As green energy projects pop up across Nevada, we want to ensure certain wild places and sacred spaces are defended from development. While we support green energy, planning must prioritize already-disturbed lands like the I-80 and Highway 95 corridors. Furthermore, areas with key wildlife habitat, sacred cultural sites, and delicate ecosystems must be excluded from development.
Public Lands lands are not just for solar, and planning must take into account conservation, wildlife habitat, cultural sites, and healthy watersheds.
As green energy projects are proposed, we urge you to speak up about the following issues:
- Prioritize using already-disturbed lands, including the I-80 corridor.
Because of human-made stresses such as grazing and climate-fueled wildfire, some have converted to being dominated by invasive species, especially cheatgrass. This is particularly true along the western and central stretches of the Interstate 80 corridor in Northern Nevada.
These are areas with relatively lower biodiversity and wildlife value than other parts of the state. Thoughtful siting of solar projects in those areas could help minimize the impacts of these projects. Hundreds of thousands of acres could easily be developed in these degraded landscapes. It wouldn’t be perfect — every place is important to somebody — but it would at least put constraints on development rather than declaring open season on Nevada’s crown jewels. (Patrick Donnelly, Nevada Independent)
- Planning must be comprehensive and take into account wildlife habitat. Lands with key bighorn habitat like the proposed Esmeralda/Fish Lake Area of Environmental Concern must be excluded from solar development. The proposed industrial-scale development, including Greenlink West and the Esmeralda 7 projects, should be placed in the pre-disturbed Highway 95 corridor that already contains substation and travel infrastructure that's just one valley over to the east.
In its draft document outlining solar plans for the Western United States released earlier this year, the BLM projected the amount of land needed through 2045 for solar energy development based on a U.S. Department of Energy study exploring solar’s role in transitioning to a carbon-free electric grid. The BLM estimates that slightly more than 64,000 acres are needed in Nevada, 48,000 of them on BLM-managed land.
The Esmeralda 7 project alone more than covers that amount of land.
“There’s no comprehensive look at the impact of all this to the state,” said Shaaron Netherton, executive director of Friends of Nevada Wilderness. (Nevada Independent)
- Lands with existing conservation proposals must be excluded from solar development, including the proposed Bahsahwahbee National Monument, which has pending legislation introduced by Senator Catherine Cortez Masto earlier this year. This area is sacred to the local tribes, who believe the grove of Swamp Cedars embodies the spirits of the men, women and children who were killed in multiple massacres at Bahsahwahbee.
“I am stunned and confused that while our Tribes are in discussions with the Biden-Harris Administration about establishing this monument, the BLM just issued a plan allowing the graves of our massacred ancestors to be bulldozed,” said Amos Murphy, the Chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation. (Nevada Current)
- Public lands in the Amargosa Valley must be excluded from development. Instead, the BLM should work with local land owners who are interested in phasing out agriculture fields to utilize for solar development. Over 25 solar projects have already been proposed in this single watershed, and the draft plan would open an additional 160,000 acres of public land for potential development, leaving the Amargosa River highly vulnerable to groundwater depletion and alteration of surface flows.
The large-scale industrialization required for solar farms threatens to disrupt the ecosystems, cultural resources, and water supply for desert communities irreversibly. Construction activities, habitat fragmentation, and the depletion of groundwater resources could spell extinction for the flora and fauna that have thrived in this extreme desert environment for millennia. A single solar project can require 1,000 acre-feet or more of water for construction – that’s enough water to sustain 2,000 households for a year. With groundwater overpumping being the chief threat to the Amargosa River, the basin simply cannot sustain a rush of solar projects. (Mason Voehl, Nevada Current)
- Local elected officials and local residents must have a say in where industrial-scale development happens in their communities, and it should not encroach on residential areas.
