Oracle business community targets SCIP electric utility as impediment to economic development
By James J. Hodl | Copper Area News
More power to the people? Not necessarily if you live in southern Pinal County around the towns of Oracle and Mammoth and your local electricity provider is the San Carlos Irrigation Project (SCIP).
And this inability has local business people concerned that SCIP is retarding real estate and business development along with job creation in the area. And the continued inability to develop the area also could negatively impact local real estate prices, they said.
These concerns have now resulted in a July 1 meeting hosted by Pinal County Supervisor Pete Rios to see what can be done to rectify the situation, going even as far as replacing SCIP with another electric utility.
Business people in Oracle were surprised to learn in April that real estate developers lost interest in acquiring two properties near Campo Bonito and Mount Lemmon after SCIP informed them it couldn’t guarantee it could provide electricity for the proposed 600 to 800 homes.
Related: How a provider of agricultural irrigation became the electric utility of Oracle and Mammoth
