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.