believe, in the Verde Valley, there is a political tone to sustainability as well. I view sustainability as a fundamental need for our future survival in the Verde Valley so it transcends all politics in my mind. However, because individual nonprofits have a particularly political bent, either presumed or overt, here in the Verde, when they become the message bearers of these particular messages, I think some people can discount the message because of the messenger. So, the challenge, one of many challenges with our project here, becomes navigating that challenge. Raising the discussion beyond the world of politics to one of 'we all are in this together and we all sink or swim together.' We don't care whether you're a democrat or republican, libertarian, independent -- we don't care who you voted for in the last election. We just don't care. If you're in the Verde Valley and you love being here and you want a future here, then these are our expectations for how we are going to work together as a community -- the large community to take care of our precious resources. It isn't about catching you do something wrong; it's helping you do the right thing. I think right now it's, I'm not trying to pick out people so much, but lack of understanding of the connection between the river and sustainability and people having, individuals who may not have a real understanding of hydrology and geology and the connection between surface water and ground water, including the state of Arizona. I think on an individual basis you could have a problem with individuals saying, "I'm not going to let you on my land to do something." So, I think the real way around that are finding some showplaces where you could do things with riparian restoration or ditch improvements or something like that and realize that it's going to be a long-term building process. People have to see what's in it for them. It could be maybe they have a pond in their yard that they really don't want someone to know about because it's not really a surface water pond. But, maybe there is a way to say, "Maybe you can do something with that pond that serves the overall good."All those things that you've listed there can be barriers or not, depending upon the personalities involved, I think. Our history, our water use laws, I don't know that much about them. I can't really make a comment on those. Ditch companies have a stake in the game. They're using that water for irrigation for most part. That's your farming and your agricultural. I see a great potential in the vineyards because I don't think they're a big water user. For an agricultural enterprise, they're not a big water user. The grapes actually like the fact that their stressed here and produce a specific product. There's a lot of agricultural ventures that take a lot of water. It can be argued that when you put it on a field, that it actually goes back into the group somewhat and that a lot of it is lost to evaporation as well. It's wise use that's important. It's not non-use, it's wise use.I think the biggest barrier is change and change is scary. For us to change from an extractive economy that's dependent on inducing more and more people to come and live here and building more homes and infrastructure for them to something that's more sustainable, that represents a very big change in our area's economy. So for a lot of folks, change is threatening. In laws and regulations, there is the idea that, at present in Arizona that we cannot zone or limit development based on the availability of water resources is potentially the thing that will cripple us -- that will push us over the edge. It will kill the goose that laid the golden eggs because of the archaic law that seems to be set in stone. We can hope not -- that doesn't tie those things together. [desert state that doesn't insist on water availability documentation] Arizona's development history is denial of the desert. We divert the water; pump the water to deny that we really are in a desert and that's what we're all about. We want to have our green lawns and lake area in our back yard. [ground and surface water issues] Well, that's absurd on the face of it. Every hydrologist will tell you that there's a connection and we've shown that repeatedly in Arizona. We've pumped dry any number of riparian areas that used to exist in our state but we continue, legally, to deny that connection. And, I see that as a serious impediment to our sustainable -- our ability to live sustainably in the desert. When you ask people about these things -- when they're surveyed, nobody wants to see this happen. Nobody wants to see the Verde River pumped dry; the San

Pedro will probably go first. Yet, again, I don't think people see how they can - what they can do as an individual citizen to turn the ship in a different direction. [does it take organized specific action time for window of opportunity?] I think people are spurred by crises. So, maybe it's when the San Pedro goes dry because that one will probably be next. I don't think we're going to beat them to it. Unfortunately, that would certainly be a tragedy that it would take something of that magnitude to get this legal barrier removed to moving in a more sustainable direction. But, short of a crisis, I'm not sure if enough people could be motivated. The connections with the groups such as the Cattle Growers' Association and the Homebuilders/Home growers association -- yeah, there's a lot of intersection if those two groups, too, and their power in the legislature is nothing short of remarkable compared to individual citizens' concern about seeing their local river dried up. So, I would say that those types of groups that very strongly financially support this type of status-quo economy that we've had in Arizona of depending on growth, are...I would see them as the biggest barriers, I would have to say.

Well, I think you have a harder time with the, I hate to say this because I'm in the category, but the people who have lived here the longest are the ones that you have a harder time with, frankly. I think they are used to living a certain way; they're used to having a certain set of facts in their minds that they consider to be facts, regardless of what data show today; and some of those people are involved with ditch companies. You know, there has been a way of doing business for a long time in certain of those venues and it's difficult to make those changes. So, when I think about for Clarkdale -- the water company acquisition was a great example of that. We have a certain segment, and it's growing smaller and smaller, but a certain segment of the community that's been here forever and it was a company town and the company provided the water. Then, you know, we had the cheapest water in Arizona for 20 years and coming in and raising rates and putting in water use restrictions was a very difficult thing to do and I think that applied across the Verde is the same principle. When you start talking about raising that level of awareness. So, but again, I think it's getting out...you've got a segment of the Verde Valley who thinks there is no water problem here. There's a big lake underneath the Verde Valley and we're not ever going to have a problem. I think it's a smaller number than it may have been 10 years ago -- I certainly hope so. But there's still people out there who just won't hear it -- just will not open their minds to that. That's true with any issue. It's probably not going to change with some of those people. So, I think that's just recognizing that -- not that those people won't ever change, but I think they are a different set of people - those long time -- that may be engrained in trying to bring out the truth and do that in a way that brings them a long too, I think is important. [role of science] I do. The frustrating thing about science playing a role is it takes an awful long time and an awful lot of money. And, there is, in every study that you put forward, someone's going to come forward with their own study to try to negate it if they think that is what benefits them. We haven't seen as much of that over here but we certainly see that playing out in Prescott and Prescott Valley. One of the reasons it plays out there is because there are legal implications at stake for them; they have their backs against the wall in the AMA and we don't have an AMA so the stakes haven't gone up so high in the Verde Valley as to bring the kind of dollar resources in here to start refuting the facts but they'll come. When the stakes are high enough, they'll start doing that here too. So, you know, the facts of the Verde River part of the system I think aren't, well, they're not completely documented although most people that are working in that area have a pretty good sense for what they're showing. But still, aren't out there in the public where you can distinctly say, "this is the science we’re working from." So, that's the drawback. I like facts; I like truths. But the length of time it takes to get there; and the funding available -- that's the problem with it. People get impatient with it. They say, "All they do is talk and talk and talk. How long have we had these water committees." That's a problem. The definition of certain water rights. It's a huge roadblock type thing. Probably won't be resolved in our lifetime, but assuming it is, it's just has to make its way through the court so everybody knows

where they stand. Adjudication process needs to be completed. When you talk about commercial enterprises along the river or that are tied to the river someway, most of those will need probably surface water rights, like the ponds. They need their surface water rights. They'll need access to the river. They'll need a healthy river. You've got to have a healthy river. If the adjudication is not, if we continue to build, course right not it's going to be there because no body's building. That's going to change. If we continue to add wells and if the all the technological tests continue to show that the wells up on the top of Mingus are affecting the flow down here and that continues, 1. we're not going to have a healthy river and 2. without knowing those facts about what affects what, the people down below don't know how valuable that will create value, dollar value, in those water rights. And once that is created, those can either be transferred, sold. I'm speaking about ourselves. We have that issue right now. We have water rights that we're not fully using. The Mabery family. The ranch. Yet, we're very cognizant of doing whatever is necessary to preserve those rights. We don't even know what those rights are really because nobody's defined how you can separate surface and ground water yet. So it's important. Frankly, those water rights are more important to the municipalities than the private land owners. It just happens to be valuable. I don't know of anyone that doesn't want a healthy Verde River, but everyone's going to have a different view that holds true. Again that comes into the surveys and the testing and the studies. You see it all the time..."they'll never take my well away". Oh, really we'll see. It depends on what the water rights are. What the Indians and SRP ! say and all the people that are involved. So government just by virtue of being government, they're lack of efficiency is probably not going to help process along. Government efficiency in respect to the adjudication process. I think that there is...the efforts to define are so scattered and the results have been so diverse that there's nobody that...yes, we have attorneys and my brother's involved in it...nobody who is directing the rodeo here to the point that it's really going to point this in the direction of a conclusion because every time something happens, there's a law suit to stop the process. It's just that the judicial process is so agonizing and so expensive. (What parts of our knowledge about the Verde River system are controversial?) Again, the rights is the biggest single thing that is controversial. How much the wells impact the Verde River and vice versa is controversial. There are people who benefit from one side or the other. You always have people on both sides and really there are not studies that definitively address that. They address it but they don't draw the same conclusions from study to study. I don't know how to correct that. (Say you have the USGS conduct studies that say definitively if you drill a well at point X, will it have an impact on the Verde River) That study would still be controversial. That's part of the problem. You're balancing not just your right but the feasibility of reasonableness of having say a well say at my house which everything flows downhill. Does it have an effect? Maybe. And do I still have the right to have water up here? And if I don't have city service, do I have the right to drill a well? And how much does it affect it? If you do enough of that, does that dry up the river? Controversy there, even bigger than it is now, because as it is now, we can argue it ???. So I don't know that, you don't know that. You have to have a number of studies that agree and if assuming you get that, so the question is, so that once you get it, what do you do with it in terms of getting a consensus as to how to keep the river healthy. You would think that USGS are the most unconnected and probably would give the best unbiased view. You would think. Again it may be that they have to do it and somebody has to prove them wrong. Now you're talking about the procedure of getting to that agreement. That procedure as we've observed is long, longer than the river may have. You must have some kind of general agreement from the powers that be that's maybe the state, county, and city governments that there's an effect. We just don't know how big an effect it is. So can be mitigate that hence without destroying the rights of people who live on those properties. That's over my head. (It defines the WAC) It's often speaking Greek to them. WAC has the same issues we have from a personal standpoint. There may be, this takes more study, little things. We concentrate on the well usage. I

have no idea what that effect is, but I know we have lots of them. We don't really know if you stopped all those wells, how it would truly affect the river. Say it raised the river a foot. How long would it take for that to happen? And all these other things that influence. We just don't know. We could maybe transfer, encourage people in the sharing of the well, but you still use the same amount of water. But you might be like municipalities where you're sharing the well. The well at my house is the same as city water. We're still using the water. So it really doesn't matter. We're talking about a recycling. If you have the people, you've got to have the water. It doesn't matter if it's your well, or my well, or the city water, we still use the same amount of water.The governor, the legislature, the culture of Arizona and a few entrenched business interests who are basically your old rape and pillager type of business developers who have developed part of this watershed already and are not even interested in talking to anybody about doing anything else other than doing what they've been doing. And, they've rationalized the point of view, you'll see them occasionally make a statement that will appear in the paper that says, 'we've got all the water we need in Arizona. These guys are commies or....' Fox News is an enemy to any kind of sustainability and anything like Fox News or anybody who watches Fox News is not so much...the people who watch Fox News are going to be a serious problem -- the Tbaggers and these others who are afraid, they're scared to death of God-knows-what exactly, and then are looking for enemies - people to point the finger at and anything different, anything out of the ordinary from their perspective, is bad. So, they are going to try to put a halt on it. So, the idea is grassroots. You need to go after things from a grassroots perspective. Find out what the core interests are. Why are they here? What do they care about? And, when you get down, even with a lunatic like Glen Beck or somebody like that, you get down to the basic elemental things, you say, 'what do you really care about' well, maybe not Glen Beck, let's take a human being, a real person, as say, 'what do you really care about?' you're going to get to commonalities and then you can say, 'O.K., now lets build upon that.' You may not agree on climate change and you may not agree on resource depletion and you may not agree on the definition of the economy, but there are certain things that you will be able to agree on that may be able to get them to work with you to do something positive. It's what I would call vested private interests. The irrigation districts is one area because it's easier to use, perhaps existing management practices and not invest in the long term and it may take some money or perhaps be potentially inconvenient to manage the water for sustainability. They also have, perhaps, lack of clarity as to water rights amongst all of the respective ditch companies so it's easier to use more water then no one is unhappy than if you start managing it and have rules and complications -- regimes such as you've seen in the Imperial Valley where there is ditch masters and significant controls would, I believe, be a real benefit but difficult to implement. [everything is difficult] I think irrigation districts are a positive impact. I think they extend the riparian area and they create habitat. But I do think there is probably some room to look, like, how much water could we save if we line these ditches? It's probably well past the time they need to come out of the dark ages and maybe implement better irrigation practices. Another area is the tourists that come here and use Oak Creek, an unfortunately high percentage are thoughtless in littering, pollution and things like that and the Oak Creek Coalition is a funded program to try to identify pollution sources on the creek. That's a body that should be supported and my guess is that their funding will be inadequate to provide a meaningful solution. [barriers to advancing sustainable econ development; fine line between attracting and degrading] That's right. Education of the tourists who are using Oak Creek -- use it in a responsible fashion. There is a clear limit to how much Oak Creek can actually sustain in terms of tourism and access for logistical reasons. Another potential barrier is that you've got to find that balance. I think you can over protect Oak Creek and it limits your abilities to be sustainable. If you have something that's great resource, like Oak Creek, running through your town and you protect it to the point where you can't touch it, I think that's detrimental to the future sustainability practices. You use water for irrigation. But, if you had that

same stream running to generate electricity you could possibly, in the future, generate your own electricity for a town. You can over protect...it just limits your sustainability options if you over protect. I guess I'm thinking about balances. Like, Jerome. They're talking about maybe running some of that water off from the springs and using that to generate electricity. I think things like that, looking forward, I think we're going to have to be more creative ...using a resource without destroying the resource. Those are all of our battles right there. That incorporates the barriers I see -- just the over-taxing of the aquifer; the ditch rights. You know, the ditch rights I understand because I live on irrigated property. The rights don't even have to be that...what happens is as we develop residence along the Verde River, now more people are irrigating and it's taking more and more water. Even if it's the same amount of property, it taxes that irrigation more and there are more wells. So, even though we want to improve our city and our city to grow, we've got to really watch that area along the river. [people who live along the river and control the water]. Yes, any increase in septic systems. I know the area below me was not developed because it had to have aerobic systems to keep from contamination, but I don't know how good it is with the old properties. I don't know if we're already poisoning that river. We have water at 10 feet. What does that tell you about things you pour on the ground and how many people are aware of that. [awareness of public about river -- take it for granted as a barrier] I think so. And, we could start that in our schools. [could you do it next week?] There are too many...I think, like I said, ditch company, the aquifer health, the property rights, that's huge.Obviously there are barriers. You obviously have some institutional barriers. You've got completely different laws in urban areas of the state than you do rural areas, particularly with regard to groundwater development [because of the Groundwater Management Act]. Yeah. And so when you try to go limit an individual from drilling a well ten feet from the river in rural Arizona, you can't do anything about it. Whereas in the urban areas of the state, there are lots of limitations with regard to developing, at least large capacity wells. Some individual communities have instituted ordinances that limits development of domestic wells within their water service territory where there is the ability to buy surface water. Payson has implemented some ordinances and some others have but you have to be very careful. You can't look at economics; you have to look at your ability to do line extensions and some other things. I think that the very last clause, changing cultural values, I'm not aware of the legal impact in the question you asked, but I do know that the primary thing that has to be in place is just that value. If we value the Verde River, we value the natural beauty that it brings to this value. Laws of have a way of being built around and following values. That's how we protect our values. Since some difficulties can come in whenever you have changing cultural values, what laws should remain universal and basic principle and what laws should change as we see a need to shift our bodies. Can we do that without violating the rights of certain groups? I think there are many who do value it. It can easily be said that we don't value it enough but that certainly wouldn't apply to everybody. But it would certainly be best if we would value it more. Having grown up in Arizona and seeing a lot of the public use lands deal. Seen alot of wide open spaces. Once that land or whatever it is...that mountain, that forest....is diminished by use or decimated by fire, it is extremely difficult it not impossible, in most cases, to ever bring that. Once you let it go, it is 10 times the effort to bring it back then it is to just maintain it. I can cited several forest fires. I will cite the one that happened in the Huachucas in the 70s which took place on the second highest peak, on Carr Peak, burned away a considerable amount of beautiful ponderosa pine. Water was being pumped out of that canyon to Bisbee, Tombstone, etc. That lowered the water level of the mountain. There's less water available. The forest was able to maintain itself because of the coverage of the foliage. It was able to maintain the moisture, but once it burned, after 35 years, that forest has not come back. And will not until the groundwater is built back up. That would obviously mean to quit piping the water to Bisbee or Tombstone, which would be an enormous adjustment for those communities to try to become dependent on a different water source than the water that comes

out of that canyon. But now that it's gone in 35 years and has not come back in spite of replanting efforts of the National Forest Service. It's possible that it could happen to the Verde. The enormous amount of effort and time that is required to bring it back and obviously, a forest fire doesn't threaten the Verde River like it does a forest. But if it were to become so downtrodden by overuse and lack of management to where it just became a wreck, or it became polluted to that extent to where it was just an eyesore, rather than an attraction. It takes an enormous amount of effort to bring it back. It's much cheaper to just maintain it, keep it alive.I'm not familiar with some of the laws that legislators are working at right now. The one I am aware of is the current of...we'll probably write a letter for the Grand Canyon Trust...the issue about uranium mining and how that might affect the watershed. I don't know how that would impact the Verde River if at all, but that's a potential law or regulation. Just really understanding the value of the river, I think is a huge issue, just an awareness is a huge barrier...lack of awareness creating the desire or the need to be aware. How do you create that? Why is it important for our community to understand that healthy, vibrant river is important to their everyday life. That's got to be hard to do with all the information that people are bombarded with. It's really hard to get people impassioned about the importance of issues. Arizona Office of Tourism is challenged in state funding...it helps support chambers. The Department of Commerce and how they're restructuring. We haven't been a focus for the state in terms of economic development and we fight for our awareness and our place in tourism as well. You would be surprised that even Sedona has to keep reminding the Dept. of Commerce and the Office of Tourism that we're here and that we contribute. A lot of their funding comes from the big cities and Maricopa County and you invest in people who invest in you. Sometimes it's difficult to show how northern Arizona and rural communities really impact the tax base of all of Arizona. It's difficult for groups to become noticed by state organizations and departments. Also, in Sedona, being divided into two counties, which don't necessarily impact the Verde, but does Oak Creek. It would be really difficult, we already don't feel like we get our fair share of attention in any way...attention or resources or financial resources...allocated from either of the counties because our tax base is spread out, it's divided. Other potential barriers, property rights would be a huge barrier. I don't know enough about it and have heard a little bit about what's happening and how people are fighting for their rights for their particular water, but I don't know enough about that. I would think that that would be a barrier as well. I think the major barrier is really education and creating awareness.Prescott. By virtue of their planned pipeline from the Big Chino and by virtue of their ability to get the state legislature to change the law to allow them to do things that nobody else in the state can do. A potential barrier is the lack of information about the threats to the river. I don't think you were there, but when we had that valley-wide chamber of commerce get together over at Cliff Castle Casino a year or two ago, the Sedona, Camp Verde, Cottonwood, Clarkdale, Jerome...all the chambers got together for a regional meeting. We went around the room talking about threats to the economy. I mentioned that I thought it was really important for chambers of commerce to support protecting the river and its water and that we had a serious threat in place from the Big Chino and Prescott. The Sedona Chamber of Commerce didn't know anything about that. Their board was sitting there, their executive director was sitting there, almost the whole board, and nobody knew anything about it. As soon as I mentioned it, they all got up in arms and said "We've got to do something about that." They didn't know. It was shortly after that we had a quarterly chamber luncheon at the guidance clinic and we got Rick Mabery to come and talk about water law and what the threats were and all that stuff and invited all the chambers regionally. I think that initiative is probably fallen by the wayside so far as engaging Sedona in this battle. There are a lot of resources there that need to be drawn in. What I would see as a current barrier is a lack of knowledge about the threats to the river.What or who do you see as current or potential barriers to advancing sustainable economic development in connection with a healthy river( for example, laws and regulations, property rights,

institutional like ditch companies, water companies, historic uses, etc.), changing cultural values? (If response is that “there are too many,” ask for top 3-5…interviewer’s discretion)Two major things that I see as opportunities and that I see equally as barriers. The first is that everything we are talking about a true regional approach. Not to be critical but the towns don't see the river a shared resource. Maybe municipalities are the best way to start doing regional economic development anyway, but we have such a weak county system. We don't really have a template for doing...from my vantage, there's a 40-mile Verde River greenway, from Sycamore Creek to Beazley Flats, and that's the unit we ought to be looking at. We all should be looking at it, not just as municipalities or counties or whatever. The first hitch is that I don't think we have a political view of regional planning. The second one is that we do have all these public agencies that don't coordinate or cooperate. Therefore, it's going to be very difficult to get the kind of regional planning that we really need to get done. For instance, Max Castillo talks about this quite often, that these two properties in the Verde River Greenway are very difficult to manage because people can legally camp right next to a forest service block and you can't run them off. There may only be a 40 acre pure forest service ground on the river and they may be recreating over onto the new state park property, but there's no control over any of it. If there's fishing license or hunting license is for certain abilities to access land, you get those on private land who are totally oblivious to the ATV users or highly sensitive to ATV users but the government agency next doors allows them. You get all of these herky-jerky interfaces all the way down to the Verde River greenway that don't lend themselves well to regional planning, which is ultimately what I think we're going to have to have. (Describe an organizational structure that provides that regional planning)Here's what I would do, if I could choose today where to put the Nature Conservancy's office, it wouldn't be in Prescott. It would be there on the river. If I woke up everyday in the Verde Valley and I had staff that was really paying attention to this, I would think that I would be looking much harder at this coordination and collaboration between federal, state, county, city, private and tribal ownerships and to see if we can't get into these people's heads that at least where the flood plain of the river, i.e. beyond where you can really as a private property owner reach any kind of profit. If we looked at the river as a greenway that actually was well managed so that you knew as a private property owner, for instance, that there was a law enforcement entitity that you could call if thought somebody was doing something on your land or you want to talk to the state or if you're the feds, you can talk to the state, if it was a coordinating entitity that was managing the Verde River greenway. Since the greenway itself isn't ??? on state parks, it could be everybody's greenway, it could also have its own, well the friends of the Verde River greenway or the beginning of what I could see or imagine is a, and I know this from several other places in the US where they have done that. They have ignored the juridisdictional boundaries. They've hired staff, they have volunteers that both clean up, volunteers that serve as ???, and that there is a new private entitity, perhaps not with legal binding force but to ??? indication of collaboration up and down. The biggest booster for the whole thing is the communities and their Chambers of commerce and others that recognize that it is the only thing that unifies their communities. We both know that Hwy. 260 divides communities. 89A divides...communities can't agree where to put the big box stores or where the right place is for traffic lights. There's not another amenity like the Verde River that I think everybody could agree on anywhere throughout those communities. Is it a pie in the sky vision? Yes it is. Could something like the Walton Family foundation make that happen? Yep. It could. I think we could play a role. I think you could play a role. I think we could create in the public mind, a 40-mile greenway that was greater than the sum of its parts. People could get over to a better coordinated, more collaborative management of the river. I think we all have an inherent belief that somehow nobody owns the river. For me, I also think of the tributaries as a part of it. That adds an additional element of complication and really the whole vision has to be kind of basically all water users to be under that umbrella, not just the floodway of the main stem of the river. People have to

understand that ground water and the river are connected. I think that collaborative manangement down along the main stream is probably a good place to start. I think again it goes back to the legal framework. It's the longstanding Arizona mindset that it you're not growing...it's like a cancer kind of thing. It survives by growing; when it stops growing it dies. Grow or die. I think as long as that attitude prevails that... there are certainly a number of examples of economies that are vibrant and carry on without having to enlarge themselves all the time. That's why I think that ideas like the sustainable ag - the idea of putting a Young's Farm kind of business in here; the idea of the wineries and stuff like that...you create a large enough economy eventually ...certainly it suffers when the economy is down but it doesn't suffer in the same way that 10,000 people laid off at a factory impacts the economy in Seattle, WA or something. The obstacles that get in the way prevent that sort of mindset from setting in. I think it's growing. The sustainable ag groups; the Verde Valley Wine Consortium. There are a couple of examples of it. I think Casey Rooney is doing a great job over there in Cottonwood in doing that Old Town enhancement down there and not just going for that whole box store thing that they went through. People are coming here. They've always come to Sedona but they've never really realized Cottonwood, Clarkdale and maybe some of them went to Jerome, but there was just this kind of fly-over or drive-through country over here and nobody went to them. So, you know, you package it and it becomes a place and a destination which of course, has its counter, because everybody wants to live here. I think changing that mind set is a huge thing so it's an educational process ultimately. [traditional mindset as a barrier] Growth is not bad...it is not inherently bad. Growth can be good as long as it's done in a manner that you understand what the consequences are and you're willing to make those tradeoffs and certain things, like you said, that ...as long as you don't sell yourself to the point where the cost exceeds the benefit.The barrier is that it can't happen overnight. There are going to have to be building blocks. There are going to have to be programs. I'd say it's not Walmart -- you can go down there to get anything and five minutes later you've got it. What I'm saying is that this is the beginning of a major effort. It's going to take time but you're going to have to get people who are out there -- people who feel the same way you do, right, and they're out there and they have to be ... It's almost like the Friends of the Verde. I mean it's almost like creating a new organization that is filled with businessmen and biologists and all kind of other people -- just constantly learning more. We don't even know, I don't think, we don't know much about water resources in this valley. Do we? Do we really know anything about water? [gross idea about what's going on] When I was in Maryland and we couldn't figure out where water was coming from, they just put a freeze on everything until they found it. But there's a tremendous amount of knowledge about the ecosystems here - ecosystem education; the relationship between the animals and the people. I think this is an educational opportunity to find these linkages and bring in people that know things and not sell fear. Sell hope. So many times in things like this, you know, we run into, "Well, if we don't do this the river will go dry." But, that isn't the point. The point is, what is the river doing for us now that we don't want to lose. I'm a recovering Druid.Well, I would think certainly the city councils in Clarkdale and Cottonwood would because they are the closest to the river, and even Camp Verde would be interested in looking at the study to see how they might improve their economies by some of the things that people have suggested. The Parks Department and probably Audubon Arizona, the group that has been nominating and establishing the important bird areas. Tice and (?) from Tucson. Tice is primarily for this area. He [other person] is more for southern Arizona. So, Tice is really the person.What or who do you see as current or potential barriers to advancing sustainable economic development in connection with a healthy river( for example, laws and regulations, property rights, institutional like ditch companies, water companies, historic uses, etc.), changing cultural values? (If response is that “there are too many,” ask for top 3-5…interviewer’s discretion)

I think there are definitely legal barriers because you have USDOR and the federal Fish and Wildlife service that pretty much said no more water's going to be taken out of the river. It's going to impair the habitat of the riparian area and then just that by itself, if you go into that, you can't do any kind of development because you're going to have the federal government coming in and saying you don't have the authority to do that. You can't be messing with our little fishes, birds, and animals that are protected. So that's one way. I think the other barriers are, there's complacency in the the residents of the communities. They enjoy it, but they're not really on fire for protecting it. Why is a good question. I think it's just because they're too busy with their lives and not realizing what they're losing. (Does Camp Verde identify itself with the river?) It identifies itself as the beginning of the Verde Valley, but one of the assets that likes to say is that we have a river flowing through the valley. We don't know if there's any strong advertising that the Verde River is a place to go and enjoy life. Many people don't even know where it is. It's not advertised. Do we have a river here? I've been here for 20 years. I didn't know that. Well, I think we've already talked about what some of their strengths are and it is the regulations that come from a lot of different agencies whether it be Fish and Wildlife Service or you can't build a bridge because there is a flycatcher living there. It's just hard to really put a finger on that question. Jodie: I don't really think that some of these are barriers, they're just untapped opportunities. Like the ditch companies. I'm tickled to death to be on the ditch and I know that all of us who are, are, and those that are not are the first to criticize and I've heard a lot of that from our friends in the upper valley. "Oh, you're on the ditch." But, getting better regulations, knowing, we already talked about it, what is coming out, going in and getting those ditches mandated and what not, I don't think that's a barrier, I just think it's an opportunity that hasn't been... Dex: There are all kinds of restraints that will come up in process of getting something done but you don't know that stumbling block is there until you approach it. Like, for example, we talked about the Black Bridge. You asked that question and the answer was the people in the area didn't want it. So, there's no way of really knowing for sure that where you're going to end up - what your stumbling blocks are going to be. [reminded of engaging people in processes vs. telling them what is going to happen]Tax valuation incentivizing people to converting their agricultural land to residential. Many people can't afford the large price hold???. And she thinks show the income, show me this, show me that. Prove you're a farmer. I have gone to battle with her in Cornville. ???? the ranch where we'd done this one thing. I have been somewhat successful. I'm still paying way more taxes than I used to. She sees that as her job description, to increase the tax base and drive out agriculture. Haven't talked to Chip about that, but Barbara's aware of it and they're talking about it and they're trying to do something about it and she's thinking it, too. I'm not sure if she's sat down with anybody about it. She's just commented about it and I said that I sure know. It's awful. You've got to fight now. You have to be willing to protest to get it in your favor. Anybody out there in the conservation, research world would be excited about something like this. It helps you get grants. It helps you fund other projects. We just did an economic impact study of the wine industry here in the Verde Valley and found out that there was a lot more impact than we realized. That really gives us a bargaining chip when we're out there trying to convince people, "Hey, can you help us out here" or "We think we want your vote to allow us to do this because, etc." It's a published study. The draft findings are out through Tom Pitts and the Wine Consortium. The final study will be published pretty soon. It was actually done for NAU and very well done. Without total participation, which is a shame, Barbara Predmore didn't participate over at Alcantera, I'm not sure why. Any of these ideas that we can talk about as far as how do we create this awareness, how do we create more sustainable business around the river, and how do we find support politically. There's legal aspects of this that will probably be modified and changed over time. A study like this is inherently going to underlie any of those efforts.

One of the greatest is the way the laws are written for water usage, the property rights along the river, old thinking. People just ignore the river. That's been used as an agricultural dumping ground. Mining, all these guys used it as push it in, who cares. As you boat up and down the Verde River like I have, and you run into these dams that people have made to divert water, they're the grossest, most offensive acts of nature that you've ever seen. I mean they're just literally...I mean, someone tore up a parking lot and took it out and dumped it in the river to help back up to create dams. You've concrete, rebar, old metal buildings, cars, some of the most...but then the mentality years ago was different. Automobiles used to stabilize the banks. Now those automobiles are right out in the middle of the river in different sections. A lot of potential barriers particularly in our area is that everybody's used to commenting "the dirty Verde". Yea, it's a sedimentary ?? 22.13. The Colorado means red. The Colorado River never ran clean. It ran the sediment from the Rockies and the Colorado Plateau. That's why the Green River...all these guys are massively muddy, silty, doesn't necessarily mean they're dirty. It's the erosion that sculpts this landscape out here. The mindset is dirty. There's just this whole, for those that have grown up here, and I hadn't come up from a long time ago, I never even knew you could do this stuff in the places we go. Every once in a while, we went down as kids. People just ignored it...you don't see tons of recreational opportunities on a river, fun. One of the potential barriers, too, is the fact that it doesn't get, we don't have river maintenance on the river to make the sections that we want to be able to boat, boatable. We've got to be able to establish grants, funds, whatever so that there is somebody out there trimming down trees, pulling out old cars and concrete. Things of this nature where it takes the river and makes it all navigable. Makes the whole thing completely navigable and safe. If it's fun and safe, everybody's digging it. If it's not, then. We have to let people know it's here. All of our marketing for the Verde Valley has to be completely surrounded by...when people see water, they immediately go, that's where I want to go, that's what I want to do because there's water in the desert. It's a high desert oasis. Look at how much fun this is. And there's a sign that says this is where you go, this is your access point. Here're all the systems that are set up, all the different companies that can provide you with all the things you want to do. It's one thing to bring people up here, but the people who are going to come up here have already got the equipment. This is a done deal. Those who are coming up here want to be entertained. It only costs this much, we can take the whole family, and we can take a picnic lunch. It's safe and adventurous. It's affordable. If it's too dangerous, if it's too technical, if there's too any moving parts to it, if they've got to make too many decisions, they're out of there. When they come up and go wow, we can spend the whole day and this outfit will provide us with a boat, cooler, food, ice. A barrier is lack of knowing that this is available. And then trees, cars, concrete, those kinds of barriers. And it isn't available year round right now with the way the water is diverted as it enters into Cottonwood. Once the water is diverted, boom, you go down to a little fraction until you get lower down towards Oak Creek where we're doing the water to wine. What comes in right about that, and the reason we can do that, is that the Cottonwood Ditch pumps in right there plus the way hydrology works, any time you get lower as the river is cutting down through a valley, it's always descending. Any time you start getting lower, you're going to start running into springs, seeps. More water is just becoming available because of the natural flow of water, groundwater. There's less. Any time you start up higher, once the river cuts down to where the base flow is, then it's not seeping into the ground anymore. We're creating manmade barriers to the flow of the river by having diversions. There are places where there's a barb wire fence going across the river. Weird things. Technically, Arizona law is that if the river is navigable, you only own to, you can't stop anybody from floating through it if it's navigable. You can only develop to a FEMA 500 year flood plain. That's, I don't know all the rules and regulations on it. There are certain ??? 27.18, particularly up where it's skinnier, it's smaller. I want to keep my cattle from going across or whatever. There's people who don't want you using the river period. There's a lot of reasons why. You go by sections where there's people out there with pumps illegally pumping water into their own ditch. Nobody's ever out there monitoring, or looking at it. We're asked the forest service rangers about it.

They go, yeah we've seen that there, but it's not our gig. They're not doing anything to us, they're doing it on their own land. There's a lot of people who are taking advantage of the fact that there's nobody out there regulating, looking. That's another reason why a lot of us recreation access has been denied. There are a lot of people who don't want people knowing what's going on down there. I think there is -- there might be an information barrier. What I mean by that is because where I want to go with this is basically back to the previous one. The people that would be important supporters, many of them , including some of the folks in the Chambers of Commerce, are also barriers at this point. So that's why I think, I don't know where the word 'information barrier' came from. But, I think what I mean by that is to show those folks with power and some of the big landowners -- some of the people that have some ability to do changes or...to show that it is in their best interest -- that it really does support the things they like and value. Some of them, I want to believe, that if it's presented to them properly, it would fit in with what they desire now. It's just a matter of showing them that a healthy, sustainable system is in their best interests and they want that now already. They're just ...maybe it's personalities; preconceived notions; and changes that they have seen that turn them off. So, I think if the information is presented in a proper way, some of these folks might realize that it does align with their values and their best economic interests. Paradigm shifts; changes. It seems like the only way a paradigm shift changes is if the old guys die off. A lot of times [newcomers] can see things differently than others who have been living around here the whole time. I still think the people that have been around here have a value to add. I don't know how to do it but if one could use the right words or convince them, and maybe it's their own people or something that would have to do it. Back to the statement, though, I think most people want pretty much similar things.Well, you know, people that hold senior water rights, uh, and take a lot of water from the river, would ...they would be barriers, possibly, in using the river in different ways than historically has been done. That's the main thing that I would...water adjudication, water rights law. [people are taking water away from the river] ...Away from the river are going to fight hard to give that up. There's no question. And, they do have the law on their side at this time. [barriers in those peoples' mind; using because of need or to make money - what?] Growing up in western Wyoming, where cattle ranching is king and water rights are king, even if one rancher had too much water, he wasn't about to let it go to the next guy and...maybe he had too much water but he's not going to turn it back into the river. I've seen so many fights over water it's unreal. [what would they do with the excess?] They would have it go down into ditches and maybe go out into pasture land and it flooded. It didn't really utilize it, but they darned sure weren't going to let it go down to their neighbor. I don't know that that happens here in the Verde Valley because water is more precious than it is in the Rocky Mountains where you have good water all the time. But, I just see that diversion of water out of the river to these ditch holders and all these people down the line and I don't know how you could culturally change their minds, maybe in one generation even. It may be long-term. I'm not sure how you can do it. If you can change their minds about using the water for agriculture only to being able to diversify and think outside the box to do other things with the water and the river itself. So, education is probably a little bit of a barrier with those folks in that mindset. [interesting because another interviewee stated they were on the ditch with prettiest, greenest grass around; that's what they use it for; they don't know how much water it takes] They use as much as they can get so they can have the greenest grass, right. [if grass is important, then water is important] That could be a barrier, I suppose.The regulation and policies can be...we really need to work on this...it can be a real thing that we need to do. At the beginning, we need to focus on changing peoples' minds and attitudes toward the healthier, balanced economic development. For that purpose, I think the most important barriers are lack of understanding and lack of education about their personal lives are related to the environment. More specifically, how their personal health is related to the Verde River.

Well, there is not enough money, staff, organizations who conduct the education that we need. There just isn't. I mean, here is a real simple example. But for lack of maybe $35,000, Arizona State Parks doesn't have a group tour individual, a marketing department that drives the very foundation of its budget and that's the Enhancement Fund. Now, out of group tours and out of that marketing department, comes publications, information, you know, web...they're just struggling to get E-blast newsletters out about parks, specifically. But, when it comes to advancing sustainable economic development, it's the same issue. It's 'who is on the ground; who is funding the kind of on-the-ground work disseminating information. Who is the conduit between groups that work? We were lucky that state parks stepped up and said, 'look, we think this brain trust thing is the best.' But, I was staffed. I was paid to make sure that we kept on track and that we will continue to have dialogue. Now, that affected the outgrowth which was The Friends of the Verde River Greenway ultimately. So, and the study that NAU did was an outgrowth of that on the watershed. So, I think that you've got to have somebody that's continually driving the issue. And, there is just, right now, I just don't see investments in that kind of personnel that can reach out, develop the kind of material that you need, connect with the groups that you need, and keep the issue alive. That's hard. So, this kind of funding and support through this kind of work, is what gets you down the road a little bit further.Barriers are the lack of education, people just not quite getting what's going on around them and not choosing to be in a place of power, whether it's conscious or unconscious. They're stepping back and saying that somebody else will deal with it. It's too big, I can't do it. If all of us come together, it's not too big. Education is key. The policies that keep...we had a goat herder at the roundtable discussion that we did. She can't sell her goat milk to her neighbors. It's illegal for her to sell her goat milk to her neighbors. It's crazy. (It's not pasteurized?). People are trying to make ends meet in Sedona, there's a regulation that says you can only own 2 chickens, no more than 2 chickens and you can't have a rooster. What good is that? There are regulations that prevent us from being sustainable. Local regulations as well as at every level...local, county, state, federal, all of it. We need to step up and say No, these laws are not supporting us, they're not our laws and they're not working for us. (do people say, I don't want a rooster living right next to me?) I don't, but if they're hungry and it gets to the point where food is doubled or tripled in price and gas has tripled in price, they're going to be motivated differently. The motivation is just not there because the awareness isn't there. Most people just continue to continue without the awareness. They don't realize that what they see on the news isn't the reality that is actually happening. People are shocked when I tell them that 1 in 7 people in the Verde Valley two years ago were hungry. Now it's, I don't have the exact number, but it's increased considerably. Now 1 in 4 kids in the US are food insecure, 1 in 4. 1 in 4 children are also obese or overweight. That's rising. They're predicting that if it continues on the path that it is, by 2020, 75% of Americans will be obese or overweight. If we do nothing. It adds to medical costs. It's literally killing people. It's not healthy. We need to educate people about those statistics. 17.5 million children in the US are hungry. That means that 17.5 million children in the US have compromised learning ability because they're not focused nor motivated to learn because they're too worried about their own life. Supposedly we one of the most advanced nations in the world, but it's not going in a good direction for the US. All the other countries are surpassing us in education. Education in schools and in the community. That's what we're doing. We're working in the schools, we've got a whole curriculum that goes along with the school gardens that we're implementing in every school that's ready to do that. The kids get a whole different feel for where their food comes from. Kids that have never eaten fresh vegetable before are saying wow, I want to eat this. I'm not talking to kids as much as I'd like to. I'd like to have more time to be in schools. But I do visit schools and talk to...be part of the curriculum for teaching them about hunger. With kids, it's 1 in 4. When you include adults in 2009, it's 1 in 7. Here, it's 1 in 7. In Camp Verde, it's 25% of the kids that are hungry. A little insecure. Hunger is as much an emotional experience as it is a physical experience because it affects us emotionally as well as mentally. If we've got 17.5 million kids in the US learning

compromised because of food, what is our future going to look like? We're not investing in our future at all if we're letting this happen. I went to a conference that Mary Ann Williamson put on a year ago and she was talking about every 5 minutes a child somewhere in the world dies of hunger. Basically there are organizations that are trying to help, but basically most Americans just say oh well, that's there. It's happening here. It's not at the same rate. 1 in 4 children are hungry in the US, but 1 in 4 children are also overweight or obese. So they're not undernourished necessarily, although there are some who are, but they're malnourished. They're eating bad food. Mal means bad. They're bad food which is causing them to be obese. It's not that they're eating too much food which most Americans will say...oh, they're eating too much. They're just eating bad foods. That's where all that education can come in. So those are the limitations because... They're systemic issues that have gotten to an acute stage that we have got to start addressing them or acute problems.Everybody knows that Arizona water rights are almost written in stone. Although now you know that SRP never did have these permits. I'm sure they're pouring lots of money into it. SRP should be a good partner as well. They really should. But because our interests at this juncture are pretty much the same, which is don't let anybody else have the water. It's just a little selfish, but what the heck. If it works for us. I'm thinking economic development, I'm talking houses, mining, pollution threats to my knowledge have not been an issue yet, but we don't know that. There's pollution that's not necessarily in the river but to the side of the river. It's people putting stuff in ditches and in washes. That kind of threat. Part of the system is everything that would feed into the river. Wash off from the roads going into ditches or the washes especially. Dumping in washes. Wastewater systems. The location of wastewater systems. It's not a problem to my knowledge. Part of that is that we don't have...like on Broadway, there's not that much traffic. But every car that goes by drips a little bit of oil and it runs off and eventually what the surface of the road is made out of basically a petroleum product. And 89A. This whole side of the mountain, everything that falls. That's something else that development brings. Little by little we turn wilderness into roads and then it's gone. Again, I think a lot of it is the political side. We have a lot of people, and this is maybe one of the down sides of being a retirement area, is that you have people who once they are here, they want to close the gate. They don't want a lot of new growth. They like it the way it is now that they're here. I think that sometimes it's difficult with those kinds of folks to get them real involved in wanting to pay for, let's say, new infrastructure or whatever. Again politics to some degree enters into this. In our case in Yavapai County, a lot of it is water law, because we have a Salt River Project issue to deal with. Definitely going to be the ditch association, maybe even SRP or APS, I believe it's SRP that has the rights to the water in people's wells. So not only the ditch association, SRP. Off the top of my head, you know Sedona appears very anti-growth, kind of not-in-my-backyard type of thing. So again, I know we're not talking Oak Creek, but still that mindset of anti-growth filters down to us here in Cottonwood. Maybe with a political mind shift and maybe Sedona would be supportive because it's not in their backyard. I don't know. Those are my initial thoughts anyway. I think most people want to see the Verde River thrive. Again, when I still want to water my lawn and my plants and everything else. That's where you'll get push back. The old timers and long-time users of that system. We flood irrigate so I can't tell you the amount of cubic feet that's coming out of the pipe in my backyard. If I couldn't irrigate, I wouldn't have a lawn and I wouldn't live there. I would move. I keep it lush green. I have huge pecan trees, cherry trees, apple trees, huge cottonwood tree, and without that water, I'd have to use city water which would not...there's no way with that amount of land that I could afford to sprinkle that and pay city water rates. I come for the mid-west and that's what drew me to this area. That lush green infection of cottonwoods. There's not many streets that are like that in the high desert. For me it was having that area. Now could I do it with half as much water? My husband would tell you no. He's the one that does the watering. He waters twice a week. Flood irrigates the entire yard twice a week. And our understanding is that whatever water we don't use goes back into the water table and eventually flows into the Verde River. So it's not necessarily that it's wasted, but the fact that it's pulled out and doesn't flow back into the Verde River for a while is a concern. Could we do it with half as much water? Probably. I bet we probably

could. Again, are you going to get kick back from all the users. I guess. I think you could. There's no scientific knowledge behind how much water we use. Not for my family. Somebody might have that scientific research but I don't. We just know that when we water twice a week, our grass looks really good. I'm being honest.Many factors I guess. Some properties would be very ideal of economic development, but they're owned by families that don't want to see it. It would have an adverse effect on their quality of lifestyle. The whole Bridgeport area and most of the property is owned by two or three families in big chunks. And they frankly enjoy all their open space and they're entitled. They own the property. In that area, it may be that the folks that own it don't want it to happen, because it's going to affect their quality of lifestyle. In other areas, the lack of good of access to the properties and lack of sewer. You have to have sewer around the river. You can't have development without the way to dispose of the waste. The sewer and use factor may stop the development of the river. You can't put a motel near the river and have that sewage going into the river. I'd say the landowners. And the lack of infrastructure. Right now, unfortunately, a lack of financing, in the overall, a lack of financing. There's no commercial money out there to build anything. The one you would want to interview would be Andy Groseta. I'd love to hear his interview. He has more of a cattleman's perspective. Mostly about the Mongini family, the Groseta family, and all the others along that ditch. They've raised that whole area and they've kept the cost down to their members through a lot of volunteerism and a lot of working together. You know what they charge per acre to pull it out of that river. At least the others would have a lot more paid staff. It's probably the absolute the most ???? 39:57 water in the state of Arizona. There's bound to be...they sometimes when you look at the water, you saw the Verde River. I'm not advocating this for we own a lot of ditch rights over 6 ??? 40.12, but I think that folks getting to take water need to realize the importance of using it in a prudent manner. I mean, this lot sitting out in Clarkdale, I'm not paying a whole lot for pumping my water, and I'm getting plenty of it ???? I think that people when cautioned more, it's like gasoline. 50 a gallon or 21 cents a gallon.???? I may not be going to the post office. (discussion of water rates in Clarkdale) I'm with you then. I've given them a lot of money, but they've saved me a lot of money, too. I mean, you get that way and if the toilet's leaking, you get it fixed, because it's going to cost you. Water is a very precious commodity. I don't care where you live. The thing about water is that in northern Arizona, we see it's a big deal to run a pipeline 500 ft. to a water source. Where in the Great Lakes, they have more water than we'll ever have, and they run water lines hundreds of miles from the lake where they take some water out. I probably saw in the Verde Valley Mr. Bullard ran that water out for Steve Coury into Camp Verde. These guys in the northwest say that's nothing. ??? 42:20 and shut down the water company. You know there wasn't a lot of exploration for water. It was more using the same source. From Utah, Mike and I had a well from Utah that produced 8 gallons a minute. We were very disappointed. All the people in Utah said you've hit a gusher, 8 gallons a minute? Oh my goodness, that's such a great well. ??? 42:46 We thought it was a bad well. Up there the water is much more precious and there water laws in Utah are way more advanced than ours. You don't even drill a well there if you have water rights. You just can't drill. Those water rights are like gold. Now it ends up more strenuous. In the old days, we could move water from Cottonwood to Clarkdale substantial water rights. Today if you're moving water out of the basin you think you're in, you'll have protests like crazy. It's way more advanced and way more regulated than what we are. Water up there, you buy a piece of land and you don't have the water right, and you're going to graze cattle on there. It's a very unique appropriations but it's tough to deal with. (are regulations and economic development at cross purposes there?) You've got to realize what you're buying before you buy it and you realize that if you're going through obstacles and you're going to accomplish something, you better do your homework. If you have a lot that you're going to put down on this property, you have to make sure you have the right to own this property and the right also to own the water rights. And that could even use less than the Verde River...if you own the property, the next thing you know the way they could be extracing minerals from your property or gravel. We found out that the laws used in Utah were that you get morel rights in some areas and and less rights in other areas. It's something of a balancing act. We had a property in this one area with a view of the beautiful red rocks, we started extracting the material and were told we can't do that. ??? 44:46 So, we

didn't know that and we kept negotiating with him and he ended up buying the property, but still he had rights that we didn't know that he had. It's kind of like what we have today up here in Jerome. We have a household and PD wants to come in and go down, they may have the surface rights. They have a lot of rights that they have. ??? rights to your house and they can be doing their thing. It happens up there. It's called Rancho Black Acres. I remember the community name. (discussion not pertaining to questions)... We don't know what land is worth any more, because unless you have a buyer, which is rare for vacant land. Steve Coury, from Cottonwood, buy a key corner. He sold a piece of land to the Big 5 Sporting Goods company probably for a price of 60% of what it was bought a few years ago. He ??? 47:46. the rules have really changed. Now when’s it going to come back? I don’t know. (Long discussion about national property values, saying that small towns have lost more value than large cities).

I think we have to retool our thinking – what is our community? How do we define our community? We need folks to come up to Jerome to buy their goods – Senior citizens are not the market. They already have all the stuff they don’t need.Probably just the water laws of Arizona are one of the bigger barriers. The problem with the water laws is that disconnection between groundwater and surface water within our laws that allows basically unlimited drilling of groundwater to occur. I think our surface water useage for agricultural uses in the Verde Valley could be much better. I haven't worked with those ditch companies, and there are so many looking at ways or better ways of doing business with more sustainable sorts of systems. They're expensive, so economics is certainly enters into the issue to be part of that and some of the decisions and the ability to make change and how those diversions can be more efficiently operated. But is generally the attitude that I have this water right and I'm going to use it to death. I can't remember which part of that statute is but basically if you don't use it, you lose it, water right is taken away. Better management of our water resources. (Walton Foundation is working with Nature Conservancy to make ditches more efficient) Pumping water into ditches where it's needed would be a big improvement.

I'm trying to think. You give all these examples. The first one that jumps out, we were talking about legal access, property rights. If you don't have all these places where you can legally access the river, you have to purchase the property or condemn. That's a barrier to advancing economic development. Because if you can't have access to the river, that's the development we were talking about, developing places where the public can use the river. I don't know about ditch companies. I think the current mess we're all in, the economic mess, I could see that the state of Arizona and/or the county, I guess the state would be more likely. They were closing state parks. Were going to close more as we all know. I think this thing might last a while longer than most people do. I think that's an immediate barrier. There's no money to do any of this stuff we're talking about. Unless it were done privately. There's no money for the state. There's no public money. The state parks, even privately you know. The Nature Conservancy in speaking with them, they don't have the funds. People aren't giving the money like. I think that's going to be a ramification for a lot longer than most people think. I think the river is in immediate need of help from what I read. I don't it might be a hydrologist. Clearly, it's substantially worse than it was 20 or 30 years ago. I don't see where the money's going to come from. It's not like the Walton thing donating, but the state being able to develop anything, any more parks, any more recreational activities along the river that would help economic development. I just don't think there's going to be money. I think that when there is money available finally, it would go to schools and stuff first, not that it shouldn't. It would go to other uses first. Maybe they'll ACCHSS or Medicaid will pay for some more organ transplants that they just stopped paying for and stuff like that. I think that would come first. It may be a long ways off before there's money to help the river from the state. I think the river will always be low on the priority list. Well especially education and hiring back a lot of the people that used to have jobs for the cities, the state, and the counties. As more services become necessary when the economy improves, the money will be spent on salaries and paying off the debt that we're going to have. I just really think this economic thing will cause havoc for a long time. We're only 4 or 5 years into this still. It's going to change people's thinking the same way the Depression changed our grandparents' way of thinking. They didn't have

credit cards and they didn't buy on credit. It changed the thinking of people like you and me...younger people, people who are running municipalities and states might be a little more prudent and not all of a sudden ??? 24:24 funds. You told me that. You meet with these people right? They're so stupid. That's what I think about the economic development of anything along not just the river, but anything. There's no money. If you had private funds for any...we've talked about as a society privatizing social security, we've already privatized more schools. Our charter schools are public, but they're quasi. We talk about how the private sector can do so much good in social security. Donations. Things like the Shriners Hospital that's supported by private money. If we had all the private money coming in, it wouldn't matter that the state couldn't spend a penny. Yeah, to answer your question directly about these people helping out. It's really necessary now. It becomes more necessary when there isn't public money available.

Number one is the education or awareness. I mentioned that it's my opinion that we have a much, much higher awareness than we've had, but it's still not broad enough. There are many of thoughts involved in trying to expand this knowledge and awareness of what we're doing, but it hasn't penetrated everybody in the valley yet. There's a lot of people that still don't get it. So we need to increase that visibility. That kind of awareness. We need to be concerned about state law and restrictions. Our current state legislature is a challenge. (what would you like to see changed about state law?) The delay that happens in various incentive programs whether it's jobs programs or whatever it might be were suddenly encompassed in this bill that just got rushed through and nobody's even read yet. It's the so called jobs bill. It depends on who you're talking to. When the governor was addressing us and I'll say us because you and I were there with that legislative luncheon, it was the jobs bill. Now when it was addressed to the media, it was the tax relief bill. The same bill. When it was passed, I think it's safe to say that I don't know that a single member of the legislature had read the bill. Maybe a staffer had read chunks of it, but I know all the leadership said they hadn't read it. Scares me to death that there could be a restriction or a problem that shows up in a piece of legislation that they didn't know about until after the fact and then you have to go back and fight it. That kind of thing is a concern. Unintended consequences. I'll give you one example that's there right now. There's an omnibus labor bill that in the Senate right now. It got the ??? 36:09 that stuck on it along the way, most of it which is pretty benign. It's a pretty straight forward bill except lost in paragraph J or somebody's amendment is language demanding a minimum of 5,000 square feet before you can do any sampling of wine and alcoholic beverages. When we came across that because we're all trying to pay attention to our business interests, my gawd, if they took that to mean that you couldn't have a tasting room with a winery with less than 5,000 square feet. So they all these new enterprises that are being successful would be out of business overnight. I guess presumably to the benefit of Deb ??? 36:55 or the big box kind of stores, the Costcos and such. So we can look at it and we believe the licensing under which these businesses currently operate will protect them from that and their target is to not see sampling penetrate down to the Circle K's and the rest of these smaller ??? 37:13. But the unintended consequences, I spoke to some of these legislators about it as did some of the other interested parties around the state. And at the moment, we're still watching to make sure something stupid like that doesn't slide through and you get nailed and then you have to go back and start over. The federal melt down or the melt down period obviously has potential consequences for all of us for economic well-being. There are other obvious threats. I mentioned one before. The idea of, one that we're concerned about here, suddenly pumping the water out of the Big Chino aquifer and drying up 26 miles of the river. And I know there are people that will say, oh no problem, we'll replace the water. I'd like to see where or how. We're on this side of the hill (like SRP's position, show me and then pump) Well the other issue we're going to have is the water rights issues. There are a lot of legal cases moved forward starting from the Salt River and working your way up. So from SRP and all that kind of thing as well. Some of which have been properly filed. Some of which have been improperly adjudicated over the years. Any of those could give us a big surprise at some point. So of course, that is a concern.