Pima County’s administrator is asking Gov. Janet Napolitano to assure the county that a parcel of land on the lower slopes of the Tortolita Mountains’ west side won’t be sold for development.
The 17,905-acre parcel that County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry wants to have set aside is blanketed with saguaros and ironwood trees. The ridgeline climbs steeply uphill toward Tortolita Mountain Park and its brown, rocky hillsides.
Napolitano agreed in the past month not to sell five other state-owned parcels totaling 5,005 acres in the Tucson area and about 42,000 acres statewide for development without consent of local governments.
The parcels she agreed to save have all been classified as conservation land by the State Land Department. They have never been permanently set aside as open space because of legal restrictions that make conservation of state land difficult to impossible.
In a letter, Huckelberry asked Napolitano to assure the conservation not only of the Tortolita parcel, but of three other state-owned parcels.
Lori Faeth, Napolitano’s policy adviser for natural resources, said the Governor’s Office hopes to respond to Huckelberry’s request this week. She noted the state has no imminent plans to sell any of this land.
Environmentalist Jenny Neeley predicted Huckelberry will have a hard time getting the 17,905-acre parcel protected because he previously withdrew an earlier application to the state to get those lands conserved in 2002.
“What that parcel really needs is real protection on paper, with signed promises that we are not going to develop that land,” said Neeley, an activist with Defenders of Wildlife. “I don’t know how Huckelberry will achieve that since he withdrew the application five years ago. It’s a real shame he didn’t listen to us back then.”
Huckelberry said the county has historically filed for protection of state land only in places where it has control, and that’s why he withdrew the application.
The Marana Town Council has now indicated it also wants the land preserved by passing a resolution asking the U.S. government to declare it a national monument. But back in 2002, it wasn’t clear Marana wanted it all preserved, Huckelberry said.
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