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Pima County has bought its sixth ranch using voter-approved open-space bonds: the Six-Bar Ranch in the San Pedro River Valley northeast of Tucson, for $11.6 million.

Joe Goff, who has owned the 3,300-acre spread for 50 years, agreed to sell to the county after a private party approached him with an offer that could have led to the construction of 36-acre ranchettes, said the leader of a land trust that helped negotiate the county purchase.

The buy will either expand or enhance a series of neighboring conservation preserves, said Diana Fresh- water, executive director of the Arizona Open Land Trust. They include the Coronado National Forest and the county-owned Bingham Cienega Preserve, the A-7 Ranch and Buehman Canyon Preserve.

The Six-Bar purchase also gives the county grazing leases for 9,000 acres of nearby state-owned land.

Lying 30 miles northeast of Tucson, three miles west of the San Pedro River and 10 miles south of San Manuel, the Six-Bar is nestled among several tributaries to the San Pedro.

Chief among them is Edgar Canyon, which runs from the Catalina Mountains down to the river. This parcel includes 2,000 acres along the canyon.

It and other canyons in the preserve are lined with sycamore and ash trees. The area is suitable habitat for the endangered lesser-long-nosed bat; two other bat species; the lowland leopard frog; and the giant spotted whiptail, a lizard, although authorities don't know if these species actually live there.

The ranch also contains native grassland, Sonoran riparian scrub, cottonwood-willow and mesquite galleries and limestone outcrops.

The Six-Bar gives Pima County the opportunity to save important riparian habitat on the property and along the San Pedro, which could otherwise have been destroyed as development starts encroaching to the south from the San Manuel area, said Nicole Fyffe, executive assistant to County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry.

Goff did not wish to be interviewed, said his attorney, Roy Kyle of Tucson. Kyle has said Goff, who owns several other ranches and lives between Tucson and Florence, "has put a lot of life into the ranch in the 50 years he has had it."

Freshwater said that if ranchettes had been put on the property, each owner would have had the legal right to drill wells pumping 35 gallons a minute close to the San Pedro, whose future as a desert river has long been clouded by threats from groundwater pumping.

County officials will now start work on a management plan outlining how ranching will continue on the site. As with other ranches that the county has bought, this purchase will allow Goff to keep ranching on the site, but the number of cattle that will graze there in the future is unknown.

Cattle numbers won't increase, and it's likely they'll decrease because of the continuing drought.

That's what has happened at most other county-owned open-space ranches, said Kerry Baldwin, manager of the county's natural-resources division.

"We had a great summer, but we're still in a drought," Baldwin said.

 

l Six-Bar Ranch, San Pedro River Valley: Sale closed Aug. 24, $11.6 million, 3,300 acres purchased, 9,000 acres grazing leases.

l King 98 Ranch, Altar Valley: 2005, $2.1 million, 1,034 acres purchased, 3,000 acres grazing leases.

l Rancho Seco: Altar Valley: 2005, $18.5 million, 9,000 acres purchased, 27,000 acres grazing leases.

l Bar V Ranch: 2005: $8.6 million, 1,700 acres purchased, 12,000 acres grazing leases.

l Carpenter Ranch: Two purchases 1999 and 2005, $1.7 million total, 560 acres bought.

l A-7 Ranch: 2004, $2 million, 6,800 acres bought, 33,000 acres grazing leases.