Protection from Solar Energy Sprawl in Pahrump Valley
by Kevin Emmerich
Conservation organizations are requesting long term protection of outstanding cultural and natural resources on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) public lands in the Pahrump Valley, Nevada, along the California border. About 19,000 acres of public lands in the South Pahrump Valley are planned to be developed for solar panels by the BLM. Large-scale solar developers are now building the 3,000-acre Yellow Pine Solar Project and have plans to develop five additional solar projects in this region. The projects have already impacted Mojave Desert tortoise populations, historic viewsheds of the Old Spanish National Historic Trail and the Salt Song Trail, scarce water resources, rare plants, and public lands access.
Pahrump Valley Solar Projects
An Old Spanish Trail – Pahrump Valley Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) proposal has been submitted to the BLM by a group of conservation organizations to protect these resources from the bulldozers that will be used to develop solar projects.
This petition nominates public lands in the South Pahrump Valley, Nevada, for status as an ACEC. These lands are primarily located in Clark and Nye Counties, Nevada, and the nomination is approximately 145,000 acres in extent.
The Old Spanish Trail – Pahrump Valley ACEC nomination describes in detail the significant environmental resources and values of these lands, and the need for special management attention. The area highlighted in this nomination contains a significant portion of the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, including Stump Spring, a historic watering spot for mule caravans, and would create a ten-mile-wide (five miles on either side of the trail) planning corridor to help protect the historic landscape of the trail. The ACEC would also protect the segments of the cultural landscape around the Spring Mountains important to Southern Paiute and Shoshone peoples, including a portion of the Salt Song Trail.
The area also supports a healthy Mojave Desert tortoise population.
A high water-table supports important mesquite woodlands and habitat for neotropical migrant bird species. Much of the region provides habitat for the Pahrump buckwheat (Eriogonum bifurcatum), a rare plant in Nevada. Mammoth fossils and other paleontological resources have been discovered in the area.
Much of the nominated area also supports a healthy population of Joshua trees.
Joshua tree on Rough Hat Clark site
Photo: Kevin Emmerich
As mitigation for urbanization and growth in the Las Vegas valley, grazing allotments here were bought-out with third party funds and closed decades ago in order to conserve tortoises and other species covered in the Clark County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan.
The Bureau of Land Management recently approved a new Public Lands Rule. The rule recognizes conservation as an essential component of public lands management, on equal footing with other multiple uses of these lands. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) requires the BLM to prioritize designating and managing Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs) to protect important historic, cultural, and scenic values, as well as fish and wildlife and other natural resources, and to address natural hazards.
No new large-scale renewable energy projects should occur in this ACEC. The ACEC nomination is not meant to close existing roads, recreational routes, or existing developments.
This ACEC could be established through plan amendments to the Southern Nevada Resource Management Plan (RMP), as other projects are approved – such as the many other large scale solar and transmission projects in Clark County undergoing review. Currently, BLM is reviewing four of these solar projects in Pahrump Valley through NEPA.
The BLM has responded to the nomination and said it will not be considered in the Environmental Impact Statements of three solar projects under review at this time. They say the proposal does not meet the narrow Purpose and Need laid out as justification for the BLM to approve the solar projects. Those projects are the Purple Sage Energy Center, Copper Rays Solar and Rough Hat Clark County Solar. We have responded and told them they failed to consider a full range of reasonable alternatives for these solar proposals that would better protect the environment.
Just one of these solar projects has caused great damage to the local environment. The Yellow Pine Solar Project was started on a record-breaking drought year and efforts to move 139 desert tortoises backfired resulting in 33 mortalities. The project is using up scarce groundwater, creating fugitive dust, and the viewshed has been greatly compromised by 4.6 square miles of solar panels. It would be very disappointing to see five more of these projects permitted.
Kevin Emmerich is a former park ranger and field biologist. He has lived in the Mojave Desert for thirty years. Together with his wife, they founded the non-profit conservation organization Basin & Range Watch which advocates for environmentally responsible stewardship of the American southwestern deserts.
