Will Salt River be McCain’s legacy?
Initiative aims to revive waterway through Valley
The Salt River gave life to the Valley. Then it tore it apart.
More than 100 years after dams dried up the portion of the river that cut across the Phoenix metropolitan area, some of Arizona’s most influential leaders are trying to put the Valley back together again by erasing the scar the river left behind.
It’s a continuation of a plan hatched more than 50 years ago by a team of undergraduate architecture students at Arizona State University, who thought putting water back into the river would transform the riverbanks into an economic and recreational boomtown.
“We wanted to bring life back to the place where people were turning their backs on,” said Bill Close, who a halfcentury ago was one of those ASU students.
Close and his former classmates are considered the brains behind what is now Tempe Town Lake — the only part of their grand vision that came to fruition.
In the past five decades, elected officials and civic leaders have tried to transform the riverbed, with limited success. But a recent commitment by U.S. Sen. John McCain has re-energized the effort to revitalize the Salt River corridor from east Mesa to Buckeye.
In August, the senator spoke about the renewed initiative to a group of current ASU students who are expected to participate in the next phase of the project.
He said the Rio Salado development could rival or even surpass the famous San Antonio Riverwalk and could be one of the most significant environmental and economic additions in Phoenix history. “Frankly, after a while, you start thinking about your legacy. It may not be completed in my time, but I believe that someday it will be,” McCain told the students.
The senator noted that the development will be part of not only his legacy, but also that of all the visionaries before him, and the students and leaders who will continue the project after him.
“I don’t mean to be a little dramatic, but I believe if we get this done, someday your kids and you will be walking along and you’ll be able to say, ‘I played a role in that. I was part of the effort that made this such a wonderful place to raise you kids and for you to have a better life than the one you had before I started on it,’ ” he said. “That’s kind of a nice legacy.”
McCain’s revival of the Rio Salado Project is in its earliest stages, but all the stakeholders — including the leadership from all the cities and Indian communities the river traverses — say they’re on board, a critical first step.
McCain has entrusted ASU with organizing a formal working group and pushing the project forward. Duke Reiter, senior policy adviser to ASU President Michael Crow, said the university has pledged its full support.
“The Rio Salado project has the potential to transform the Salt River bottom and revitalize an untapped Valley treasure,” McCain told The
Arizona Republic in a statement on Saturday. “I look forward to continue working with ASU, mayors and other local elected officials and stakeholders to establish a vision and an organization to see this project through long term.”
The Valley’s lifeblood
The Salt River once roared through what is now metropolitan Phoenix and beyond. It was the lifeblood that allowed Native Americans and early settlers to exist in the harsh conditions of the Sonoran Desert.
In the early 1900s, Arizonans dammed the river for a canal system to deliver water across the Valley. The current Granite Reef Diversion Dam was completed in 1908. It was the single most important factor in the Phoenix area’s eventual growth. But cutting off the water supply left a dry, ugly scar that twisted across Mesa, Tempe, Phoenix and the West Valley.
It was a gigantic ditch, more than a mile wide in some sections, that became a commercial landfill, garbage dump and asphalt pit.
‘What could it be?’
In the 1960s, James Elmore, founding dean of ASU’s College of Architecture, challenged his faculty: “Let’s do something with the river.”
On Sept. 19, 1966, ASU professor Robert McConnell tasked a group of 16 fifth-year architecture students with studying the riverbed from the Granite Reef Dam all the way to the Gila River and figuring out if it could be something more than a garbage dump.
They had eight weeks. “What could it be?” he asked the students, then left the room.
Jim Scalise, one of the students and still a working architect in the Valley, said the young men looked around the room at one another, perplexed.
But the students split up and evaluated each segment of the riverbed. What they came up with was a project as grand as it was ambitious — likely because “we didn’t know any better,” Scalise said.
Their ideas for the riverbed hinged on putting water back into it. Water, especially to desert dwellers, would attract businesses, recreation and maybe even professional sports teams.
“(We knew) that people respond to water and the environment like that. I mean, people drive to San Diego all the time just to see some water,” said Ned Sawyer, one of the students.
The students’ 1966 presentation suggested the Valley run a floodcontrol channel through the entire riverbed from Mesa to west Phoenix, with occasional pooled “lagoons” surrounded by parks for recreation. The students said the revived riverbed would create a unique and coherent design for the Phoenix area.
One of the students’ more grandiose ideas included connecting the river all the way to the Gulf of California and installing locks to allow barges to make their way from the ocean to the Valley.
They called it the Rio Salado Project, because on some of the earliest maps they found of Arizona, the cartographers used the Spanish name for the river, and it stuck with them. At that time, no one used the Spanish name, Close said.
The students moved on to other coursework
and graduated soon thereafter. But many of them stayed in the Valley and — in time — saw a portion of their vision come to life.
Tempe leads the way
The Rio Salado Project may have been envisioned in an eight-week seminar, but the realities of government slowed the actual development phase to a near-standstill.
There were decades of meetings, studies and discussions by ASU, nonprofit organizations and the Legislature. Eventually, there was a vote by the residents in each of the big three cities involved — Phoenix, Mesa and Tempe.
Only Tempe voters approved funding for the project.
Instead of folding when it became apparent that the rest of the Valley would not chip in, Tempe decided to go it alone. “They were ridiculed at the time that this was just a pie-in-the-sky, very impracticable idea,” Mesa Mayor John Giles said. “They proved all of those critics wrong.”
Harry Mitchell, mayor of Tempe at the time, helped lead the way on the Tempe Town Lake plan despite its staggering startup costs. “Tempe couldn’t ignore this like other cities can,” Mitchell told The Arizona Republic in 1997. “It’s too much of a prominent feature. It’s the gateway to the city.”
Today, Tempe Town Lake is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the state, second only to the Grand Canyon, according to the city. Since its creation, the lake has had a $1.5 billion economic impact on the city, and 40,000 people work within a mile of it.
The city has also invested in several riparian habitat areas in other portions of the riverbed to bring back native plants and animals.
McCain said in August, “I’ve been fooling around with this project for many, many years. And it wasn’t ready until we saw the incredible success of the Tempe Town Lake.”
Rio Salado 2.0
Reiter said ASU intends to incorporate Rio Salado 2.0 — the name university officials have given to the next phase of the project — into several of the university’s programs. For example, students studying anything from architecture to sustainability to environmental science to finance could be tasked with working on the project.
McCain said former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, who now heads the university’s Center for Water Policy, will be heavily involved to make sure water conservation is at the forefront of conversations.
“Like the people who kicked this off (in 1966), we’re kicking off a new phase of this, but it will be realized by probably multiple generations of civic leaders,” Duke Reiter said.
McCain has made clear that he wants the project to move along expeditiously. When he first attempted to revive the project in the 1980s, he said it got lost in a sea of meetings and studies with no tangible results.
“A growing number of leaders from across the Valley agree that re-imagining the Rio Salado as a public amenity that could include businesses, public recreation, and housing and infrastructure, could drive important economic growth just as Tempe Town Lake has done for the East Valley,” McCain said in a statement.
Reiter said there is not yet a design for Rio Salado 2.0 — and there likely won’t be one singular design. He said the senator and other stakeholders are not suggesting that all 45 miles of the Rio Salado look like Tempe Town Lake — each city will likely have its own ideas, and ASU will help to bridge them all together.
Reiter said his team is aiming to host a kickoff event for the project and formalize a working committee in early 2018.
Dealing with multiple governments could pose an additional hurdle, but Reiter said he believes “the genius of why Senator McCain wants to revive this is that it’s not in one city.”
“This region is characterized, fairly or unfairly, for the way that we’ve sprawled into the landscape,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be great if the cities came together and say, ‘Let’s have a project ... that sort of makes us look a bit more like a coherent metro area than just something that’s sort of all over the landscape.’ ”
Ahead of the class
Some cities, most notably Phoenix, already have done some rehabilitation to the riverbed. Karen Peters, Phoenix deputy city manager, said the city has spent $120 million to turn the swath of riverbed between 24th Street and 19th Avenue into a riparian area with vegetation and some water. “The idea is that we would attract businesses to be adjacent and on the banks and enjoy this amenity,” Peters said.
It’s been successful but slow-going, Peters said. Many people aren’t aware of the habitat rehabilitation, she said.
The Audubon Society opened a facility on the banks of the rehabilitated habitat at Central Avenue about eight years ago.
Executive Director Sonia Perillo said before the restoration, there were fewer than 20 species of birds in the area. Now, there are more than 200.
“It’s an example of ‘If you build it, they will come. If you restore it, they will come back,’ ” Perillo said.
On Phoenix’s west side, at 91st Avenue, the city also rehabilitated 700 acres in and around the Salt River, restoring a riparian habitat known as the Tres Rios Wetlands. The wetlands is not only a recreational asset open to the public — birders frequent the area to catch a glimpse of the 150 bird species — it’s also part of the Valley’s wastewatertreatment system.
Phoenix pumps 60 million to 80 million gallons of treated wastewater into the wetlands each day. The water meanders through a serious of basins, ponds and creeks where natural algae and other elements diminish the chlorine in the treated water and help bring back its natural chemical balance.
After the water goes through the wetlands, it’s poured into the Salt River, where it’s used by the Buckeye Irrigation District for non-edible crops.
“I love what Phoenix has done with the Rio Salado,” Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said. “Now, how does that interact with what Tempe has done? Or with what other cities have done? We need to better connect to other cities.”
Looking west and east
This genesis of the Rio Salado Project includes West Valley cities, which have exploded in population in recent decades. Goodyear Mayor Georgia Lord said she’s excited to see what could happen on her side of the Valley that could drive economic development and improve the quality of life.
“I have to tell you, I was thrilled that he (McCain) consulted us here in our community,” she said.
On the opposite side of the Valley, Giles said he could envision the Salt River’s eastern end transformed into portions that resemble Tempe Town Lake, Phoenix’s riparian areas — or something completely different.
Although the riverbed abuts Mesa, it’s technically on Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community land, so the city would serve a supporting role to the tribe in any development, he said.
Giles said the Valley has a history of collaborations across government boundaries.
“I know at the local level, the political will to do this is there,” Giles said.
A legacy for all
McCain in July was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive and deadly form of brain cancer, after doctors removed a blood clot during a procedure at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix.
Given his condition, discussions of his legacy are more timely than ever. And those who have worked with the senator say that a development project that could change the face and future of metro Phoenix is as fitting a legacy project as any.
McCain moved to Arizona in 1981 and has represented the state in Congress since 1982. His wife, Cindy, is a Phoenix native.
“He has a keen eye for the obvious. He is frustrated when he sees good ideas die for lack of political courage. He has the clout both here and at the national level to push good ideas,” Giles said. “It would be a great legacy for the senator.”
Stanton said not long after he was elected mayor in 2011, McCain asked to meet with him. The topic: transforming the riverbed.
“From day one, this was an issue of passion for him — that Phoenix make Rio Salado a priority,” Stanton said.
When discussing the project with students in August, McCain said the Phoenix area is continuing to grow. The question is: Will it grow in a positive way? “I believe that my obligation is to do whatever I can to make sure that the future of Arizona is better than when I came upon it and was first elected back during the Coolidge administration,” McCain, 81, said with a smirk.
A legacy beyond McCain
Earlier this year, Tempe dedicated the footbridge that crosses Tempe Town Lake to Elmore, the dean of the architecture school who first challenged ASU to “do something with the river.”
All the living students from the 1966 class, most of whom still work as architects, attended the dedication. One of them, who had moved to California and had never seen the lake in person, “just nearly fell out of the car” when he saw it, Scalise said.
“We never thought we’d live 50 years, much less see the project,” he said.
In addition to a plaque recognizing Elmore, there is now a sign with all 16 names of the students in the class, an equally fitting legacy for the people who set the stage for what is still to come.
“Who has their name attached to a body of water? Pretty rare, right?” alumnus Jerry Atwood said.