The 9th Circuit Court sided with two tribes and two nonprofits opposing the SunZia transmission line through the middle San Pedro Valley. The Court agreed that the plaintiffs have grounds to claim that the Department of Interior violated the National Historic Preservation Act by failing to evaluate whether the Valley should be designated as a historic property. The Court reversed and remanded the District Court’s decision. May 28, 2025

“We want the BLM and other federal agencies to take seriously the landscape level effects of their landscape level projects, ” said John Welch of Archeology Southwest on KSJE Radio, Farmington, NM yesterday. John was speaking about the opposition of several Native American tribes to the SunZia transmission line through the San Pedro River. He also announced that oral arguments in the Tohono O’odham Nation’s case in the Ninth Circuit Court will be Wednesday, March 26, 2025 in the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse, Phoenix, AZ. Mar. 7, 2025.

Peter Else described the importance of the unfragmented San Pedro landscape, Russ McSpadden from the Center for Biological Diversity noted a jaguar in the San Pedro watershed, and ABC-TV news journalist Justin Hobbs got his feet wet in a recent news spot. Feb. 14, 2025.

Howard Shanker, Attorney General for the Tohono O’odham Nation, spoke about the Nation’s lawsuits concerning the SunZia transmission line through the San Pedro Valley at a recent Symposium on Public Lands at the University of Colorado School of Law. A.G. Shanker’s talk starts at 3:25:00 on Day 1. Nov. 8, 2024.

Journalist Wyatt Myskow tells KJZZ radio why residents of Arizona’s San Pedro Valley and Native American tribes oppose the planned route of the SunZia transmission line. May 16, 2024.

“The nearly 50 miles of SunZia lines that would cut through the middle of the San Pedro Valley have sparked one of the nation’s most consequential fights over developing green spaces for green energy,” writes Wyatt Myskow in Inside Climate News.  Apr. 21, 2024.

Researchers at the Desert Botanical Garden have found “agave species that represent remnant populations of plants domesticated and farmed by pre-contact peoples” in Arizona. Sweetwater Center works with the researchers to learn more about the ancient agaves in our area. Oct. 10, 2023.

Sweetwater Center’s co-founders and board members, Tom Orum and Nancy Ferguson were awarded the Raymond Turner Award for Lifetime Achievement in Science for their nearly 50 years of annual saguaro monitoring at Saguaro National Park. June 2, 2023