Operation Saguaro: Cactuses rescued from construction

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Workers move giant saguaro cacti to a "nursery" area, out of the path of a natural gas pipeline near Moore's Gulch, north of New River, Wednesday.

by Ginger D. Richardson - The Arizona Republic

Conservationists are working to rescue hundreds of saguaros and smaller cactuses in the path of a planned 260-mile natural-gas pipeline after residents complained that native plant life was being destroyed during construction.

The $700 million pipeline is expected to be in service later this year and is considered critical to the state's future energy needs.

The construction zone for the Phoenix Expansion Project cuts a path through the center of the state, starting in north-central Arizona and meandering south. It runs near Buckeye on the Valley's southern side before turning east and ending in Coolidge about 60 miles south of Phoenix. In the process, it circles near homes and crosses pristine public lands.

The ecology-vs.-development problem cropped up in earnest about a month or so ago, when the Bureau of Land Management began fielding calls from residents in and around Black Canyon City, where most of the construction has been done in the past couple of months. Many said they had seen saguaros destroyed and were worried about the negative environmental impact the pipeline work was having on public lands.

The BLM contacted Houston-based Transwestern Pipeline Co., and after some discussion, the company voluntarily agreed to organize and pay for a salvage effort that is expected save and relocate as many as 100 large saguaros and other cactuses. Transwestern has turned to Phoenix-based Native Resources International to perform the excavation, with the understanding that the BLM will work to donate the native cactuses.

"The public was not pleased, so obviously the BLM was not pleased," said Pamela Mathis, public-affairs specialist for the bureau's Phoenix district. "They don't have an obligation to do this, but it's a good thing that they are stepping up to the plate."

A variety of groups and organizations, including the Phoenix Botanical Garden, public libraries and some cities have expressed interested in the cactuses, Mathis said. Those that can't be donated may be relocated back on BLM land along the pipeline's route, officials said.

Patty Cascio Maynard, Native Resources' environmental director, said her company has two crews working along the pipeline's path, digging out the root ball of the saguaros, some of which are more than 200 years old. Workers wrap them with carpet and remove them with large-scale equipment, including front-end loaders and cradles, she said.

Bob Cothern, a Black Canyon City resident, was one of the individuals who called the BLM to complain about Transwestern's construction activities. He said he and many others fear not enough study or research has been done on the pipeline's potential impact on the surrounding land.

"We do feel better about (the saguaros)" he said. "We do understand that they have to move or remove some of the plant life along the way. And they are making a much greater effort, now that it's become public that they were destroying them."

Ed Wester, Transwestern's environmental field manager on the pipeline project, said that the company knows it is "going to leave a scar" on the desert landscape but that it is doing as much as it can to minimize the visual and long-term impacts of construction.

The company, he said, has already done one previous salvage operation that saved 80 saguaros and hundreds of smaller cactuses.

It also has an extensive restoration plan in place that includes saving the top 2 to 3 inches of soil, redistributing the native seed bank along the pipeline's path and reusing the vegetative plant material as mulch in the right of way.

"We're doing everything we can to promote germination of the seed," Wester said. "But there are no delusions on anyone's part that we'll see large saguaros out there in our lifetime."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/200...rescue0605.html

[almaty 19]

the cactus need to be relocate...

good, i am glad the people got pissed...

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

I wonder how much the nursery is asking for them?

http://www.tucsoncactus.org/html/rescue_plants.shtml