SIERRA VISTA - The University of Arizona Sierra Vista (UASV) is seeking a $23,000 grant from Wal-Mart to help pay for the expansion of a desert plant salvage project.

The Arizona Board of Regents will hear about the project's goals and progress, including the grant application, during a presentation Friday. Officials from UASV and the city hope to garner the regents' support of the project.

The plant project places transplanted native plants in a fenced outdoor plant sciences center until they can be moved to a permanent home. The center is on two acres donated to the project by UASV.

The plants, obtained from road construction sites, will be used for landscaping after Highway 90 is completed. The plants also will be available for other uses.

Patrick Bell, the city's environmental manager, said, "We're trying to expand the outdoor plan salvage yard." If UASV is able to obtain the grant, the money will be used to pay for the expansion.

"This is a great project and a special thing for the state," Bell said.

In the term, the city and UASV would like to construct a building to move the plant salvage operation indoors. But it's too early to say when that could happen, city spokeswoman Marie Hansen said this morning.

"It's all very conceptual at this point. They're not ready to move the concrete mixer out there," Hansen said.

The plant sciences center is a team effort of several entities, including UASV and the city of Sierra Vista. It is a result of the city's Plant Sciences Task Force formed by the Sierra Vista City Council in January 1997 at the urging of Councilman Harold Vangilder.

The groups in the effort include the National Audubon Research Ranch at Elgin, The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Forest Service, federal Bureau of Land Management, Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative and University of Arizona College of Agriculture.

In addition to saving plants for transplanting elsewhere, the center offers demonstrations on the rescue and care of native plants.

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