NATURE GROUP AIMS TO ACQUIRE HUGE DESERT TRACT; CONSERVANCY WANTS TO KEEP CALIFORNIA WILDERNESS UNDEVELOPED.

Byline: David Kelly Riverside Press-Enterprise

Hoping to lock in wilderness and lock out developers, an environmental group has launched the biggest land deal in state history, trying to buy up 430,000 acres of privately owned desert throughout Southern California.

``This is as big as it gets,'' said David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands Conservancy, the Yucaipa group trying to buy the land. ``There will never be an opportunity this big again in California.''

He said Catellus Development Corp., which owns the patchwork of land that includes 86,000 acres in the Mojave National Preserve, said it would respond in 30 days to an offer to sell its holdings for $52 million.

The company allows public access to its properties, but the conservancy worries that it would end if the land is sold and that ``No Trespassing'' signs, gates and fences go up instead.

Environmentalists said their goal is to preserve desert wilderness for people, plants and animals, including endangered habitats for the desert tortoise.

If Catellus sells, the Wildlands Conservancy will donate the 430,000 acres, along with more than 30,000 acres previously purchased from Catellus, to the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management for preservation. The total land area on the table is 475,000 acres, or 742 square miles, Myers said. But first it needs to get the federal government to chip in the bulk of the cost.

``Santa Claus came a little early, that's what this means,'' said Ernest Quintana, superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park. ``The land is like a checkerboard and really disrupts the way we manage the park.''

Eldon Hughes, chairman of the Sierra Club's California/Nevada Desert Committee, pronounced the plan ``marvelous'' and said if Catellus agrees, the move will solidify the California Desert Protection Act, which preserved 9 million acres of land in 1994.

Inside those 9 million acres, Hughes said, are hundreds of thousands of acres of ``inholdings,'' private property that can be sold or developed at any time. By buying inholdings, the Wildlands Conservancy is taking a big chunk of these areas off the market, he said.

``I think it will happen, because it makes so much sense,'' Hughes said.

But Catellus, a spinoff of the Santa Fe Railroad, wouldn't discuss details of the offer to buy up its desert parcels for $100 per acre.

Jennifer Ruddock, director of investor relations for San Francisco-based Catellus, said the company's 730,000 acres of desert are not part of the company's core business. The land was inherited from the railroad.

``We are meeting to review the offer,'' she said. ``I couldn't even give you a feel of how seriously we are looking at this now.''

Myers met with Catellus officials Monday and said they promised to give him an answer on the plan in a month.

The plan requires the Wildlands Conservancy to give a $5 million, nonrefundable deposit to Catellus, then donate $11 million in cash and $5 million worth of land to the U.S. Department of the Interior. Then it must get Congress to pay the additional $36 million.

``We spent three hours with them, and they were very interested,'' Myers said of the Catellus officials. ``They think the land is worth a little more per acre, but we are going to make this happen. We are going to tie this down with a contract.''

He believes Congress would happily appropriate the $36 million needed to complete the deal.

``About $900 million a year is budgeted for land and water conservation,'' Myers said. ``The federal government usually only allocates $300 million.''

Ed Hastey, state director of the federal Bureau of Land Management, said he thought the federal government would pay for the land.

``I think the odds of the Interior Department following through are pretty good,'' he said. ``Probably 95 percent of the land is worthless, but this would clean up a problem.''

Catellus owns 249,000 acres of land in areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management between Barstow and Needles.

``If Catellus agreed, Congress could probably do it in less than a year,'' Hastey said.

Peter Burk, president of Citizens for Mojave National Preserve and a Sierra Club member, said land values in the desert have plummeted in the last few years.

``Catellus won't be able to develop it, so they need to find a way out,'' he said. ``I see this as a win-win proposition for everyone.''