Conservation group wants more scrutiny of solar projects
Sep 19 - Joe Nelson San Bernardino County Sun, Calif.
The National Parks Conservation Association released a report
Tuesday with recommendations on how federal and state agencies
could best move forward with solar projects in the Mojave Desert
with minimal impact on natural resources and wildlife.
Citing flaws with three in-the-works solar projects that were
part of a streamlined permitting process advocated by the Obama
Administration, the National Parks Conservation Association, or
NPCA, encourages collaboration between federal and state
agencies and other stakeholders when evaluating solar project
proposals.
Such collaboration is needed to ensure thoroughness in
assessing the potential impacts to natural resources and
endangered wildlife.
The federal government has thus far approved 11 solar
projects on lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management,
or BLM, in California, Arizona and Nevada, and applications for
77 other projects have been submitted for consideration in those
states and New Mexico, according to the NPCA.
In San Bernardino County, the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm two
miles south of Joshua Tree National Park will potentially
interfere with wildlife migration routes and will impair the
view from wilderness lands within Joshua Tree National Park,
according to the report.
And the 392-megawatt Ivanpah solar complex near the Mojave
National Preserve will destroy a large chunk of desert tortoise
habitat, the NPCA said in its report.
David Lanfrom, California
Desert Senior Program Manager for the NPCA, said the Ivanpah
project should never have been approved.
"Mistakes have been made at Ivanpah. I don't think anybody
understood how important that place was for desert tortoises,"
Lanfrom said in a conference call with reporters.
Keely Wachs, spokesman for Oakland-based BrightSource Energy,
the company that is building the Ivanpah solar complex, said he
has not had a chance to review the NPCA's report.
He did say, however, that the Ivanpah project is in close
proximity to a 36-hole golf course, casino and outlet center in
Primm, Nev.
"Across the highway is a natural gas power plant and another
solar farm," Wachs said in an e-mail. "In addition, the site has
a pre-existing natural gas pipeline and transmission lines."
In Nevada, the Amargosa Farm Road solar project will destroy
4,000 acres of desert scrub habitat and mar scenic views from
nearby Death Valley Regional Park, according to the NPCA report.
"We need to be vigilant about where we site industrial solar
facilities, particularly where our national parks and fragile
desert lands are involved," said Guy DiDonato, natural resources
program manager for the NPCA's Center for Park Research, in a
news release.
In July, the federal government released a historic blueprint
for solar projects on public lands in California and five other
western states. It established 17 solar energy zones on a total
of 285,000 acres.
The blueprint -- the final programmatic environmental impact
statement -- also allows for solar development on roughly 19
million acres in variance areas that lie outside the established
solar energy zones.
The NPCA suggests in its report that those 19 million acres
not be used for solar development. Instead, the federal
government should adopt new solar zones in low-conflict areas.
In addition, the NPCA is recommending that areas previously
used for industrial purposes or that have otherwise been
ecologically degraded be used for solar projects.
Department of Interior spokesman Blake Androff said in an
e-mail that the proposed plan establishes zones that have high
solar resources, access to existing or planned transmission and
low resource conflicts.
"Solar developers win because the blueprint's upfront,
comprehensive analysis will make for faster, smarter and better
permitting decisions and increase certainty for utility-scale
solar projects on public lands," Androff said. "And conservation
wins because the blueprint guides development away from
important cultural and biological resources and establishes best
practices to ensure the most environmentally responsible
development and delivery of solar energy." Reach Joe via email,
call him at 909-386-3874, or find him on Twitter @SBCountyNow.