quote: State sues land developer in 'moonscaping' of desert
Mary Jo Pitzl The Arizona Republic Feb. 15, 2005 12:00 AM
State officials on Monday filed a 10-count lawsuit against a housing developer, alleging "unprecedented" damage to land, archaeological ruins, waterways and wildlife in southern Arizona.
Five state agencies joined in the suit against George Johnson, owner of Scottsdale-based Johnson International. Attorney General Terry Goddard said the suit is an attempt to redress an "unprecedented despoliation of Arizona's heritage."
Those losses include:
• Destruction of parts of seven Hohokam archaeological sites that date back more than 1,200 years.
• Blading of about 270 acres of state trust land without permission.
• The death of 21 desert bighorn sheep from diseases caused by Johnson's goat herd.
• Destruction of more than 40,000 native plants on state trust lands.
• Land clearing that resulted in the unlawful deposit of potential pollutants into Los Robles Wash and other tributaries of the Santa Cruz River.
All but one of the charges involve activities at La Osa Ranch, a tract of desert in southern Pinal County that Johnson wanted to turn into a 67,000-home development about the size of Tempe.
Johnson has since scrapped those plans and sold the land to developer Conley Wolfswinkel and the Wolfswinkel Group.
The 10th charge stems, officials say, from water-quality violations in fall 2001 at another Johnson development called South Fork, on a tributary of the Little Colorado River in Apache County.
Goddard, at an afternoon news conference, said five state agencies joined in the suit to make a powerful statement that they take the violations seriously.
"We are not talking about a few feet here and there. We are talking about moonscaping 270 acres over a period of many weeks, knocking down saguaros, filling in creeks and washes used by wildlife and destroying priceless archaeological sites," Goddard said.
"The last thing I or the Attorney General's Office wants to do is to allow a blatant violation such as this to be written off as a cost of doing business."
Johnson's attorney, Lee Stein, lamented that the state felt the need to go to court, given that Johnson and the state had been talking for a year about how to fix the problems caused by the land clearing. He said the work was accidental, although he could not immediately answer why Johnson had bulldozers rolling on land that he said was a working ranch.
Johnson has said his actions are a part of farming activities, which provides exemptions from certain state rules, including water-discharge guidelines.
But Goddard said state officials don't buy that explanation.
"It was a deliberate action in violation of a wide number of state laws," he said.
The lawsuit was welcome news to environmentalists, who objected to what they saw as Johnson's cavalier approach to land development.
"That makes my Monday!" said Jenny Neely, Southwestern representative for Defenders of Wildlife.
"It's a long time coming. Some of the scars he inflicted on the lands down there are hard to bear."
The civil suit does not seek a specific amount of compensation but asks the court to triple the damages for trespassing on state lands, seeks $70,000 to recoup the cost of treating the infected bighorn sheep, asks for a minimum of $15,750 for the 21 sheep that died due to blindness caused by the infection and asks for penalties of up to $25,000 a day for each violation of water-quality statutes.
The suit was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court.
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Posts: 18643 | Location: Mesa, AZ | Registered: June 23, 2002
quote:Destruction of parts of seven Hohokam archaeological sites that date back more than 1,200 years.
Too bad there wasnt Federal or Tribal lands involved, then he could be nailed for several ARPA (Archæological Resource Protection Act) violations, which would cost some serious dinero, and possible jail time!!! What a d!ckhead.
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