Still digging through the pages of FOIA emails, and we will be posting a few in the upcoming days and weeks, but this caught our attention.
We found a timeline of previous activities that mentioned the Plateau/Burtell report beginning in May of this year rather interesting. As you can see, BLM requested a “Subject Matter Expert” (SME) to help Faraday address BLM’s concerns of groundwater pumping.
Surprise! Faraday comes back with a memo from the SME that finds “no significant impact” to the aquifers from groundwater pumping.
Thankfully BLM asked to remove any reference of the “biased” memo from the Environmental Assessment. We did not find a copy of this “Plateau Report” in the original FOIA release, but we will try to see about an additional request. Timeline below.

Below is the June email showing the submittal of the “Plateau Report”

Below is the email from the Faraday consultant, stating that Plateau Resources/Burtell was hired for his extensive experience, specifically to the San Pedro River.

So who is Plateau Resources/Rich Burtell? Well, it seems he is a Subject Matter Expert and expert witness who was hired previously by Freeport MacMoRan to prove that groundwater pumping is NOT a problem. Burtell’s stance is “mesquite encroachment in the uplands and the increase in woody and herbaceous vegetation along the floodplain and terraces are responsible for lower streamflows” of the San Pedro River and “Regional pumping of groundwater is not affecting the river at this time”.
He also goes on to blame “non-management of the Bureau of Land Management”, saying “it led to the problems of the jump in vegetation and evapotranspiration which created problems with the river’s flow.”
Here are some articles from a 2019 trial when Burtell was an expert witness.
Burtell endures four days on the stand in SPRNCA water rights trial
Sparks fly during cross-examination of defense witness at SPRNCA water rights trial
Also, below are the declarations from Plateau/Burtell when again hired by Freeport MacMoRan to show that the San Pedro, Santa Cruz and Salt rivers were “neither navigable nor susceptible to navigation at or prior to statehood”.
Navigation at or prior to statehood is(was) an important designation.
From Arizona Navigable Stream Adjudication Commission Program Summary which can be found here.
“If those waterways were navigable at the time of statehood, the land in their beds is considered State Trust Land to be held in public trust with any related proceeds from the waterbeds deposited into the Riparian Trust Fund, pursuant to A.R.S. § 37-1156. However, if the commission determines the waterways were not navigable at the time of statehood, then the landbelongs to the current titleholder.”
Unfortunately “The commission has completed all its work regarding the adjudication and the final determination of non-navigability for the San Pedro River and the Santa Cruz River” and “The commission is scheduled to sunset on June 30, 2024 pursuant to Laws 2019, Chapter 26”.
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