Former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is joining an effort to save from development a 160-acre parcel that Saguaro National Park wants for expansion.
Babbitt and a real estate investor have taken out an option from the owners that keeps what’s known as the Bloom property from being sold for development for 30 days.
Babbitt’s goal is to have the parcel traded to the federal government for inclusion in the park.
The property, which lies just south of the Sweetwater Trail in Saguaro Park West, would be part of a proposed private-federal land swap that has been in the works for three years.
As the exchange now stands, some 2,400 acres of private land on the Empirita Ranch near the Pima-Cochise county line would be traded to the feds for inclusion in the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area.
In return, landowner Don Diamond would get more than 1,200 acres of Bureau of Land Management-owned land near Corona de Tucson.
The National Park Service has proposed adding the land to Saguaro Park as part of a 583-acre expansion plan. But because the Bloom family wants to sell it quickly, park officials and environmentalists are concerned that the parcel could be sold and developed before Congress can approve spending money to buy it.
Babbitt, a former Arizona governor, helped pass a law creating the conservation area in 2000 when he was Interior Secretary.
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