Last July during the hottest time in the southern Arizona summer, Lower San Pedro River Valley landowner and conservationist Dave Shreeve received an unexpected request. Phillips 66 was asking permission to send surveyors to assess his Hot Springs Canyon property for petroleum pipeline routing. By early August, other landowners on the Canyon had also received emails requesting access to survey their land.
Hot Springs Canyon is an extensive watershed within the Lower San Pedro Valley, recognized by many as a pivotal conservation area. Part of the second-largest unfragmented area in Arizona, Hot Springs Canyon alone is home to giant saguaros, mountain lions, bears, gray foxes, coatis, gray hawks, yellow-billed cuckoos, desert tortoises, tarantulas and a host of insect, bird, plant, mammal, reptile and amphibian species. Over the past 40 years, conservation organizations and private landowners have purchased, leased and protected land to sustain this critical wildland and wildlife corridor between the Galiuro and Rincon mountain ranges.
On Aug. 11, 2026, Phillips 66, Kinder Morgan and HF Sinclair announced that they had completed a joint-venture investment agreement to proceed with the Western Gateway Pipeline – with a proposed route directly through the heart of the rare and biodiverse Lower San Pedro Watershed.
The three companies would jointly create a network of new and existing pipelines to transport petroleum products from mid-continent refineries and Gulf Coast supply points to California. The proposed section of the pipeline between Borger, Texas and Phoenix, Ariz., would be major new construction, consisting of approximately 900 miles of new 20-inch and 24-inch pipeline from Texas to Phoenix. Phillips 66 will construct and operate that new segment.
Originally, the pipeline was going to be routed through Pima County, but that route hit roadblocks concerning safety, environmentally sensitive area and existing infrastructure. The July phone call to Shreeve was the first indicator to Hot Springs Canyon residents that Phillips 66 was considering an alternate route through the San Pedro River Valley.
Local ranchers and landowners are uniting with the Cascabel Conservation Association, Saguaro Juniper Corporation, Archaeology Southwest, Cascabel Community Center, and Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance to oppose this fossil fuel expansion — a united response critical for this sparsely populated area. Their mission is to uphold the viability of something increasingly rare: an intact ecosystem, which operates as a whole and needs all of its parts and inhabitants.
For more information:
Position Statement from above organizations
Will a new gas pipeline cross Arizona? (Note that this article has the old map, still showing the pipeline going through Pima County instead of in the San Pedro River Valley.)
BLM National NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) Register
Read too about the parallel Energy Transfer plan for a gas pipeline along the San Pedro River, as well as our latest findings on the potentially precarious water situation in the greater watershed.