In the West, fighting the federal Bureau of Land Management is a time-honored tradition. But as today's agency focuses on renewable solar energy projects, the BLM is looking more friend than foe to recession-stricken southern Nevada.
Ever since the Energy Policy Act of 2005 set the tangible goal of 10,000 megawatts of non-hydropower renewable energy by 2015, the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior and the BLM have been working in tandem to facilitate large, utility-scale solar projects in the desert Southwest. The BLM, whose land conservation policies made it a constant target of ranchers and landowners in the 1970s and 80s, has shape-shifted into a business-friendly entity, at least where renewable energy is concerned.
The BLM believes it can meet the 10,000-megawatt goal during this presidential administration, and it is pressing forward on fast-tracking 14 different solar utility projects in the sun-drenched, federally managed desert lands of southern Nevada and southern California. In 2010, the Department of Interior approved nine utility-scale solar projects in the region for an estimated total of 3,600 megawatts, enough to power 1 million homes and, according to the BLM, create 7,000 jobs.
The largest of the fast-tracked projects is the Silver State North Solar Project, the first large-scale energy project on public lands in Nevada history. According to the BLM and First Solar, Inc., the initial 50-megawatt phase of the project, which will be built on 680-acres in the Ivanpah Valley about 40 miles south of Las Vegas, will harness enough energy to power 15,000 Nevada homes. The company has plans for an additional 350 megawatts for the site in future years.
The Silver State North Solar Project follows earlier approval by Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for three major solar projects in southern California, the first ever built on public lands. According to the BLM, if those projects are built according to plan, they would total 1,124 megawatts, enough to power 337,200 homes in southern California.
The government is working to expedite these big projects by staffing Renewable Energy Coordination Offices to speed up reviews on shovel-ready solar, wind and geothermal projects on public lands. Another powerful facilitation tool, launched in May 2008 with the Department of Energy's support, is a broad-based Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for solar utility sites in the Southwest. The BLM recently increased the scope of the blanket EIS to include analysis of roughly 1,000 square miles of public lands in 24 unique Solar Energy Study Areas.
Opposition to these plans has been scarce. But in southern California, environmental and Native American advocates have charged that the BLM's due diligence on the environmental and cultural impact of solar facilities planned for the Sonoran, Colorado and Mojave deserts was woefully insufficient. In December 2010, Californians for Renewable Energy (CARE) joined the La Cuna de Aztlan Sacred Protections Circle, a Native American cultural group, in a lawsuit against the BLM's citing plans for six large solar facilities.
CARE was founded in 1999 to fight large fossil-fuel power plants, but today the environmental group has turned its scrutiny to utility-scale solar and wind projects. The irony of a renewable energy advocacy group protesting renewable energy plans is not lost on Michael Boyd, president of the CARE board of directors. But Boyd said his group's issue is not with the source of the energy, but who is trying to control it.
"I'm all for renewable energy on my roof, but not being run by monopoly utilities," he said. "Our plan is to give power back to the people, one rooftop at a time, starting with mine." Boyd has solar panels on the roof of his home in Soquel, Calif., and believes that renewable energies are best harnessed by individuals and small businesses.
Complaints about solar facilities in the inland deserts are varied. Conrad Kramer, executive director of the Anza-Borrega Foundation, which supports the state park of the same name, wrote a recent op-ed in the San Diego Union Tribune that accused renewable energy plans of everything from being too far removed from the cities that need them to "requiring devastation of undisturbed plant and animal habitats." Conrad's column took a swipe at wind energy plans for the areas surrounding the state park as well. Looming wind turbines, he wrote, would destroy the park's "viewshed."
David Quick, a public affairs officer at the BLM, declined comment on any and all pending and ongoing litigation.
"We just have to wait and see," he said.
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