Red Gap Ranch News Today

Investors are banking that they will hit the jackpot for extracting helium from Arizona's state lands and private property.

People who live near new helium mines say they worry about the effects of fracking, but the mining companies say what they're doing is far different.

The Flagstaff City Council voted to approve a grazing lease for Red Gap Ranch, and postponed a decision on a rezoning of land off Lake Mary Road at their Tuesday meeting. The city purchased the Red Gap Ranch in 2005 after a voter approved bond due to a 100-year supply of groundwater, though projects to extract the water have been slow moving. The city approved an application for the grazing lease by the privately owned Bar-T-Bar Ranch based in Winslow, who will pay roughly $50 thousand per ye...

Read More News at >> The Flagstaff City Council voted to approve a grazing lease for Red Gap Ranch, and postponed a decision on a rezoning of land off Lake Mary Road at their Tuesday meeting. The city purchased the Red Gap Ranch in 2005 after a voter approved bond due to a 100-year supply of groundwater, though projects to extract the water have been slow moving. The city approved an application for the grazing lease by the privately owned Bar-T-Bar Ranch based in Winslow, who will pay roughl...

0:58 Flagstaff officials say Desert Mountain Energy’s drilling project on leased state land is within a mile-and-a-half of the city-owned Red Gap Ranch. The C Aquifer below the property will serve as a future underground municipal water supply. City officials worry the project could contaminate or disrupt the water source, especially if the company uses hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to access oil, gas and helium. "The city feels this is a critical public health and welfare matter … Our...