Military and enviros align in Arizona's public lands debate

...Such encroachment on military operations, created by development near bases, is increasingly a problem in Arizona, especially in the Sun Corridor — the megapolitan area that runs from Nogales to Prescott, where population is projected to hit 9.1 million by 2040. The associated demand for housing, recreation, solar and wind energy, and mining means military bases could lose essential buffer land and corridors to those other uses. A recent report from the Sonoran Institute, a community-focused nonprofit, recommends ways that military commands can protect their operations by reducing the threat of encroachment, especially through the conservation of publicly-owned land — thus aligning two values often seen as opposing.  Two days after the Sonoran Institute report was released, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Arizona, reintroduced a package of three public land bills. The bills would establish two National Conservation Areas and two Special Management Areas in the Sonoran Desert west of Phoenix and designate 3,325 square miles of the Santa Cruz Valley as a National Heritage Area, among other things...more