Moments in Time with Dave VanCleve: Desert Cahuilla

For a long time, the Park’s boundary was defined, in part, by the San Diego County line and the lines of the counties to its east (Imperial County) and north (Riverside County). In the ‘70s, Superintendent Bud Getty facilitated a deal that added thousands of acres to the Park in the Santa Rosa Mountains in Riverside County. Famously, the Carrizo Impact Area (a World War II training site) jutted into Imperial County.

In 2005, an opportunity arose to add significant desert property to the Park in those counties. An opportunity that, for years, was one of the most contentious negotiations in park history. Anza-Borrego Foundation, with assistance from The Nature Conservancy, worked out a deal that added thousands of acres of excellent bighorn sheep habitat (and many other natural and cultural resources) to the Park.

As you drive east on S-22, the Borrego-Salton Sea Highway, you pass a large microwave tower on the left, or north. That is (basically) the boundary between San Diego and Imperial Counties. South of the highway is owned by the State Parks Department but operated as an official State Vehicular Recreation Area – Ocotillo Wells SVRA – a large block of the desert that is open to off-road vehicles.

20 years ago, the 11,000-acre property known as the Freeman Property was put up for sale. In one of the great ironies of the California Department of Parks and Recreation, the Division that manages off-road parks is relatively wealthy, and the Division that operates more traditional state parks – Anza-Borrego, Cuyamaca, Old Town San Diego – is far worse off financially.

Both Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Ocotillo Wells SVRA expressed an interest in acquiring the Freeman property. Since one Park had a lot of money for land acquisition and the other had almost none, prospects for adding the property to the Park to conserve its natural and cultural resources were bleak.

For about five years, the argument over which park unit would own and operate the Freeman Property went back and forth. The Park believed it could raise the money for acquisition; the SVRA already had the money available. The owners of the Freeman Property had no preference, except that they leaned towards the entity with ready cash.

Serendipitously, Sempra Energy was proposing a major power line, known as the Sunrise Powerlink, through the southern end of San Diego County at the same time. When it became clear to Sempra that its original route proposal – an east/west line just north of Highway 78 – would not succeed politically, it moved its preferred location south of Interstate 8.

Every project of this size runs into several environmental issues. Most of these problems can be worked out through mitigation – providing equal or greater high-quality property with attributes similar to those of the lands that are being impacted by the project. With the Sunrise Powerlink, the issue Sempra had the most trouble with was bighorn sheep habitat. The new route for the Powerlink went through a bighorn habitat, and they were having difficulty finding suitable mitigation property. The mitigation site would have to be approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Sempra was willing to pay handsomely to rid itself of this blockade. When the wildlife agencies called to ask if the Park had any bighorn habitat it wanted to acquire, we had a good answer. They could fund the Park’s acquisition of Desert Cahuilla.

Of course, the off-road Division was not thrilled with this possibility. The Park and Ocotillo Wells were told to figure it out.

The Nature Conservancy and Anza-Borrego Foundation were asked to help. They hired a consultant, Steve Alexander, who specialized in conflict resolution. Of course, it was summer, and we – representatives from ABF, The Nature Conservancy, the state park, the off-road coalition, and the off-road Park all agreed to meet for a sit-down at a restaurant in Salton City to figure out who would own the property. More likely was the possibility that the baby would be split, with each side receiving roughly one-half of the Freeman Property.

We took a tour of the property in the morning; my most vivid memory was that of a porcelain toilet perched atop a tall mud hill. Don’t ask me to explain. Steve Alexander showed up at the restaurant to facilitate the meeting at 1:00 p.m. He said we had four hours to come up with a solution. We went back and forth for three-and-a-half hours and told Steve we needed more time. He said he had to leave at 4:00 p.m. so we had better start working harder. Before 4:00 p.m., we had come to an agreement.

The Park wound up with the property that had greater resource value, especially bighorn sheep habitat. The wildlife agencies agreed that this property would meet the mitigation requirements of the Powerlink construction. The off-road Park received the property that their users could enjoy.

In addition to funding the property acquisition for the Park, Sempra provided a large non-wasting endowment to fund the operation of the new park property in perpetuity.