All of this happened in southern Arizona near the small town of Marana. But no matter how small the town, it happened in a state where few people – especially a developer who’s been in business more than 30 years – can claim ignorance of Arizona’s efforts to protect the desert.
The state says Johnson may have bulldozed thousands of saguaro cactuses without acquiring a single permit to move the plants (each saguaro carries a $10,000 fine per plant for being uprooted).
Even a popular children’s book, Deserts, by Nancy Castaldo, notes spells out that this is a no-no: “Efforts to protect saguaro cacti and other native plants from collecting and damage have led to laws in Arizona that require individuals to obtain a permit from the state to remove or relocate any native plant on their property. This even holds true for property owners who want to move a cactus from one end of their property to the other.”
The land, called La Osa Ranch, is part of a national plan to preserve habitat while accommodating development called the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
Officials for several Arizona oversight agencies were so disgusted with what they say Johnson did, that in February 2005, Attorney General Terry Goddard filed an unprecedented suit against him on behalf of five state agencies: the Department of Environmental Quality, the Land Department, the Game and Fish Commission, the Agriculture Department and the Board of Regents on behalf of the Arizona State Museum.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a case [against a developer] involving multiple agencies,” Goddard says.
But Arizona isn’t alone in accusing Johnson of breathtakingly bad acts. The Environmental Protection Agency is also suing him in a case that could mean tens of millions of dollars in fines and the demand that he restore the Santa Cruz River to its original state.
“This is a big clean water case for us,” says Jessica Kao, an attorney for the EPA’s regional office in San Francisco, which monitors activity in Arizona. “This type of lawsuit is not unusual, but the scope and seriousness of the case makes this stand out.”
What else stands out is that this isn’t the first time Arizona officials have been enraged about Johnson’s approach to development. Before he ever touched La Osa Ranch, Johnson had already made Arizona history for unsavory development with his “Johnson Ranch” project in the southeast Valley.
For that project, Johnson received the largest fines ever imposed by two different state agencies. In 2003, the Department of Environmental Quality fined him $80,000 after finding that he had drilled three illegal wells and pumped water without any groundwater rights – an activity that is strictly governed and requires permits from the State of Arizona.
At the same time, the Department of Water Resources fined him $90,000 for what they’ve called a “massive discrepancy” on the groundwater used for Johnson Ranch. Johnson is supposed to replace all the groundwater he uses at the ranch, but the reports don’t add up, and it appears he’s using far more than he’s replacing, according to the department. Company officials say the problems were simply oversights or paperwork errors and promised to fix everything.