"We give the Diablo Trust high marks for pushing the boundaries of creative financing and innovative resource planning."
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Opinion
Diablo Trust plan deserves serious look
©Arizona Daily Sun
5/12/2005
In putting together a massive, 100,000-acre ranchland preservation deal paid for by a $13.5 million down payment by the city of Flagstaff, we give the Diablo Trust high marks for pushing the boundaries of creative financing and innovative resource planning.
But as for whether an unelected group of ranchers, conservationists, academics and county staff should be foreclosing on other development options for the next 20 years for 156 square miles of marginal rangeland-- and using city funds to do so -- remains an open question. No fewer than four levels of government are involved in the plan -- city, county, state and federal -- and that by itself should require a higher level of public accountability that we hope to see in the future.
For now, though, we're enthusiastic about any plan that would prevent an Anthem-like housing project from sprawling across the landscape between here and Winslow. Ranching is still not only an honorable calling but a way for the land to be managed for quality food production while preserving the natural landscape. The fact that it hasn't always met those high standards is why the Diablo Trust exists, and we give them much credit for tackling cooperatively what has heretofore been a confrontational issue.
The Trust's proposal would take the city's $13.5 million and put it toward not only the purchase of 5,500 acres of rangeland with water rights but also a ranching conservation trust fund. The fund's interest would be used by the Trust to subsidize what it calls "sustainable" ranching on all of the land owned by two large ranches south of I-40. That takes not only the 45,000 acres of privately owned ranchland out of play for developers for the next 20 years, but the same amount of state trust lands, which are checkerboarded in among the private land.
To sweeten the deal for the city, a newly approved wind energy farm will build turbines on the city's ranchlands and make lease payments to Flagstaff that over 25 years would top $3 million.
The deal hinges on a water quality and quantity study being conducted on the aquifer below the proposed well sites by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. Complicating the study is a plan by Peabody Energy to pump water from a nearby wellfield for a coal slurry pipeline. If the study finds there isn't enough water in that part of the Coconino Aquifer to sustain pumping by both entities for the next 20 years, then the city of Flagstaff might have to go elsewhere and that could put the Diablo Trust plan in trouble.
Another possible snag is the cost to the city of building a pipeline and pumping stations once a suitable water source is found. Some estimates have come in as high as $100 million, a big price tag for a small city.
That's the reason that, at the risk of complicating an already complex proposal, we continue to urge all parties to create a regional water authority with statutory authority to plan for sustainable future water use. In the process, such an authority might also help Peabody and Flagstaff, plus other municipalities in northern Arizona, to form a joint pipeline project that would produce not only economies of scale but allow for the staged delivery of potable water to rural communities that currently rely solely on local wells.
For those who say the above is an invitation to more growth and development than northern Arizona needs or wants, we'll counter that it would come with a 156-square-mile open space conservation easement if the Diablo Trust project is incorporated in any water authority plan. Further, there's nothing to stop the water authority from requiring communities in the plan from developing their own conservation strategies -- for water and energy, as well as for land.
The benefit of a water authority is that the board would be made up of elected officials or appointees who are accountable to elected bodies, including those on the Navajo Nation. It would also be regional in scope, and thus able to govern aquifer drawdowns on lands south, west and north of Flagstaff, as well as east.
It's certainly possible that the Diablo Trust plan could succeed on its own. But 20 years is a long time to commit to a plan governing land use in a region likely to be under tremendous growth pressures in the next two decades. The desire for economically viable ranches should be balanced against the need for affordable housing that can't be delivered if developable land, already limited because of federal ownership in the region, is continually taken out of play. The Diablo Trust plan is a creative first step toward a process that we hope finds a middle ground between conservation and a sustainable economy.
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