Saguaro National Park is adding a few thousand more cactuses to its inventory.
The west side of the park is poised to grow by more than 420 acres, thanks to a pair of recent land acquisitions in the Tucson Mountains.
On Tuesday, the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to sell just over 400 acres of vacant land to the national park for just under $3 million.
The saguaro-studded slopes declared “surplus property” by the county include 13 parcels clustered in four locations across a roughly three-mile area north of Gates Pass Road and east of Kinney Road. All of the parcels are adjacent to or surrounded by national park land or other federal holdings.
This patch of empty desert in the Tucson Mountains will be folded into Saguaro National Park, as part of a 400-acre land sale by Pima County.
“Sale of these 400 acres to Saguaro National Park will ensure their continued protection as conservation lands, as well as simplify management actions along the boundary between Tucson Mountain Park and Saguaro National Park West,” said Kris Gade, director of Pima County Conservation Lands & Resources, which was managing the properties.
The new additions to Saguaro are unmarked by roads or structures, though one of the parcels is located just a few hundred yards from the ridgetop radio tower used by 93.7 FM KRQ.
There is no set date for the sale yet, but the county and the National Park Service have agreed to a price of $2.96 million, based on the appraised value of the land.
Under state law, a unanimous vote by the Board of Supervisors was required for the deal to advance.
The move came less than a week after the nonprofit Trust for Public Land announced its latest acquisition of 20 acres to be added to the national park just south of the county’s Sweetwater Preserve.
Hikers stroll through a forest of blooming palo verde trees along Sweetwater Drive next to Sweetwater Preserve on the west side of Tucson. This property was recently acquired by Saguaro National Park.
Since 1993, the trust has played a role in securing more than 2,300 acres in and around Saguaro. The San Francisco-based conservation group has now purchased nine parcels of once-private land totaling 150 acres along Sweetwater Drive in the past five years alone.
The 20-acre tract was previously owned by accomplished nature photographer, author and filmmaker Tom Wiewandt, who also sold a 7-acre parcel to the trust earlier this year.
"Tom has wanted to see this property protected for many years, and I am so happy we were able to help him achieve that outcome," said Michael Patrick, senior project manager for the trust.
The $460,000 deal was made in partnership with the park service, using money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a 60-year-old program that uses federal royalties from offshore oil and natural gas production to pay for preservation work.
“The Trust for Public Land has been a great partner in helping us protect habitat for wildlife connectivity in the Tucson Mountain District of Saguaro National Park for many years now, and we're grateful for their support,” said Beth Hudick, the park’s manager for interpretation, education and outreach.
“By facilitating the transfer of these properties as well as other parcels in the Sweetwater area, they're helping wildlife such as desert tortoises and mountain lions to travel between protected areas in Sweetwater Preserve and the national park.”
The trust also played a central role in the creation of the preserve by brokering the county’s original acquisition of almost 700 acres there in 2004, when the land was under threat of residential development.
The national nonprofit hopes to purchase additional so-called “private inholdings” in the same area in the future to strengthen the wildlife linkage between the preserve and the national park.
“By protecting key inholdings like this, we make our national parks whole, ensure seamless connections to immediately adjacent public lands like Sweetwater Preserve, and expand public access to one of the most extraordinary desert landscapes in the world,” said the trust’s president and CEO, Carrie Besnette Hauser. “Saguaro (National Park) is not only Tucson’s backyard — it is a national treasure that draws people from across the globe to experience the beauty and spirit of the Sonoran Desert.”
Hudick said the park has no immediate plans for trails or public access points to any of the recent land acquisitions. “If new trails are proposed in the future, they would go through a public planning process,” she said.
Saguaro National Park attracts almost 1 million visitors a year between its two districts bracketing Tucson — the almost 67,500-acre Rincon Mountain District to the east and the roughly 25,400-acre Tucson Mountain District to the west.
The view from the southern boundary of property near Sweetwater Drive that was acquired by the Trust for Public Land to be added to Saguaro National Park.
The west-side property the park service could soon buy from the county includes about 240 acres in Tucson Mountain Park and another 160 acres the county bought in 2009 — all of it along Saguaro’s southern boundary.
Hudick said the land deal is part of a larger cooperative effort to transfer into federal ownership all county-owned inholdings within the park boundary.
From the county’s perspective, Gade said, establishing a clear line between the national park and Tucson Mountain Park will help improve the response to land management issues, including abandoned mines and invasive plants such as buffelgrass.
The almost $3 million the county will get for its surplus property will support the work of the Conservation Lands and Resources Department, which manages more than 260,000 acres of conservation lands.
“The proceeds of the sale will allow the County to further the goals of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan through management and protection of additional lands,” Gade said. “We can use these funds to address issues like fencing and erosion and habitat restoration.”
