Ill-conceived project threatens Gerlach & Wild Washoe
UPDATE!
On April 11, The Washoe County Commission voted 3-2 to deny Ormat a permit for exploratory drilling.
Friends of Nevada Wilderness has signed on to a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management Winnemucca District for allowing Ormat Technologies, Inc. to proceed with drilling 13 exploratory geothermal wells adjacent to the town of Gerlach.
The Burning Man Project is the lead plaintiff in the case filed in Nevada federal court. The plaintiffs argue that BLM illegally gave Ormat the green light for exploratory drilling without analyzing the full impacts of development of a large-scale geothermal plant adjacent to the town.
“We all know that Ormat wants to build a full-scale plant, which is ill-conceived at that location to begin with,” said Shaaron Netherton, Friends’ Executive Director. “The fact that BLM conducted such a superficial analysis of Ormat’s plans for exploratory drilling is such bad precedent, we felt we had no option but to join the action.”
The suit alleges BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by not properly analyzing the impacts of the final project, which Ormat has previously described as two new power plants, each producing 24 megawatts of electricity per hour, as well as an electrical substation, up to 23 geothermal production and injection wells, 4.6 miles of above-ground pipelines, access roads and a 26-mile overhead power line running from the power plants to the North Valley Substation in the San Emidio Desert.
“Gerlach is an iconic town in Nevada,” Netherton added. “The history of the area, the amazing wide-open spaces, the dark skies, the peace and quiet – they all mean so much not just to the people who live there but to many more people who come from all over to recreate there. These drilling wells alone will change the landscape, but construction of a large-scale geothermal plant would be disastrous. We support development of alternative energy, but not at the expense of an entire community and a beloved landscape.”
New Wilderness and Conservation in the NDAA
The Navy has been trying for more than 20 years to expand the Fallon Range Training Complex (FRTC) at the Fallon Naval Air Station in Churchill and neighboring counties. Those efforts were resisted by you, the conservation community, because of the Navy’s indifference to mitigating the environmental impacts of expanding its bombing range and other facilities. As time went on Congress pressed the Navy to work with local stakeholders including the counties, Tribes, State of Nevada, conservationists, land owners and users of public lands. The Navy listened and promptly ignored the input, barely budging from their original proposal for control of over a half-million additional acres of American public lands. Over the last several months however, the Navy’s efforts gained momentum in the U.S. Congress and with the Biden Administration. Now it appears that the expansion will be signed into law by the end of December 2022.
When the expansion became inevitable, we shifted our focus to make sure any expansion is adequately mitigated with extensive new conservation measures. Our delegation worked hard with input from Churchill County, the Walker River Paiute Tribe, Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe and many other stakeholders. We fought hard for more conservation until the last minute. While it pains us to see any military expansion, given the political realities, we came to appreciate that this National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will also designate more than 180,000 acres of new Wilderness Areas, preserve wildlife habitat, protect lands with wilderness qualities and, very importantly, protect the ancient sacred lands of Indigenous people. On December 6th the NDAA language was released and on December 8th the House voted 350-80 to approve the bill. The Senate voted to pass the NDAA on December 15th, 83-11.
H.R.7776 - James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (117th Congress) was signed into law by President Biden on December 23, 2022.
As a result of the NDAA, Nevada will get its first new Wilderness since 2014. Here are the conservation measures we expect to see signed into law soon.
New Wilderness Areas
Clan Alpine Mountains 128,362 acres (Churchill County)
Desatoya Mountains 40,303 acres (Churchill County 32,537 and Lander County 7,766)
Cain Mountain 14,050 acres (Churchill County 7,664 and Lander County 6,386)
Total Wilderness 182,715 acres
Churchill County map
Lander County map
New National Conservation Areas
Numunaa Nobe National Conservation Area (much of the former Stillwater and Jobs Peak WSA and lands around the Grimes Point Recreation Area) for 160,224 acres.
Pistone- Black Mountain National Conservation Area 3,415 acres
New Special Management Areas
Numu Newe Special Management Area (for cultural resources) 217,845 acres
Special Protection Area
Monte Cristo Mountains Protection Area (an area very important to local Indigenous communities) 17,688 acres located in the expanded B-17 Bombing Range. Navy must not bomb this area and any ordinance or debris from bombing exercises that lands there must be removed within 45 days.
Burbank Canyons
Burbank Canyons is a beautiful little 13,395-acre area in Douglas County with perennial streams, aspen groves, great hiking, and excellent solitude. Raptors, mule deer, bear, mountain lion, sage grouse, and various bird species live here. Wilderness designation will give it permanent protection.
Its protection has been included in various versions of the Douglas County Public lands bill over the past decade. Currently it is included as part of HR 5243, the Northern Nevada Economic Development, Conservation and Military Modernization Act of 2021, introduced by Congressman Amodei 9/14/21. We hope to see this beautiful area get permanent protection in 2022.
Nye Country - the Heart of the Great Basin
Once again, our tried-and-true strategy to listen to stakeholders’ concerns, negotiate in good faith, assist in seeking out common-sense solutions and just plain hang in there, has resulted in a local agreement to designate almost 427,000 acres of new Wilderness Area in Nye County. We’re also very excited that local officials have agreed to what we’re calling the 216,000 acre Lunar Starlight National Conservation Area, a historic effort to preserve a truly unique Western landscape.
We will look to Senator Rosen and Congressman Horsford and their staff to condense all of this hard work into federal legislation that we fervently hope will come to pass. Nye County is home to some of the crown jewels of wild lands and we are cautiously optimistic that Nye could become the wild heart of the Great Basin.
Wild Washoe
ACTION NEEDED - two ways to get involved
On April 7th, Senator Rosen released a working draft of the Washoe County lands bill, known as the Truckee Meadows Public Lands Management Act. This kicks-off a public feedback period for Nevadans wishing to provide comments on this working draft through June 6th. It is critical that you make your voices heard in support of the conservation measures in this draft bill. Friends of Nevada Wilderness has worked on protecting these lands for years and now, thanks to the leadership of Senator Jacky Rosen and her top-notch staff, we are moving forward with permanent protection for these deserving areas.
1) Comments on the Truckee Meadows Public Lands Management Act should be submitted by June 6th to Senator Rosen's Office at [email protected]
2) PUBLIC MEETING MAY 24 in Reno 4-6 PM at the Washoe County Atrium, 1001 E. Ninth Street - Building A. This meeting is a workshop format where you can walk around and look and maps and ask questions. There will be no oral testimony. Please come and show your support, sign-in and provide short written comments on a comment card.
Over the last several years we have worked with the Senator’s staff to provide mapping and ground-truthing various concerns and working out detailed solutions and whatever else we can do to move the process forward. Finally, after years of various attempts at Washoe County legislation, much of it unacceptable to the conservation community and fought off by all of our supporters, we’re on the right path. We will need your help though your comments to encourage your elected leaders to get to the finish line and Keep Washoe Wild!
Details and maps:
Save the Desert National Wildlife Refuge!
2023 Desert Refuge Update
The Air Force has been working with the Department of Interior and the Administration on a new version of what they need for operations in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. On April 4th they discussed their needs at the Intergovernmental Executive Committee (IEC) meeting which is open to the public. They are no longer asking to expand the joint use area into the portion of the refuge open to the public, they are not planning to close roads to the public and they are not planning on landing strips in the public portion of the refuge. This is a HUGE victory for all of the hard refuge defense work over the past five years! THANK YOU for making that happen.
The Air Force is now asking for five things:
1) Emergency Response (this appears to be happening adequately now)
2) Use and maintenance of existing roads (not widening or paving)
3) Creation of 15 threat emitter pads (improved, hardened, gravel surfaces measuring 150’ x 150’ to place mobile threat emitters on. 10 are proposed in the Target Impact Areas where the Air Force has primary jurisdiction and 5 are proposed to the in the joint use area (all areas that are closed to the public).
4) Austere dirt strip (dirt landing strip measuring 90’ x 6000’ for infrequent use for C17s and C130s during large force trainings).
5) Small forces training (groups of 10 - 15 people) .
The Air Force is pursuing approval for these five activities through the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. As these requests move forward we will be strongly advocating for Wilderness designation for the 1.3 million acres of Southern Paiute Wilderness within the Desert Refuge. Stay tuned to learn how you can be involved.
Pershing County Public Lands Bill
Friends of Nevada Wilderness has been proud to work with members of the Nevada delegation, the Pershing County Commission and many stakeholders to advance a comprehensive lands bill for Pershing County that aims to conserve important areas as wilderness and provide economic development for the County. Passage of this bill will ensure the permanent protection of 136,072 acres of Wilderness, while also providing tools to help resolve the checkerboard land issue. Several versions of the bill have been introduced into Congress over the last 5 years and we are hopeful that 2022 will be the year this important bill passes.
Read more about the beautiful areas that would be protected.
