Do the proposed lands for land swap adequately replace these sites?
Apache Leap
- Oak Flat
Devil's Canyon in Autumn color Photo by Charles Babbitt
Devil’s Canyon Riparian Photo by Lisa Fitzner
These are the properties Resolution Copper Co. proposes to swap the federal government for the 3,025-acre Oak Flat parcel east of Superior:
Seven B Ranch, Lower San Pedro River, 3,073 acres in Pinal County near Mammoth.
This 3072 acre ranch consists of seven miles of bone dry San Pedro riverbed devoid of surface water. It is bereft of the San Pedro’s famously lush willow, cottonwood, ash, sycamore or walnut riparian galleries! This is no gift to the beleaguered San Pedro riparian ecosystem, despite its 800-acre, same-aged, monoculture of upland mesquite on its east bank, with only the birds found in mesquite all over southern Arizona. The west bank is ecologically sterile, consisting of the dying mining town of Mammoth and huge piles of tailings from the defunct copper mine.
J Slash X Ranch, Turkey Creek, 147 acres in Gila County north of Superior, alt. 5200 ft.
Three years ago the Pitcher Fire burned much of this 147-acre ranch including both its riparian hardwoods and the ranch’s adjacent ponderosa forest. With decades of overgrazing, one finds little unburned mature riparian vegetation here. The stream flow currently is intermittent (underground at times) with only a trickle on the surface, even after a record wet spring this year. The ranch's nearly impassible 4WD access road makes this property inaccessible to the general public. Resolution's choice of ponderosa pine montane riparian habitat, when our Southwest's Sonoran Desert cottonwood/willow ecosystems face such monumental threats, is inappropriate.
LX Bar Ranch , Tangle Creek, 148 acres in Yavapai County, 20 miles north of Carefree, alt. 3,000 ft 
Like Resolution Copper's 7-mile long bone-dry, bare sand, San Pedro river bed offer, this ranch also has a bone-dry river bottom for the full one mile length of the ranch. It is devoid of sufficient water to support cottonwood, willow, sycamore or ash riparian vegetation even if it were not grazed. Only three forlorn medium-to-small sycamores exist near the dry creek. There is one willow at a nearly dry, filthy, algae-filled stock pond near the abandoned homestead. Like the Cave Creek and Turkey Creek swap properties, this cattle-devastated inholding will continue to be grazed after it is traded to the Forest Service. The acquisition of this property is of little or no real benefit to the Tonto National Forest or the public at large.
J-I Ranch, 266 acres in Pinal County northeast of Superior, alt. 4600.
Like the other three Resolution Copper Company swaps to the Tonto National Forest, this ranch is of little or no real benefit to the Tonto National Forest or the public at large . It has hoof and feces impacted stock ponds and a brief half-mile ephemeral stream with mature sycamore and oak vegetation. One stock tank is described as "perennial" in Resolution Copper’s PR literature to Congress. They describe that pond as a site for a replacement campground for the Oak Flat Campground and that this "stock pond area would be highly desirable for dispersed camping opportunities." Resolution mis-describes that degraded stock pond and its one willow tree (the only riparian habitat tree species there) as "…habitat for a large array of birds…"
Clearly the J Slash X, J-I and LX Bar swap properties are firesale-priced. Their absentee owners’ long ago abandoned them and they are now being continuously grazed by USFS permittees who live on ranches elsewhere. These three properties will continue to be degraded by grazing by these absentee permittees after the swap.
6L Ranch , Cave Creek, 149 acres in Maricopa County north of Cave Creek, alt. 3000
The acquisition of the 6L property is of little benefit to the Tonto National Forest or the public at large, as is also true of the Turkey Creek, Tangle Creek, and J-I ranch land swap properties. The property is limited in size, and heavily disturbed by past settlement & chronic overgrazing. The area’s rich archeological resources are protected by the defacto non-motorized access created by the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area to the South, and the forest lands that surround it on all sides. The existing resource values of the area will not change nor be enhanced as a result of a change in ownership.
Appleton Ranch, 1,031 acres in Santa Cruz County south of Elgin. Land would abut the Audubon’s Society’s Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch —
Property withdrawn from land swap
Photos and commentary contributed by
Bob Witzeman
4619 E. Arcadia Lane
Phoenix, AZ 85018
602 840-0052
Home