Desert Destruction

The natural desert environment is very beautiful. It varies greatly from region to region, but here are some pictures of undisturbed land behind our house on the hill.

Undisturbed land:

Over time, the fine sands erode away, leaving a natural rock garden. However, this can take decades to develop.

 

Next are photos of disturbed land only a few feet away. This land was graded 30 years ago when the house was built. In the 20 years that John has owned it, this section of land has been mostly left alone, except for someone occasionally walking through.

20 years after grading:

Now here’s a section of land at the base of our current house, where we had to install a new well in 2012. So this is what disturbed desert in our area looks like after 5 years, with no remediation.

5 years after disturbance:

Here’s photos of the destruction after the septic installation at the potential new house went awry. I’m estimating about half an acre has been completely dug up, in two large sections; one shown here between the house and the casita, and the other on the far side of the casita.

We could rake the tire marks, but we’d still just have dirt for many years. The other alternative is to landscape it; bring in quarried rock of various sizes and native plants. This would be very time consuming and expensive. And even natives need irrigation to get started.

Restoration:

Here’s an example of a disturbed hillside that was then extensively landscaped in a natural style. It’s probably been about 20 years since the disturbance and remediation, and they did a good job, so now it looks very natural.

However, this level of remediation & restoration would be an enormous undertaking for such a large section of land. Therefore, we’ve reluctantly decided not to buy this house.

Real estate contracts are conditioned upon the property being in essentially the same condition at closing as when the purchase contract was signed. Since it’s obvious the property is now in much worse condition than it was when we got under contract last month, we are free to get out of the contract, and will get our earnest money back. We’re sad though. It was a nice property.