River News Now Breaking News Travel

Tucson, Arizona - The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension and the Gila Watershed Partnership will use a $35,500 grant to offer a series of classes on watershed science in eastern Arizona beginning in early 2009.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality awarded a Water Quality Improvement Education Grant to the Gila Watershed Partnership, a group of federal, state and local government agencies, companies, organizations and private citizens. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension is a member of the partnership.

The partnership also will partly match the ADEQ grant with an additional $25,000. The funds will be used to develop the class curriculum for the Master Watershed Steward Program, a collaboration between ADEQ and UA Cooperative Extension.

William Brandau, the director of the UA Graham County Extension office in Safford, Ariz., said the goal of the classes is educating area residents, especially policy and decision makers, about the complexity of the watershed. The project will offer a series of classes on subjects such as water quality, geology and hydrology, ecology, mapping and Geographic Information Systems. One class will include a daylong field trip into the Gila watershed area.

Brandau said the classes are scheduled to start in early 2009 and may also include a number of UA faculty members as instructors.

“One goal is to expose people to everything that is going on, tie them to specific projects (through the Gila Watershed Partnership) and encourage them to volunteer for the partnership’s varied conservation programs,” Brandau said.

The Gila Watershed Partnership covers 7,354 square miles in Graham and Greenlee counties in eastern Arizona, from the Coolidge Dam to the Arizona-New Mexico border. The land supports a variety of human activity including farming, ranching, mining and outdoor recreation. It also includes habitat for a number of environmentally sensitive species.