"Left hanging by the city council was a counter-offer by the Bar T Bar Ranch, which sits over the same aquifer as Red Gap."
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Hasty Red Gap deal might backfire
© Arizona Daily Sun
1/05/2006
We suppose that paying $7.9 million for a property that was offered at $15
million just a year before is a good deal.
And in buying Red Gap Ranch for its water rights, the city of Flagstaff also cleared the legal docket for the adjacent Sunshine Wind Energy Park, which was being sued by the ranch's owner.
But there is still some unfinished business to attend to, and not just because the city has $7.1 million to spend from a water rights bond.
Left hanging by the city council was a counter-offer by the Bar T Bar Ranch, which sits over the same aquifer as Red Gap. Unlike Red Gap, which was owned by a Phoenix developer out to make a quick turnaround profit, Bar T Bar has been in the hands of a local ranching family for three generations. It's the ranch that is leasing land to the wind farm and was hoping to sell water rights to the city, all for the purpose of generating enough revenue to keep cattle on the range and protect the traditional landscape.
Some critics might say that erecting 400-foot-tall wind turbines is hardly traditional. But the alternatives include strip malls and cookie-cutter subdivisions lining the Interstate 40 corridor between Flagstaff and Winslow. If it takes sustainable energy to support the range-fed beef industry, we think elected officials should give it a try.
The offer, which was crafted by the non-profit Diablo Trust representing ranchers, environmentalists and county planners, involved selling the ranch to the city, with Bar T Bar retaining grazing rights and using investment income from the sale to sustain their operations. In addition to water rights, the city would get lease payments from the wind farm.
Granted, if the city had gone with Bar-T-Bar instead of Red Gap, it might have been added as a respondent in the lawsuit over the wind farm. But the legal prospects for Red Gap prevailing against the wind farm were slim (the contention was that the towers would block the view of the Peaks by prospective homebuyers). And with the federal wind energy tax credit extended past the Dec. 31, 2005, deadline, there was no need to rush into a land purchase simply to dismiss the lawsuit.
Yet that appears to be what the city council did, even though Utilities Director Ron Doba acknowledged that the water beneath Red Gap will not be needed for at least a decade and probably later. And to add insult to injury, Bar-T-Bar owner Bob Prosser contended the council did not even have the courtesy to notify him that it was in final negotiations with Red Gap so he could submit a second counteroffer.
For a council that talks about sustainable planning and supporting local businesses, the Red Gap transaction appears to be hypocritical. Maybe it still plans to spend the remaining $7.1 million on Bar-T-Bar, although owning two water ranches would seem to be fiscal overkill. We're glad the wind farm is out from under its legal encumbrance earlier than expected. But if it comes at the expense of one of the last working ranches in the region, then it's too high.
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