[ADEQ Media] ADEQ Director Owens Awards $114, 950 Grant for Water Quality Improvement Project in Cochise County

[media@lists.azdeq.gov]

ADEQ Director Owens Awards $114,950 Grant for Water Quality Improvement
Project in Cochise County 

PHOENIX (June 14, 2007) - Arizona Department of Environmental Quality
(ADEQ) Director Steve Owens today announced that the department has
awarded a $114,950 grant to fund a water quality improvement project in
the Whitewater Draw National Wildlife Area in Cochise County, near the
town of McNeal. 

"Protecting the local watershed is absolutely critical," Director Owens
said. "We are pleased to provide these funds to support this important
local effort."
 
The grant is for the Coronado Resource Conservation and Development
Council, a non-profit corporation based in Willcox that assists local
communities in improving their use of natural resources. The Council has
been working with four local ranchers whose property is located within
the Hay Mountain Watershed and who manage 61,500 acres of rangeland that
drains into the Whitewater Draw and its National Wildlife Area
downstream. 

The ranchers have been working with the federal National Resources
Conservation Service to improve livestock management on their individual
ranches. 

Under the grant, the ranchers will install dams and dikes on 7,000 acres
to slow runoff from the upper watershed and attempt to reduce erosion in
the area. The project will reduce sediment entering Whitewater Draw by
an estimated 22,000 tons a year.

"The Council and the ranchers are doing terrific work," Owens added.
"This is a great partnership."

The grant is funded with federal dollars provided to ADEQ under the
Clean Water Act.

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News media interested in additional information on this or any other
topic concerning the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality should
contact the Office of Communications at (602) 771-2215 or via email at
communications@azdeq.gov.

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