It is almost ten years since a few people got upset over plans to build a new interstate highway through the Avra Valley west of Tucson. A handful of activists, with little or no coordination, gathered and disseminated information to any who would listen. Meanwhile the backers of the new highway, originally called the I-10 Bypass, rolled forward with their big money backers and compliant politicians. They were set back by the Not-So-Great Recession, but they persevered. They thought they had it in the bag, a done deal, although there was some concern expressed about rumblings in the Avra Valley.
Those rumblings are now maturing into a growing movement. On May 20 hundreds of people stopped at Picture Rocks and Sandario Roads to sign petitions and postcards opposing a new highway through their homeland. They took hundreds more cards home for friends and family to sign and send in to the Arizona Dept. of Transportation before their June 2 comment deadline on Interstate 11 “alternative routes.” Neighbors not known previously for political activism hit the roads with signs and bullhorns to spread the word. They did it peacefully, but with passion.
The first skirmish was at ADOT’s State Transportation Board in December, 2008. Meeting in Tucson, the agenda item was a study for an I-10 Bypass to go through either the San Pedro River Valley or the Avra Valley. Over 100 people crowded into the meeting room with more than 60 filling out cards to speak to the issue.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors had, a year before, adopted Resolution 2007-343 opposing “any new highways in or around the County that have the stated purpose of bypassing the existing Interstate 10 as it is believed that the environmental, historic, archaeological and urban form impacts could not be adequately mitigated.” They specifically argued against routes through the San Pedro or Avra valleys.
ADOT REJECTS CHEAPER ROUTE
ADOT State Engineer Jennifer Toth spoke for the $3 million study, noting that an alternative would be double-decking six miles of I-10, from Ruthrauff to I-19. That, she said, would do everything ADOT wanted for the next 30 years, but was too expensive. It seemed that while the cost-per-mile of double-decking was higher, using the existing I-10 corridor would cost nearly $2 billion less than building a new 56-mile highway.
STB Chair Si Schorr, a politically-connected real estate attorney, called for a vote and the STB unanimously approved the I-10 Bypass study. They voted without hearing from any of the public, prompting an uproar. Schorr recessed the meeting and called in the police. Barrio Sapo resident Jack Hewitt, present with some neighbors to voice his opposition during the Call to the Public, negotiated for five people to speak, including Arizona Game and Fish and Saguaro National Park. Picture Rocks resident Albert Lannon refused to leave the podium without speaking, and was allowed to do so. But the vote had been taken and there was no reconsideration.
The 2008 recession dried up the funding so the study never got underway. But along came Interstate 11, originally to link Phoenix and Las Vegas. A “Canamex Highway” from Canada to Mexico had been talked about in some circles for years, but now coalitions of big business and politicians began forming to push it forward. Tucson’s Sun Corridor Inc. corporate leaders, with Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bronson in their Chairman’s Circle, led the way. Mexico’s multi-billionaire Carlos Slim wants the new highway to extend all the way to Mexico City.
THE HUCKELBERRY HIGHWAY
In 2013 Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, in total disregard of the Supervisors’ earlier action, set out a proposed Avra Valley route for I-11. Added to that was an eastern leg that would link I-10 and I-19 for the benefit of Raytheon, the airport and the University of Arizona Tech Park. Originally labeled I-11 on Huckelberry’s maps, that leg is now called the Sonoran Corridor, and funding for part of it was rejected by voters in the 2015 bond election. That hasn’t slowed Huckelberry down. His Communications Department, staffed in part by former local reporters, avoids the Bypass issue by calling it an “auxiliary interstate.”
In response to the threat to their homeland an informal Avra Valley Coalition was formed, primarily an email list to get information out, with a number of excellent researchers like Myra Jones on board. Their research found that Mesa real estate speculator Wil Cardon had at least 1500 acres in the path of what the Coalition called the “Huckelberry Highway” and stood to gain big time. Cardon ran in the Republican primaries for U.S. Senate, and for Secretary of State with Tucson real estate speculator Don Diamond and his company’s president, Elliot Goldstein, on his campaign committee.
The Sonoran Corridor, instead of being a straightforward east-west line linking the two existing interstates, drops south before it reaches I-19. That gives a free access highway to Diamond’s planned upscale Swan Southlands development. It is said in research: follow the money! Cardon, Diamond…and District 3 Supervisor Sharon Bronson, a staunch supporter of Huckelberry. Diamond coughed up nearly $60,000 to support Bronson’s narrow re-election over challenger Kim DeMarco in 2016.
Jack Hewitt had left Barrio Sapo, along Mile Wide Road, to live near his grandchildren in another state. Neighbor Robin Clark stepped up and launched a MoveOn.org online petition opposing I-11 through the Avra Valley. That petition has nearly 1300 signers, and she has set a new goal of 2,000. The petition can be accessed at http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/no-interstate-11-highway.
PUBLIC OPPOSES I-11
In December, 2014, The State Transportation Board – chaired by now-District 4 Supervisor Steve Christy — approved a number of road repair and improvement projects, and then suspended them to fund a $15 million, three-year, Tier One I-11 Environmental Impact Study (EIS) as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. That study is now in its second, and perhaps most crucial, year.
Meeting with several people from the Avra Valley as the study was beginning, project manager Jay Van Echo at first said they planned to develop “dozens” of alternative routes for I-11 in Southern Arizona, but soon acknowledged that there were only two real choices – the existing I-10 corridor or the Avra Valley. A series of public meetings was held, with large turnouts in Tucson and Marana. While the ADOT summary report of public comments never mentions it, an overwhelming majority of those comments were in opposition to I-11 or an I-11 route through the Avra Valley. They are posted online at i11study.com/Arizona.
In late April, 2017, the EIS project team quietly announced public meetings to review their alternative routes: the existing I-10, or two Avra Valley routes that overlap and pretty much follow the Huckelberry Highway. Both face a bottleneck at Mile Wide and Sandario Roads where there is only an 80-foot right-of-way, with 400-feet needed. The Tohono O’odham’s Garcia Strip is on the west side, and the US Bureau of Reclamation’s Wildlife Mitigation Corridor – established “in perpetuity” when the CAP canal was built – is on the east. Huckelberry’s solution is to elevate the highway, using Sandario Road as the base for pylons.
The EIS project team did not do extensive publicity, but Avra Valley activists went to work notifying everyone they could despite a virtual media blackout. Emails, Facebook postings, tweets, texts and phone calls generated over 400 people at the Tucson and Marana meetings. Most appeared opposed to any I-11 through the Avra Valley. At the Marana meeting, after project manager Jay Van Echo proclaimed the democracy of the process, Avra Valley Coalition member Albert Lannon was physically stopped from asking a question about the cost of following I-10 instead of building a new highway.
NEIGHBORS STEP UP
Picture Rocks resident Jo Bowman made up flyers with tear-offs listing the ways to comment to ADOT before the June 2 deadline, posting them at various locations. She and Paul Hamilton joined neighbors Erica Lee and Chris Kraft, 20-year residents, to set up a postcard-signing rally at Picture Rocks and Sandario Roads on May 20. More than 300 people stopped to get information and sign messages and petitions to ADOT. Several neighbors helped, including teacher Janie Schembri, a 30-year resident. Many who didn’t stop waved or honked their support.
There were several people who supported an Avra Valley I-11, mainly because they believed it meant local jobs. When told that ADOT’s Final Purpose and Need Memorandum of this past February continued to hope for US companies to move from China to Mexico, where wages are now lower than China, and for integrated manufacturing – R&D in the US, manufacture and assembly in Mexico — one I-11 supporter said, “That doesn’t make any sense!” Activists believe that getting the facts out to the people will change pro-I-11 minds.
Those facts include the loss of jobs along the existing I-10 corridor, the loss to Tucson of tax revenues from those businesses, loss of tourism-related jobs, as well as the air and noise pollution that would infect the Avra Valley and its thousands of families. Some residents also fear an increase in drug and human smuggling along a new highway, making their neighborhoods unsafe. A fireman pointed out that local communities like Picture Rocks and Avra Valley are not equipped, and do not have the resources, to handle the increased law enforcement and emergency problems a new highway would inevitably bring.
Albert Lannon joined Kevin Dahl from the National Parks Conservation Association at the May Citizens for Picture Rocks meeting to discuss I-11 with a large and receptive audience. The community group is now considering taking a formal position on the highway. The Avra Valley Coalition’s email list has swelled to over 700.
SUPES SABOTAGE SELVES
Flyers were distributed showing that the City of Tucson, Arizona Game and Fish, US Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, US Bureau of Reclamation and the Environmental Protection Agency all expressed grave reservations about routing I-11 through the Avra Valley, calling for utilizing the existing I-10 right-of-way. The Board of Supervisors, however, refused at its May 16 meeting to respond to a request that they transmit their adopted policy to the ADOT study. That leaves Chuck Huckelberry’s letter of support for an Avra Valley highway the only official Pima County position on record in the EIS.
Another neighbor, Elaine Folland, contacted Congressman Raul Grijalva’s office and senior staff member Ruben Reyes told her that the congressman was hearing from constituents who wanted the highway to follow I-10 through Tucson to stimulate economic growth, and that the official position of his office was to go through town and not the Avra Valley. In Legislative District 11, which includes the Avra Valley, State Senator Steve Smith and Representatives Mark Finchem and Vince Leach had earlier taken similar positions.
While ADOT meetings in Casa Grande and Nogales were reported in the local media, there was a virtual news blackout in Tucson and Marana, the most directly affected areas with the largest public meetings. The online news Arizona Daily Independent, whose I-11 stories were ignored in ADOT’s compendium of media stories a year ago, appears to be the only news source covering the story. But people are using social media and over-the-fence conversations and email and the word is getting out; people are speaking up. Some are talking about the time coming soon when they may have to act up as well.
While the bipartisan Arizona congressional delegation, led by Senator John McCain, were successful in amending the 2015 FAST Act to include I-11 and the Sonoran Corridor as priorities eligible for federal funding, no money has been identified for actual construction. Estimates are that the bulldozers won’t appear for five to fifteen years. But the EIS project team will, in the coming year, choose their “preferred alternative.” A “No-build” option is always available, but not really on the table. A “preferred alternative” then becomes about ADOT refining and defending its choice, with other alternatives off the table, with the “preferred” becoming the “selected alternative” at the end of the three year study period.
There is a qualitative change in the Avra Valley I-11 story that is still playing out. Neighbors are now talking to neighbors. People who are generally quiet are speaking out. People who never thought of themselves as activists are taking action. Politicians are taking notice. Uncoordinated protests are turning into a popular movement. What Chuck Huckelberry called “an undeveloped region” is finding its voice. If ADOT and the politicians fail to listen, they do so at their own peril. This is how movements are born.