Animal Predatory Behavior Decreases Near Desert Wind Turbines, Study Finds

"These findings could be helpful in assisting managers to design future wind energy facilities with species in mind."

Wind turbines overlooking Whitewater Creek and Interstate 10 near Palm Springs, California. (PHOTO: David McNew / Getty Images News / Getty Images)

By Patch CA (Patch Staff)
Patch Banning

PALM SPRINGS, CA – A study conducted at the windmills near Palm Springs showed that predators are less likely to attack prey living near the wind turbines, including desert tortoises that burrow in the Coachella Valley.

Researchers from the University of California, Davis and the U.S. Geological Survey employed motion-activated cameras facing the entrances of 46 active desert tortoise burrows at the 5.2-square-kilometer wind energy facility.

They found that predators are far more likely to visit the tortoises' burrows near dirt roads and far less likely to visit burrows close to turbines.

The five predator species monitored included bobcats, gray foxes, coyotes, black bears and western spotted skunks, who scientists say were not actively hunting the tortoises but seeking smaller prey that frequently live in desert tortoise burrows.

"These findings could be helpful in assisting managers to design future wind energy facilities with species in mind," said lead author Mickey Agha. "There may be benefits to adding space between turbines and increasing the number of dirt roads, to potentially provide habitat for sensitive terrestrial wildlife."

Scientists behind the study -- which was published in the April issue of The Journal of Wildlife Management -- say the findings show that the design of wind energy infrastructure impacts animal behavior, an area of study rarely touched on.

"There is little information on predator-prey interactions in wind energy landscapes in North America, and this study provides a foundation for learning more," said Jeffrey Lovich, USGS scientist and study co-author.

"Further investigation of causes that underlie road and wind turbine effects, such as ground vibrations, sound emission and traffic volume, could help provide a better understanding of wildlife responses to wind energy development," he said.

House Republicans open probe of new California national monuments

By Carolyn Lochhead
SF Gate

WASHINGTON — House Republicans opened an investigation Tuesday into President Obama’s designation of three new national monuments in the California desert that protect more than 1.8 million acres of public land, along with six other monuments Obama has designated since January 2015.

The California desert monuments almost doubled the amount of land that Obama has set aside under the 1906 Antiquities Act, setting a new record for presidential land designations, three committee chairmen wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

“The broad and frequent application of the Antiquities Act raises questions about the lack of transparency and consultation with local stakeholders,” wrote Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee; Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee; and Hal Rogers, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Request for documents

The letters request “all documents and communications referring to or relating to the selection or designation of national monuments under the Antiquities Act” from January 2009 to the present, the letter said, setting a deadline of 5 p.m. April 12. Neither the Oversight Committee nor the White House responded to a request for comment.

The Antiquities Act gives the president power to create national monuments on public lands. Republican President Herbert Hoover used the law to establish Death Valley as a monument in 1933 just before he left office, and his successor, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, designated Joshua Tree as a monument under the act in 1936.

Obama invoked the Antiquities Act on Feb. 7 to declare the Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and Castle Mountains national monuments in the California desert, acting at the direct behest of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a longtime champion of the Mojave Desert.

The monuments link wildlife corridors and preserve the last open stretch of historic Route 66, which was under threat of solar and wind development in 2008 until Feinstein stepped in with proposed legislation to protect the areas. The Bureau of Land Management allows mining, grazing, energy and other development on the federal lands under its jurisdiction; the monument designations prohibit such uses.

Feinstein made the request after more than six years of work on a desert conservation bill that Republicans refused to entertain.

The Democrat defended the monuments, saying she and her staff “held hundreds of hours of meetings with the full range of desert stakeholders,” including “environmental groups, local and state government officials, off-highway recreation enthusiasts, cattle ranchers, mining interests, the Defense Department, wind- and solar-energy companies, public utilities, Native American tribes, local residents and many others.”

Feinstein said the Antiquities Act “allows the president to protect ‘historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest.’ Anyone who has been to the California desert knows that it has all these things and is certainly qualified for protection under the law.”

Activists frustrated

The GOP charges of lack of transparency and local consultation flabbergasted desert activists who helped Feinstein draw the boundaries of her legislation, which Obama then borrowed.

“I put probably 20,000 miles on my car — just my car — going around the desert for the last 10 years” talking with people about protecting the lands, said Jim Conkle, a retired Marine who championed the inclusion of Route 66. Conkle said the letters from Chaffetz and Bishop, who represent districts in Utah, and Rogers, from Kentucky, suggest that “we were land grabbers, but we didn’t take any more land than was already under the stewardship of BLM anyway.”

David Lamfrom, California desert program director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said he “worked on the ground building support (for the monuments) for at least the last seven years.”

“I really think it was a nonpartisan effort, and there was general agreement throughout the desert that this was the appropriate response,” he said.

David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands Conservancy, the California nonprofit that was instrumental in protecting the monument lands from real estate speculators, said he thinks the investigation is mainly intended as a warning shot from Utah Republicans to the White House over a potential designation of a 1.9-million-acre Bears Ears national monument in southern Utah.

“There isn’t a monument in U.S. history that has had more participation from the private sector,” Myers said.

Desert plan shifts focus to public land

Federal and state officials put plans for privately owned land on the back burner.

Larry LaPre, a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, describes the location of a solar energy development planned near the Mojave National Preserve.

BY DAVID DANELSKI
Press-Enterprise

A ballyhooed energy development and land conservation plan for California’s deserts will now focus just on public lands managed by the federal government, at least for the time being, state and federal officials announced Tuesday, March 10.

The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan has been hailed by the Obama administration as an all-encompassing plan for the desert regions of seven counties, including Riverside and San Bernardino.

In the works since 2009, its goal was to get federal, state and local officials to agree on the best places to locate huge solar, wind and geothermal projects while also preserving the desert’s most important wildlife habitat, and archeological and recreational areas.

When the 8,000-page draft was released last fall, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell appeared in Palm Springs to promote it.

The draft called for directing alternative energy development to 2 million acres of mostly privately owned land that is expected to have little value as endangered-species habitat.

But after receiving 12,000 public comments on the plan, federal Bureau of Land Management and California Energy officials, in a conference call with reporters, appeared to reel back expectations, if not the plan itself.

With no certain time frame, the plan now is being broken into phases, the first of which will pertain only to public lands managed by the BLM, said Jim Kenna, the agency’s California director.

Planning for privately owned land will be delayed to give local officials in the seven counties more time to complete their own planning initiatives, he said.

The draft plan now calls for some 392,000 acres of public land for focused alternative-energy development, 4.9 million acres for conservation and 3.6 million for recreation, Kenna said.

Officials with Riverside and San Bernardino counties have expressed concerns that large-scale solar increases demand for county fire and sheriff’s services without providing the county additional property tax revenue.

San Bernardino County officials also are concerned that large-scale solar projects could be made obsolete by other technological advances.

“We don’t want obsolete solar projects on land that would have been good for other kinds of development,” said county spokesman David Wert.

Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said it was disconcerting that the focus now is on public land, because most of the already disturbed land most appropriate for development is privately owned.

“This was supposed to be a grand, coordinated plan,” she said.

Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan

What is it? A proposed land-use plan for California's deserts that strives to place big solar, wind and geothermal projects in place that do the least harm to wildlife habitat and cultural resources.

Where is it? Desert portions of Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties.

Who is doing it? The plan is a collabaration led by the Calfornia Energy Commission and U.S. Department of Interior.

What's is the Preferred Alternative?

A version of that calls for:

-- Renewable energy development focus on more than 2 million acres of public and private land, where environmental conflicts are expected to be minimal.

-- Conservation designations for 4.9 million acres of public land managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

-- Recreation designations on more than 3.6 million acres of BLM-managed lands.

-- More than 183,000 acres of land identified for future analysis.

Source: The California Energy Commission

Death Valley Mystery Solved

Santa Barbara Team Discovers Wind and Ice Behind the Racetrack’s “Sailing Stones”

HOW THE HECK? A sailing stone leaves a trail after it scooted along The Racetrack. (Scott Beckner)

by Matt Kettmann
Santa Barbara Independent

In a landscape dominated by marvelous natural oddities, no location fascinates more visitors to Death Valley National Park than The Racetrack, a cracked-earth playa where rocks big and small magically move from place to place, leaving distinctly smooth tracks across the otherwise uniform lake bed as their only evidence. For decades, if not centuries, the phenomenon mystified even the most diligent researchers, becoming a standard passage in geology textbooks, prompting more than one dozen scientific inquiries, and provoking all manner of possible causes, from tricks by frat boys to the handiwork of little green men.

The mystery is no more, thanks to Santa Barbara native Jim Norris, who ​— ​along with his cousin, Richard Norris, and a team of mostly S.B.-based volunteers ​— ​discovered through a mix of amateur investigation and lucky happenstance exactly how these stones sail. In a paper published this week in the scholarly journal Plos One, Norris and company reveal how last winter ​— ​amid a very rare convergence of freezing temperatures and a standing playa pool of recent rain and snowmelt ​— ​they documented football-field-sized sheets of windowpane-thin ice being floated by wind across the slick, muddy playa and pushing the rocks, some as far as 700 feet.

“We watched it happen,” said Norris, who started monitoring Racetrack movements in 2012 as part of a “recreational science” experiment and was on-site for routine equipment maintenance in late December when the event occurred. “The sheets of ice start ramming into the stones and bulldozing them along. It’s all ultra-slow-motion.” The discovery, which has been sought scientifically since at least 1948, when the first academic paper was published about the rocks, is quickly making waves in the annals of popular science, with reports published this week in the Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, and Nature, among other publications.

Norris first visited The Racetrack in the 1960s with his father, the late Robert Norris, who was a professor of geology for many years at UCSB. The younger Norris, a graduate of Vieja Valley, San Marcos High, and San Diego State, became more intrigued in 2008, when he started scouring existing reports. He enlisted his cousin Richard, a paleobiologist at UC San Diego, in the completely self-financed hunt, and they set about equipping research-ready rocks with GPS tracking devices, which are one of the things that Norris makes for his engineering company, Interwoof. The first rocks were laid in early 2012 with National Park Service blessing, and the team made trips there every six to eight weeks.

In late November 2013, a brief rain and snowstorm formed a three-inch-deep pool on the playa, which was still there when the Norris cousins arrived in late December. Surprised by the pool and unable to enter the playa due to the “complete slop” of mud that sat on the surface, the cousins worked the northern part of the area and noticed that the pool seemed to be blowing uphill toward the playa’s mudflats as the winds increased. Soon, their rocks were actually moving for the first time.



“We started documenting it hard, not really understanding exactly what it meant,” said Norris, who determined what was happening over the next couple of days and subsequent trips, thanks to more observations and camera footage. “I think other people have probably been there when it happened, but they can’t tell,” said Norris. “It’s slow and so far away and at an oblique angle.”

The news throws a wrench into theories related to magic, magnetism, or Area 51. “I’ve even seen a wonderful photograph of a horned lizard pushing a stone,” said Norris, with a laugh. “It’s pretty amazing what the public will come up with.” But most in the scientific community figured the phenomenon was somehow reliant on ice and wind, so the Norrises had also erected a weather station as part of their project and were prepared to spend more than 10 years before reaching any conclusions. But despite the technology, had they not been on-site to witness the sheet ice bulldozers, the Norrises might still be scratching their heads, even with data in hand, especially since the movement occurred with relatively light wind rather than the hurricane force gales widely suspected.

Norris admits feeling “a little wistful” at having pulled the curtain off of Death Valley’s beloved mystery and knows there will be some public dismay. But he hopes it may shed light on processes elsewhere in the universe ​— ​important planetary scientists, for instance, have researched The Racetrack before ​— ​and he believes knowing is more important than supposing. He explained, “It’s hard to be a scientist, and I’m just an amateur scientist, and not want to figure stuff out and not get joy out of going, ‘Wow, that’s how this works!’”

2 supervisors oppose giant wind project

Lovingood, Ramos write letter to BLM

North Peak Wind Project map. Wind turbines and giant power poles of the renewable energy project could invade Apple Valley scenery.

By STAFF REPORTS
Victorville Daily Press

SAN BERNARDINO — Supervisors James Ramos and Robert A. Lovingood submitted a joint letter to the Bureau of Land Management on Thursday strongly opposing the North Peak Wind Project planned for 16.4 square miles of mountain ridges overlooking much of the Victor Valley.

In the letter to BLM Director Neil Kornze, Ramos and Lovingood cited the anticipated harm to property values, viewsheds, Native American cultural resources, interference with radar tracking of aircraft and environmental concerns.

“The anticipated impacts on plants and animals are devastating, including the regular and continuous killing of bald eagles, golden eagles, bats and numerous migratory bird species that use the avian corridor along the ridgelines in question,” the supervisors said in the letter.

The project is planned for mountain ridges overlooking Lucerne Valley, Apple Valley and Hesperia.

“San Bernardino County has already borne the brunt of renewable energy projects,” Lovingood said. “For a wide variety of reasons, this is the wrong location for this project, and I urge the BLM to reject the North Peak Wind Project.”

The project is proposed by E.ON Climate & Renewables North America and promises to deliver 120 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 33,000 homes.

The 71-turbine project application is on hold until about November at BLM’s Barstow Field Office.

“Due to the damaging impact the North Peak Wind project would cause for the community, their property values and overall quality of life, I am opposing the development of this project,” Ramos said. “San Bernardino County has made great strides to become a leader in renewable energy projects. However, this project would have significant, detrimental effects (on) the environment and cultural resources that exist in this area. I ask that the BLM take these issues under consideration and reject this project.”

The letter from Lovingood and Ramos notes that while the project is on federal land, San Bernardino County retains authority over local roads, including necessary widening of roads for construction crews to access the project site.

Off-roaders cry foul at renewable energy plan

Brightsource Solar Facility

Anneli Fogt
Desert Dispatch

VICTORVILLE • Off-roading enthusiast Jon Stewart was among dozens of people who showed up at a public hearing Friday to protest a plan that would fast-track renewable energy projects throughout California’s deserts.

“They’re not looking at hunting, photography, astronomy and stargazing, it’s all of these little things people want to go out and do and enjoy,” said Stewart, a member of the California Association of 4 Wheel Drive Clubs.

One of the main topics of Friday’s Off Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission meeting was expected to be OHV vehicles on the Pacific Crest Trail. However, after a presentation on the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, the focus quickly shifted to the preservation of the desert and the use of public land.

The plan is a collaboration between the country, state and numerous other agencies to take 22 million acres of the desert from the Mexico border to Inyo County and use the natural resources — sun and wind — for renewable energy. The plan has been under scrutiny since in its introduction in 2012.

The tipping point of Friday’s meeting was the concern over the preservation of recreational areas. Even though the plan states that recreational areas will be preserved, many OHV proponents are wary.

“It’s a bait-and-switch tactic,” said Stewart. “They’re subdividing (OHV vehicles) into a corridor and not looking at the big picture of how people enjoy the desert.”

OHMVR commissioner Kevin Murphy said it is “alarming to think about zoning the desert” and cutting it up into areas of energy production while leaving others for those who want to photograph or enjoy recreation.

“Someone trying to appease one group to use the land for some non-public benefit is upsetting as a person that lives out here and loves the desert,” said Lancaster resident Doug Parham. “Recreation has never been controlled.”

Parham suggested putting solar panels on the roofs of the urban landscape where there is plenty of open space on the tops of buildings and parking garages.

Terry Weiner from the Desert Protective Council seconded Parham’s suggestions of urban solar but had different concerns behind her reasoning.

Weiner said the problems go beyond humans’ desire for unspoiled beauty and recreation. She said solar panels cause problems for wildlife as well. She said birds can be burned by the heat coming off of solar towers or mistake a sea of solar panels for water. She also said the land can be negatively affected by the massive amounts of construction. Weiner urged the plan to be held off until all of the studies are done about how everything will be affected.

The public draft of the plan is expected to be released in the spring or summer this year, and there will be a 90-day comment period for the public to voice its opinions.

Wind turbines blamed in death of estimated 600,000 bats in 2012

BOULDER, Colo., (UPI) -- Wind turbines killed at least 600,000 -- and possibly as many as 900,000 -- bats in the United States in 2012, researchers say.

Writing in the journal BioScience, the researchers said they used sophisticated statistical techniques to infer the probable number of bat deaths at wind energy facilities from the number of dead bats found at 21 locations.

Bats, which play an important role in the ecosystem as insect-eaters, are killed at wind turbines not only by collisions with moving turbine blades but also by the trauma resulting from sudden changes in air pressure that occur near a fast-moving blade, the study said.

Study author Mark Hayes of the University of Colorado notes that 600,000 is a conservative estimate -- the true number could be 50 percent higher than that -- and some areas of the country might experience much higher bat fatality rates at wind energy facilities than others.

Hayes said the Appalachian Mountains have the highest estimated fatality rates in his analysis.

With bats already under stress because of climate change and disease, in particular white-nose syndrome, the estimate of wind turbine deaths is worrisome, he said -- especially as bat populations grow only very slowly, with most species producing only one young per year.

Lawsuit Filed Against Wind Energy Project Near Mojave Preserve

Spirit Mountain from Wee Thump Wilderness. The Searchlight Wind project would fill the middle distance with wind turbines (Chris Clarke photo)

by Chris Clarke
KCET Rewire

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) have been sued over the recently-approved Searchlight Wind Project in southern Nevada, with plaintiffs charging that the federal government conducted an inadequate review of the project's likely effects on desert wildlife. The project, which would generate a maximum of 200 megawatts of electrical power, would place 87 turbines on almost 19,000 acres of public lands within view of the Mojave National Preserve and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

The suit, which also names former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as a defendant, was filed April 10 in the U.S. District Court in Nevada by the groups Basin and Range Watch and Friends of Searchlight Desert and Mountains, along with Searchlight, NV residents Judy Bundorf and Ellen Ross, and the Reverend Ron Van Fleet, an elder in the Fort Mohave tribe.

Plaintiffs charge that the project, to be built by Duke Energy, would (in the words of the suit) "pose significant adverse harm to a wide array of sensitive and protected species ... including desert tortoise, golden eagles, bald eagles, and residential and migratory birds and bats... through direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts" which weren't adequately addressed in the project's final environmental impact statement, nor in FWS's Biological Opinion on the project. The plaintiffs maintain that Secretary Salazar issued a positive Record of Decision for the project based on that inadequate review of the project's ecological impacts, and that mitigation plans for the ecological dmmage the project would cause have not been developed.

The suit also alleges that the project would cause irreparable damage to cultural resources important to local tribes, whose origin stories center on a prominent peak some miles south of the project's footprint.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to set aside Interior's Record of Decision on the project, as well as FWS's Biological Opinion and the BLM's Environmental Impact Statement, and to issue an injunction halting work on the project, which could start construction this year.

Opposition Grows To Wind Development Near Mojave Preserve

Avikwame seen from Wee Thump, January 2010. This view would be filled with wind turbines in the distance | Photo: Chris Clarke

Commentary
by Chris Clarke
KCET

To those tracking proposed wind turbine developments in the Mojave Desert, it's become clear that developers are increasingly eyeing the area just north and east of the Mojave National Preserve. There are active wind proposals in the Silurian Valley north of Baker. Element Power has a permit to test for wind resources in Mountain Pass, on a site almost completely surrounded by the Preserve. Oak Creek Energy Systems has a similar testing permit at the northern end of the New York Mountains, just inside the Nevada line, in land that would certainly be part of the Preserve were it not for that state line.

But the application that's farthest along is Duke Energy's Searchlight Wind Energy Project, which would place from 87 to 96 turbines, each 427 feet tall, on almost 19,000 acres surrounding three sides of the little Nevada town from which it takes its name. The turbines would be just east of the Mojave National Preserve, as close as a mile and a half to the boundary of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and in an area of supreme cultural significance to Native people across the desert.

The BLM issued the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Searchlight Wind Energy Project in December, and as the project has the backing of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- a local, at least on paper -- a Record Of Decision (ROD) from the Interior Department in favor of Searchlight Wind is almost certainly a done deal.

That's angered a number of locals, as well as frequent visitors who appreciate the views across the Southern Nevada desert. Those views are more than just scenery to some. From much of the area of the Preserve, including the Wee Thump Wilderness Area northwest of Searchlight, the turbines would intrude on the view of Spirit Mountain. Also known as Avikwame, that mountain -- a striking white massif rising above the desert -- is the center of the origin myth for a number of desert Native people from the local Mohave to the Quechan farther south, as well as the Yavapai, Hualapai, and Havasupai of Northern Arizona.

What Federal land planners somewhat prosaically call "visual resources" are of supreme importance to the tribes along the Colorado River: being able to see and describe the surrounding mountain peaks is an important part of Native ritual, as for example in the Chemehuevi's Salt Songs. As Avikwame is traditionally considered the home of Mastamho, the son of the Creator, Spirit Mountain plays about the role in local religion that the Vatican or Mecca play in certain other faiths.

Judy Bundorf of the grassroots group Friends of Searchlight Desert and Mountains related to me two weeks ago how the BLM had answered her queries about the impact of the Searchlight Wind project on native practices. "They told us that the sightlines between Spirit Mountain and the Native people wouldn't be affected, because the turbines would all be north of the mountain, and the reservation is in the other direction."

I ran into Bundorf at an event in Ward Valley commemorating the 15th anniversary of the defeat of the nuclear waste dump once proposed for that site. Also in attendance was my friend Rev. Ronald Van Fleet, an elder in the Fort Mohave Indian Tribe. I asked Ron whether the view of Avikwame from the reservation to the south was the only one that mattered to the Mohave. He just laughed.

Added to the cultural impacts of the project are the likely effects on large birds, especially eagles. The Searchlight Wind project would place turbines on either side of the pass leading down to the Colorado River along Cottonwood Cove Road, a potentially important migration corridor for birds and bats heading between the Eldorado and Newberry Mountains to travel between the river and the vicinity of the Mojave Preserve. Both Duke Energy and the BLM state that raptor populations in the area are relatively low, with only three golden eagle sightings recorded in the vicinity of the project site since 2007. (I lived in the area for much of 2008 and saw that many golden eagles in a week, although admittedly not directly on the project site.) The project area, largely composed of Joshua tree forest, is also habitat for desert tortoise, with 122 torts found in the project area during a 2011 survey. Eleven species of cactus grow in the area, and I've had personal communications from locals citing individual Gila monsters seen along roadsides in the area.

Though a green-light from Interior is near-certain given Reid's backing, Friends of Searchlight Desert and Mountains hasn't given up on its opposition: it's organizing a demonstration in Searchlight on Saturday, February 23 to urge the BLM to go back to the drawing board with the EIS. The group wants a wider range of alternatives considered in the document, including distributed generation, siting on private lands moving the project away from private property and valuable habitat.

It would also be sensible for the BLM to pay closer attention to potential cumulative impacts of the Searchlight site combined with those proposed for the Castle-New York Mountains, Mountain Pass, and the Silurian Valley. Fringing the northern edge of the Mojave Preserve with 200-foot turbine blades just seems on the face of it to be something we could think through a bit more carefully.

Interior Chief Salazar stepping down in March

FILE - In this March 9, 2009 file photo, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar gestures during an interview with The Associated Press in Washington. Salazar will leave the Obama administration in March, an Obama administration official said Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

BY MATTHEW DALY
ASSOCIATED PRESS


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who oversaw a moratorium on offshore drilling after the BP oil spill and promoted alternative energy sources throughout the nation, will step down in March.

A former U.S. senator from Colorado, Salazar ran the Interior Department throughout President Barack Obama's first term and pushed renewable power such as solar and wind and the settlement of a longstanding dispute with American Indians.

With Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson also leaving the administration and Energy Secretary Steven Chu expected to depart, Obama will have a clean slate of top officials overseeing energy and environment issues.

In a statement Wednesday, Obama said Salazar had helped "usher in a new era of conservation for our nation's land, water and wildlife" and had played a major role in efforts to expand responsible development of the nation's domestic energy resources.

Salazar said in a statement that the Interior Department was helping secure "a new energy frontier" and cited an aggressive agenda to reform oil and gas leases, which he said had increased offshore drilling safety.

Under his watch, the Interior Department has authorized nearly three dozen solar, wind and geothermal energy projects on public lands that provide enough electricity to power more than 3 million homes, Salazar said.

Obama has vowed to focus on efforts to bolster renewable energy in a second term while continuing to expand production of oil and natural gas. He also has made it clear he will focus on climate change, an issue he has acknowledged was sometimes overlooked during his first term.

Former Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, a longtime Obama ally, is among those mentioned as a potential successor to Salazar, along with John Berry, director of the White House Office of Personnel Management. Berry is a former assistant interior secretary and the director of the National Zoo. Gregoire, whose term expired Wednesday, also is considered a candidate to head the Energy Department or the EPA.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., a senior member of the House Natural Resources Committee and a favorite of the environmental community, also is believed to be under consideration for Salazar's position.

Salazar, 57, entered the Senate with Obama in 2005. At Interior, he gained the most attention for his role in the drilling moratorium, a key part of the administration's response to the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. It was one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history and led to the unprecedented shutdown of offshore drilling.

Business groups and Gulf Coast political leaders said the shutdown crippled the oil and gas industry and cost thousands of jobs, even aboard rigs not operated by BP PLC. But Salazar said the industry-wide moratorium was the correct call and that his ultimate goal was to allow deep-water operations to resume safely.

"Today, drilling activity in the Gulf is surpassing levels seen before the spill, and our nation is on a promising path to energy independence," Salazar said in his statement Wednesday.

The moratorium was lifted in October 2010, although offshore drilling operations did not begin for several more months. Some Gulf Coast lawmakers continue to complain about the slow pace of drilling permits under the Interior Department, which renamed and revamped the agency that oversees offshore drilling in the wake of the spill.

Salazar also approved the nation's first offshore wind farm, Cape Wind, off the Massachusetts coast.

On land, Salazar has promoted solar power in the West and Southwest, approving an unprecedented number of projects, even as oil and gas projects continued to be approved on federal land.

Salazar also oversaw the settlement of a multibillion-dollar dispute with Native American tribes that had lingered for more than a decade.

Throughout his tenure, Salazar tangled with oil companies. He criticized the George W. Bush administration for what he called a "headlong rush" to lease public lands, saying officials treated oil and gas executives as if they were "the kings of the world." Soon after taking office, Salazar suspended 60 of 77 leases in Utah that had been approved under Bush, setting a confrontational tone that would continue the next four years.

Jim Noe, an oil executive and head of a shallow-water drilling coalition, said Wednesday that Salazar's actions "hurt the industry, thousands of workers and the small businesses and communities that depend upon them. We hope that future leadership at the Interior Department will be able to take a more balanced approach to natural resource development."

Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, said Salazar worked to strike a balance between responsible energy development and vital environmental protection.

Salazar set a sound foundation for solar and wind power on federal lands, while protecting areas where development does not make sense, Beinecke said.

Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune hailed Salazar for opening seven new national parks and 10 wildlife refuges while protecting Arctic areas from offshore drilling.

Salazar's leadership "has helped put our nation on a path where protecting our natural legacy and wild lands is a priority, not an afterthought," Brune said.

Energy company halts plans for wind project

A wind energy project proposed for Black Lava Butte and Flat Top Mesa will not move forward after plans were terminated by Desert Mesa Power. The company has been testing wind conditions at the site since 2011.

By Courtney Vaughn
Hi-Desert Star

PIPES CANYON — A proposed utility-scale wind energy project slated for Black Lava Butte and Flat Top Mesa will not move forward.

The Bureau of Land Management received a notification Thursday from Desert Mesa Power, LLC that it plans to terminate its right of way grant for wind testing.

Desert Mesa is owned by Element Power. The company installed two meteorological towers atop the buttes in July 2011 to test wind conditions on the public lands there.

Wind not conducive

In its letter to the BLM, the company stated it “does not believe that the wind resource at the site is conducive for further consideration for utility scale wind energy generation.”

California Desert Coalition and Save Our Desert released a joint statement Friday, saying the area should be off limits to industrial development.

“The work isn’t finished by any means,” Frazer Haney, president of SOD, stated. “We need to ensure permanent protection for these remarkable landforms...”

Both conservation groups collected thousands of signatures on petitions opposing the wind energy project.

SOD has been surveying the area’s flora, fauna and geological formations to register the buttes as important archaeological sites with the county museum.

According to the CDC, Desert Mesa Power planned to install 400-foot tall wind turbines on the buttes if wind patterns were favorable.

In November 2012, the Yucca Valley Town Council passed a resolution in opposition of the wind project, citing concerns of a scarred landscape and the destruction of biological resources. April Sall addressed the council, saying the proposal for a wind energy project in Pipes Canyon was left over from the Green Path North project previously proposed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

“Our perseverance and hard work has paid off, and the enlightened public voice has been heard again. We are pleased that Element Power is withdrawing their application and that we are one step closer to maintaining our viewsheds and protecting the resources in and around the buttes,” Sall stated in a news release.

A representative from Element Power could not be reached for comment.

Final EIS Published on Searchlight Wind Energy Project

Searchlight Wind Energy project map (BLM)

Press Release

LAS VEGAS -- A Final Environmental Impact Statement for a proposed wind energy facility near Searchlight, Nev., was released Dec. 14, starting a 30-day review period before a final decision on the project is made. The BLM’s notice was available on the Federal Register electronic desk on Friday and it will be published on Dec. 18.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Las Vegas Field Office released the EIS, which recommends cutting the size of the original proposal from 161 wind turbines to 87. That change and others came through extensive public comments periods on the Draft EIS as well as discussions with the area tribes and State and federal agencies.

The Searchlight Wind Energy, LLC proposal is to construct and operate a wind energy generating facility, which would produce approximately 200 megawatts of electricity and deliver power to the electrical transmission grid by 2015.

In addition to the wind turbines, the proposed project would require the construction of pad mounted transformers at the base of each turbine, underground collection lines, new access roads, two electrical substations, an overhead transmission line connecting the two substations, an electrical interconnection facility/switchyard owned and operated by Western Area Power Administration, an operations and maintenance building, and temporary and permanent laydown areas.

Three meteorological masts would remain on the site to measure the wind speed and direction over the life of the project.

The right-of-way application area encompasses approximately 18,789.71 acres of BLM-administered public lands along U.S. Route 95. The permanent footprint of the project, as proposed, would be approximately 163 acres.

The Final EIS is available for public inspection at the BLM Southern Nevada District Office. Printed or electronic copies of the Final EIS are available by request from the BLM Southern Nevada District Office, 4701 N. Torrey Pines Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89130, phone (702) 515-5173, or email: BLM_NV_SNDO_SearchlightWindEnergyEIS@blm.gov. Interested persons may also review the Final EIS on the Internet.

County Opposes Wind Turbines On Black Lava Butte and Flat Top Mesa

Black Lava Butte and Flat Top Mesa.

San Bernardino County Sentinel

In one of his last acts as Third District county supervisor, Neil Derry convinced his board colleagues to take a stand against a British company’s proposal to erect several score 197-foot high wind turbines in the desert north of Yucca Valley on Black Lava Butte and Flat Top Mesa north of Pipes Canyon Road between Pioneertown and Yucca Mesa.

London-based Element Power, which has its main North American office in Portland, Oregon, has been doing exploratory work to determine whether it will seek permits for the project under the aegis of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, which calls for 33 percent of California’s commercially-produced electricity sales to be provided by renewable sources by 2020. Element is banking upon an expedited permitting process that is available for projects applied for under the plan.

The board of supervisors this week, however, significantly complicated that approach when it collectively endorsed a resolution brought forth by Derry opposing Element Power’s application.

In making his recommendation for the resolution, Derry noted that the Black Lava Butte Wind Project was proposed to be sited where previously an electrical transmission line project known as Green Path North was to have been located.

“On December 4, 2007 the board of supervisors adopted Resolution No. 2007-367 opposing the Green Path North project proposed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power,” Derry stated in his report to the board with regard to the resolution. “The project called for the erection of power transmission lines throughout western portions of the Morongo Basin and endangered natural wildlife corridors, sensitive habitat areas and important cultural resources. Following the abandonment of the Green Path North project, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power once again solicited requests for proposals to be filed for proposed projects on the Green Path North alignment.

The Black Lava Butte Wind Project application filed by Element Power and approved by the Bureau of Land Management calls for the exploration of potential wind energy capture and transmission within the backcountry of the Morongo Basin. Element Power would first seek to ascertain the viability of wind energy development by measuring data from two meteorological towers approximately 200 feet in height that have already been constructed.”

In July 2011, Element Power erected the two 197-foot high towers Derry referred to in order to collect data on wind speed and direction at that height at that location. The Bureau of Land Management in 2010 gave Element permission to build those towers. Element hopes to determine from that data whether building a wind farm at that location will prove commercially viable.

While some endorse the concept of aggressive corporate efforts to develop renewable energy and certain environmentalists embrace the wind farm concept, others, including some environmentalists, are opposed to the project proposal.

Some opponents cite the harm they perceive the placement of turbines will have on the desert vista. They and others find objectionable the danger they say the wind turbines represent to eagles, bats, and other birds that fly through or inhabit the area. Another point of protest hinges on the possible destruction of Native American rock art and other archaeological artifacts in the area. Other critics point out that the remote location of the wind field will require that the electricity be transported a considerable distance, and that a significant percentage of the energy will be lost during that line transport.

Three groups opposed to the project on environmental grounds, the California Desert Coalition, Save Our Desert, and the Center for Biological Diversity, are seeking to have that portion of the desert which was identified as an area of critical environmental concern in the Desert Protection Act introduced to Congress in 2011 extended to include Black Lava Butte and Flat Top Mesa.

If Element Power elects to proceed with the project, it will need to erect eight miles of transmission lines and towers to deliver the energy to the California Power Grid’s existing electrical transmission lines.

Derry made reference to the transmission line and its placement in his call for the board to oppose the project.

“In order to supply the region’s electrical grid with the wind power, an eight-mile transmission line would need to be constructed over environmentally sensitive habitat,” Derry wrote. “Over 4,000 acres of undeveloped public lands would be subjected to transmission lines and networks of wind turbines. This project area required helicopter transport in order to erect the meteorological towers and further development would require the building of road infrastructure in order to reach two scenic jewels of the Morongo Basin: Black Lava Butte and Flat Top Mesa.”

Derry said that neither he nor the county are opposed to the harnessing of the wind to produce electrical power, but that such projects should be undertaken in areas that will not suffer environmental or ecological degradation as a consequence.

“As stated previously in Resolution No. 2007-367, while the county supports the use of renewable resources and encourages programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions; the county of San Bernardino also places a high value on protecting and preserving the natural resources of the California desert and as a result opposes the construction of high tension power lines through environmentally sensitive areas in the Morongo Basin, and recommends that additional power lines be located within existing energy corridors,” Derry stated.

Massive turbines rise in Ocotillo

By Alejando Davila | Staff Writer
Imperial Valley Press

For Don Quixote, windmills were monstrous giants, some with arms nearly two leagues long. But for El Centro resident Efren Ramos, windmills such as the 112 being built west of here, are the source of income that pay for his daughter’s wedding.

Video: Pattern Energy's Ocotillo wind farm takes shape

“I told her that my limit was $25,000,” said Ramos with a laugh while referring to his daughter, who’s marrying at a San Diego beach in December.

The 56-year-old had been retired for more than a year when the project began and was doing OK, he said. And yet, he has worked all his life, so when the opportunity came up to work at the project, Ramos decided to come out of retirement.

He is now part of the civil crew, doing day-to-day operations, meaning he does roadwork and “anything else that comes up,” such as loading and unloading material or even cholla plant relocation.

Ramos is one of some 350 people, about half of them local, who are employed by Pattern Energy and its Ocotillo Wind Express, a renewable energy project comprised of windmills — or better said, wind turbines — unlike any Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes was likely to imagine.

That is because once commissioned, these wind turbines roughly the size of 40-story tall buildings and blades the size of a 747 Boeing passenger jet won’t power mills; they will power about 94,000 homes in San Diego, according to U.S. Bureau of Land Management figures.

The Imperial County Board of Supervisors approved Ocotillo Wind Express on April 25.

Some three weeks later the BLM did the same as the lead agency in charge of this project that the federal government selected as one of many priority projects needed to diversify the nation’s energy portfolio.

Rising turbines

Construction began in May amid lawsuits filed by local Native American tribes, environmental organizations and some residents who oppose the project over cultural, biological, health and aesthetic concerns.

Just last month, a lawsuit filed by Community Advocates for Renewable Energy Stewardship was dismissed in a San Diego federal court.

Lawsuits are also pending from the Quechan Tribe, the Desert Protective Council and a joint suit by Protect Our Communities Foundation, Backcountry Against Dumps and activist Donna Tisdale.

However, thus far, lawsuits have been unsuccessful in halting the project.

All facets of the project are in one stage or another at this time, said construction manager Joan Inlow.

“(This) consists of roads and site preparation, as well as pouring of the concrete bases that are underground (and) support the turbine, she said, “we are also delivering and putting up turbines. It’s kind of hard not to see that when you drive through the area.”

Workers “are also doing a lot of internal wiring in the turbines,” said Inlow adding the interconnecting underground collection system, which connects the turbines together into circuits, is being built.

As this takes place, San Diego Gas and Electric crews are working on the switchyard and other structures that will tie the project up into the Sunrise Power Link, described as a 500-kilovolt “superhighway” connecting the Imperial Valley to San Diego County.

So everyday workers along with cranes and other heavy machinery are assembling towers, rotors and turbines; an impressive feat to witness particularly when noticing the speed in which open desert becomes a turbine site.

Construction manager Russell Graham said it takes about 60 hours to put up a turbine.

As of Friday, more than 30 turbines could be seen standing from afar and many more will be seen in the upcoming months.

“Our plan was six (turbines) a week and we’ll also have a few weeks when we may put up seven and possibly eight (turbines),” said Inlow, who expects 86 turbines to be up and delivering power by the end of this year. The remaining 26 turbines, she said, will surely be up and working by June 2013.

The bigger picture

But Ocotillo Wind Express and the engineering that goes into building and connecting turbines across some 12,000 miles of BLM land is just a variable of a much bigger equation, one that hopes to find the answer to the country’s energy needs.

Ocotillo Wind was a priority in the Obama administration’s effort to diversify the nation’s energy portfolio through a “fast-track” process.

This priority is achieved on a variety of criteria, like necessary public participation, environmental analysis and its likelihood of success in the permitting process.

BLM spokeswoman Erin Curtis described this plan as the “environmentally responsible development of utility-scale renewable energy projects on public lands.”

This plan continues, and just this year, the BLM gave priority status to 17 projects: nine solar developments, six wind developments and two geothermal plants, according to Curtis, who noted these projects represent about 7,000 megawatts of power.

But the fast-track process, just like Ocotillo Wind Express, has created unease among some community members.

Native American tribes like the Quechan, have repeatedly called for the fast-track process and this project to stop, as it’s being built on an area archaeologically rich and spiritually important for them. Tribes also feel mitigation efforts are insufficient.

This comes in spite of the environmental and financial benefits presented by those who support industrial renewable energy projects.

According to an independent report, the project will bring about $442 million in revenue to the county over the 30-year life of the project.

On the other hand, some Ocotillo residents fear for their health and safety, while at the same time dislike the aesthetic change of the desert.

Long-standing concerns

Parke Ewing is one of those displeased residents. His house is just over a half mile from where turbines will stand and, he says, “I’ll be surrounded about 220 degrees … basically on three sides.”

“We are just scared to death for our health,” said Ewing, who like many opposing the project, has fears, allegations and shows deep distrust of Pattern and the government branches that have approved the project.

“There are plenty of scientists that have proven that low-frequency sound — the noise in these things, is proven to be unsafe and a bother (to) people,” he said.

“They can’t sleep at night and I’m scared to death that that’s going to happen to me. I don’t know that it’s going to, but from the research that I’ve done on the Internet — yes, I think it’s going to be a problem.”

Ewing also alleges there isn’t enough wind in the area to support the project.

“They (Pattern) say that they will be able to produce up to 320 megawatts of power. We think that they are going to be able to produce less than 20 percent of that,” said Ewing, who adds he is unsure if the project is properly engineered or inspected by the BLM or the county.

It should be noted Graham says the project will create about 265 megawatts of power as planned turbines were taken out of the project over environmental concerns.

Meanwhile, county Planning Director Armando Villa notes he gets a report on the project every day.

“We have hired engineers and inspectors that specialize in steel foundations to be out there,” he said.

“This is ongoing,” added Villa, who when asked about health issues responds “there’s not enough verifiable science to tell us that these things (turbines) are bad.”

And as far as the BLM’s monitoring efforts, Curtis pointed to online reports available on www.ocotilloeccmp.com

These reports have been posted every week since late May, up until the latest report, which is good through Sept. 9.

The last report notes issues/concerns over dust suppression, trash management and generator emissions, among others. Some of these concerns appear on previous reports as well. However, reports also note the contractor addressed concerns in a timely manner.

In addition, Pattern dismisses Ewing’s allegations.

Civil, geotechnical, structural and electrical engineering plans and calculations were completed by state licensed engineers and submitted to and approved by the county, said Pattern Energy’s Matt Dallas through an e-mail in which he wrote that “multi-year wind studies confirm that the site has strong wind resources.”

Meanwhile, a 2007 geographic information system map developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows the southwestern end of the county as having wind resource potential ranging from “marginal” to “superb.”

This last study surely opens more back and forth allegations, responses and findings on both ends of the spectrum.

And yet, two things are certain in this project. Like all developments, Ocotillo Wind Express impacts the county, bringing benefits and costs.

But whether one outweighs the other seems to be, depending on who answers, as contrasting as the way the errant knight Don Quixote and his faithful squire Sancho Panza saw the windmills.

For one, they were monstrous giants, while for the other: “what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go.”

Environmentalists Split Over Tortoise Treatment at Solar Farms

BrightSource Energy Inc. is caring the desert tortoises as they are found while biologists prepare new homes for them elsewhere in the desert, Joseph Desmond, senior vice president says. (BrightSource Energy Inc.)

By Ken Wells
Bloomberg News

It’s a 106-degree Fahrenheit day in the Mojave Desert. Heat devils dance off chocolate-hued Clark Mountain on the horizon. Air-conditioned cars zip along Interstate 15 toward Las Vegas. And inside a chain-link pen covered to keep out predators are scores of rare, threatened, sand-colored desert tortoises.

Their captivity helps show how complicated it is to combat climate change without collateral damage. The foot-long (30- centimeter) creatures are being removed from their burrows for a project to harvest solar energy in the California desert. Trucks groan down sunbaked roads, cranes pivot with 750-pound (340- kilogram) mirrors and mechanical post-pounders drive steel pylons into the packed desert floor, destroying their habitat.

Construction of such large-scale green-energy projects has splintered environmental groups. When concern over global warming was at a peak, national organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council threw their support behind industrial-scale wind and solar installations on public land. Now some smaller conservationist groups object to what they consider an environmentally destructive gold rush.

“Of course we need to do solar, but it should go on rooftops or in appropriate places, not the pristine desert,” says April Sall, director of the Wildlands Conservancy in Oak Glen, California, operator of the state’s largest nonprofit preservation system. “We need to tackle warming -- but not forget that there are other things at stake.”

Priorities Clash

The Mojave solar project embodies the clash of environmental priorities. The $2.2 billion installation being built by closely held BrightSource Energy (BRSE) Inc. of Oakland, California, is designed to power 140,000 homes without emitting greenhouse gases. But it threatens the tortoises. That’s why the Western Watersheds Project conservationist group of Hailey, Idaho, sued to stop it in a Los Angeles U.S. court.

The 120-year-old Sierra Club, which calls itself “America’s largest and most influential” environmental group, also lobbied for changes to the project’s design to protect the tortoises. Yet the 1.4 million-member organization chose not to try to block the plant, says Barbara Boyle, a Sierra green energy specialist.

“Ultimately, we need to jump-start renewables to combat climate change, and large-scale solar has to play a big part in that,” Boyle says. However, as it became clear the project was rooting out many more tortoises than projected and as some California chapters urged action, the organization joined a coalition that sued the Department of the Interior in March to block another long-planned Mojave solar project that it says threatens wildlife.

Climate Change

Similar disputes are playing out elsewhere and show a growing concern among green groups and willingness to block large-scale solar and wind projects when the cost to wildlife and habitat seem to outweigh the benefits of fighting climate change. A surge in supplies of cheap, clean-burning natural gas has also begun to undercut demand for more costly green energy.

The green backlash against sacrificing habitat and wildlife to curb global warming parallels polls finding that the public rates climate change low on a menu of environmental problems and has doubts whether it can be fixed. In a March Gallup survey, the issue ranked last among seven environmental concerns, with just 30 percent saying they worried about it “a great deal.”

A Washington Post-Stanford University poll in July found that while most Americans believe the earth is warming, 60 percent said little could be done to stop it, and more than 70 percent opposed energy taxes to address it.

26 Projects

Including the Mojave project that is relocating desert tortoises, the Interior Department has accelerated construction approval for 26 large-scale solar plants on public lands since 2009, including nine that it cleared in August. The Obama administration has steered $9 billion in stimulus funds from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to 23,000 solar and large-scale wind installations, according to the Department of Energy.

Conservationist and Native American groups sued to halt five other Mojave solar projects. The organizations argue that federal and state authorities conducted inadequate environmental reviews and failed to consult with tribes on sacred sites. The Bureau of Land Management, the solar companies and the state deny the allegations.

Dozens more solar plants could arise across the American desert West. A July BLM plan allocates 285,000 public acres to 17 solar zones. An additional 19 million acres -- an area almost the size of West Virginia -- may be approved for solar projects. The goal is to produce 23,700 megawatts, enough to power 7 million homes, according to the BLM. Solar power now provides less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity, amounting to 5,700 megawatts, or enough for about 1 million households.

Abandoned Mines

Conservationists say it is wrongheaded to rip up the public desert and destroy wildlife habitat when millions of already- degraded acres are available. The Environmental Protection Agency last year identified 80,000 to 250,000 abandoned mine sites that could be used for solar and other renewable energy projects, according to Janine Blaeloch, director of the Seattle- based Western Lands Project, a watchdog group.

“This is the ritual privatization of public lands, turning our deserts into permanent industrial zones that will utterly transform the sites upon which these solar plants are placed,” Blaeloch says. “Even if they are dismantled in 50 years, the desert will be unable to restore itself.”

While the Interior Department won’t comment on pending litigation, it says the allocation of public desert for solar projects balances the needs of developers with conservation.

Ancient Lake

The designated zones “have high solar resources, access to existing or planned transmission, and low resource conflicts,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in an e-mailed statement. “The blueprint guides development away from important cultural and biological resources and establishes best practices to ensure the most environmentally responsible development.”

BrightSource is building on 3,471 acres leased from the BLM, an ancient patch of dry lake bed in an area of the Mojave known as the Ivanpah Valley. At the October 2010 groundbreaking, former California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called the desert “miles and miles of a gold mine” that would help the state reach its goal generating a third of its power from renewable sources by 2020.

Solar Contracts

The Ivanpah Solar Electricity Generating System is BrightSource’s first plant. Others are on the drawing board. The company has 14 long-term contracts to sell solar power to Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG) Co. and Southern California Edison. BrightSource’s largest shareholders are Alstom Power Inc. with 18 percent; VantagePoint Capital Partners, 25 percent; and Morgan Stanley, 10 percent, according to a 2011 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Investors in Ivanpah include Google Inc. with $168 million and NRG Energy Inc. (NRG), $300 million. It received $1.6 billion in federal loan guarantees, according to the company.

When completed next June, Ivanpah will be the largest solar installation of its kind, with 173,500 heliostats, or arrays of solar mirrors. They are arranged in concentric circles like worshipers around three 45-story towers. Computer controllers will rotate the heliostats to focus the sun’s rays on boilers atop the towers, creating 1,000-degree Fahrenheit (538-degree Celsius) steam to drive electric turbines.

Gila Monsters

This technology, known as concentrating solar power, or CSP, takes up less space and obstructs less ground than arrays of photovoltaic panels, which convert sunlight directly into electricity. CSP also requires less water for cleaning.

However, the pivoting mirrors -- 10.5 by 7.5 feet, mounted 5 feet above the desert floor -- generate levels of heat unfriendly to birds and other animals. Construction -- involving trucks, graders, pile drivers and cranes -- and later cleaning of mirrors and pruning of shrubbery make the area uninhabitable for desert tortoises.

The reptiles, which can live a century and don’t start reproducing until they are 12 years old, have been on state and federal threatened species lists for more than two decades. They eat cacti, grasses and wildflowers and hibernate in burrows in the winter. The mortality rate is 98 percent for hatchlings in the wild, and the species is preyed upon by ravens, foxes, badgers, Gila monsters and fire ants.

Saving Tortoises

The Bureau of Land Management estimated the project would kill or dislocate about 38 tortoises. Construction had barely begun two years ago, though, when so many tortoises turned up that work was halted for a reassessment. By the end of June, the count was 144, 67 of them juveniles. The BLM found that many more could be uprooted or harmed as the project proceeds.

Thus Western Watersheds sued in federal court to halt Ivanpah. Last month, California’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Los Angeles federal district judge’s decision denying a preliminary injunction to stop the work. Other motions on the case are still before the district judge.

“Putting solar power plants in sensitive areas filled with tortoises and other endangered species doesn’t address warming at all,” says Michael Connor, the group’s California director. Those areas need to be preserved “if we are going to retain any kind of resiliency in the face of climate change.”

BrightSource has no desire to harm tortoises, says Joseph Desmond, senior vice president. The company is caring for them as they are found while biologists prepare new homes elsewhere in the desert, he says.

$56 Million

U.S. and California wildlife experts have been using the discovery of so many tortoises to study how to move a species that hasn’t historically been agreeable to relocation. The effort has resulted in successfully placing all but 19 of them in new habitats.

The captives, meanwhile, produced 53 new hatchlings. Desmond says Ivanpah will result in a net increase of tortoises. BrightSource estimates it has spent $56 million caring for and relocating the tortoises.

At California’s Wildlands Conservancy, the director Sall was one of the first to object to U.S. plans for turning over public desert to solar companies. She discovered two years ago that 50,000 acres the Conservancy bought and deeded to the BLM for conservation had been placed on the list of solar sites, she says. While the land has since been removed, other Conservancy- donated lands could be thrown open to solar development as part of the additional 19 million public acres that the BLM said could be granted variances for solar development.

‘No Sense’

“The idea now that these lands could be plucked out for industrial solar, even though there are plenty of degraded options, makes no sense whatsoever,” Sall says.

Sall expected to find allies in the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, longtime advocates of wild lands and endangered species -- and she says she eventually did.

“But the early message coming from the national staffs of these groups was that ‘We need massive solar in the West,’” Sall says. “But it was a message that didn’t include ’on appropriately sited lands.’” This signaled that solar companies needn’t worry about environmental objections, she says.

That wasn’t the intention when the big national groups decided to back large-scale renewable power on public lands, officials of the organizations say. The idea originated in 2006 when the Bush administration instructed the BLM to prepare a list of suitable federal property for solar and other renewable leases.

Increased Urgency

“Back then, the federal position was that you could put solar pretty much anywhere you wanted to,” says the Sierra Club’s Boyle. The Obama administration “has been able to ameliorate that, but it’s a long way to go from a free-for-all to smart planning.”

At the same time, new data have reinforced evidence of climate change while some strategies to combat it have foundered. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2011 followed a three-decade trend of rising temperatures, and this July was the warmest in recorded history.

Yet legislation to create an American carbon trading system and cap on greenhouse-gas emissions died in the Senate in 2010. An effort last year at the global climate talks in Durban, South Africa, to adopt a new, binding global climate agreement was a “failure,” according to the environmental group Greenpeace.

Disputes Continue

The big green groups may have erred initially in not pressing federal officials harder to protect environmentally sensitive areas, says Helen O’Shea, a solar-siting specialist with the NRDC. Still, she says she sees marked improvement in the BLM’s recent revision dropping hundreds of thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive lands that the green groups said were inappropriate for solar development.

The disputes probably won’t end soon. In March, the Sierra Club joined the NRDC and Defenders of Wildlife in suing federal court to stop a 663.5-megawatt photovoltaic project called Calico Solar on 4,600 acres of BLM land in the Mojave. The installation was proposed by closely held, Dublin-based NTR Plc’s Tessera Solar, which later sold its interest to closely held K Road Power Holdings LLC of New York City.

“Utility-scale solar development on Bureau lands may rapidly accelerate habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, destruction of wildlife corridors, and population isolation for desert tortoise in this region,” the Sierra Club said in its complaint. The suit is pending.

Wind Developer Taking Aim at Mojave National Preserve

Image depicts the approximate boundaries of the proposed Crescent Peak Wind energy project in red, located in Nevada along the California border. The boundary of the Mojave National Preserve shares the state border to the west and south. Ivanpah Valley to the northwest is the site of the Brightsource solar project.

Shaun G.
Mojave Desert Blog

Oak Creek Energy Systems, under a subsidiary known as Crescent Peak Renewables LLC, has submitted initial plans to install up to 220 giant wind turbines in southern Nevada, just outside of the scenic Mojave National Preserve, according to documents submitted to the Nevada Public Utilities Commission and obtained by Basin and Range Watch. If built, the Crescent Peak Wind project would fragment and industrialize approximately 58 square miles of remote desert habitat, threaten raptors and likely impact nearby Wilderness Areas and an Area of Critical Environmental Concern.

Oak Creek Energy Systems, which is ultimately controlled by the Japan-based Marubeni Corporation, has expressed interest in developing a wind project in the area since 2006, according to Bureau of Land Management records, and was granted permission to install wind testing equipment in 2009. In the meantime, Oak Creek has been responsible for some of the destruction of desert habitat in the western Mojave Desert at the Alta Wind Energy Center near Tehachapi.

The Crescent Peak Wind project would industrialize the heart of the Mojave Desert, destroying views from the Mojave National Preserve, a beautiful Joshua Tree woodland at the Wee Thump Wilderness Area, and the South McCullough Wilderness Area. The turbines almost certainly would pose a threat to raptor species in the region, including golden eagles, and require dozens of miles of wide dirt roads to accommodate construction traffic, fragmenting pristine desert. Energy development is already taking its toll on the nearby Ivanpah Valley, with two giant solar projects built or under construction. To the east, Duke Energy plans to build the Searchlight Wind project, which is expected to displace or kill dozens of threatened desert tortoises.

Stinky L.A. smell tied to dead fish in the Salton Sea, officials say

Dead fish along the Salton Sea shoreline in southern California. The South Coast Air Quality Management District acknowledged the possibility that dead fish at the Salton Sea are partially to blame for the rotten-egg smell reported all day Monday. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

Los Angeles Times

Regional air-quality managers on Tuesday said that the rotten egg odor that hit Southern California on Monday came from dead fish in the Salton Sea.

Air samples collected in the Coachella Valley, near the Salton Sea and elsewhere clinched inspectors’ suspicions of the 376-square mile, murky body of water as the source of the pervasive smell. Atwood said AQMD inspectors collected air samples which contained hydrogen sulfide.

Inspectors found concentrations of the gas, a product of organic decaying matter, heaviest close to the Salton Sea, with a pattern of decreasing concentration farther away.

“We now have solid evidence that clearly points to the Salton Sea as the source of a very large and unusual odor event,” said Barry Wallerstein, executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

How unusual? As late as Monday night, AQMD officials weren’t even sure it was scientifically possible for a malodorous scent to trek the distance the Salton Sea’s fumes did. So they asked an air-quality modeler to use sophisticated computer modeling to find out if it was “theoretically possible” for a stench to travel that far.

“I think we’ve shown it was theoretically possible,” said Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the AQMD. “But this is just something we did not expect.”

Inspectors ruled out landfills, oil refineries and a natural springs site as possible sources.

“The air samples were the final piece of the puzzle,” Atwood said. “Our inspectors did go out to the Salton Sea and did smell some very strong odors at the sea, as well as at the locations leading up to it.”

But it took the might of a powerful storm blowing from the southeast to bring the stench of the Salton Sea to L.A. All in all though, L.A. got lucky, compared with the town of Mecca, just north of the Salton Sea, and Indio, which received larger doses of the gaseous, funky odor.

“The storm originated in the Gulf of California and the Sea of Cortez and hit the Imperial Valley and Salton Sea,” said Tim Krantz, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Redlands. “We had huge squalls and pretty heavy winds in the Coachella Valley. The winds pull the surface layers of the sea off from the southeast to northwest, and that surface water is replaced from the depth.”

And those depths are all kinds of stinky.

Experts said the winds from the Sunday night storm unsettled the fetid layers of water near the bottom of the sea, bringing them to the surface.

Andrew Schlange, general manager of the Salton Sea Authority, said that in the last week, a large number of fish died in the body of water, likely exacerbating the problem. But he said the fish die-off, which is a normal occurrence, was not significant enough on its own to explain the well-traveled odor.

Rather, he said, the storm upset an anaerobic—or oxygen-deprived—lower layer of the sea, where organic material lays decomposing, releasing the noxious hydrogen sulfide gas, with its distinct rotten egg smell.

The good news was that by Tuesday the odor had greatly diminished. As of about 5:30 p.m. Monday, there had been 235 complaints about the smell, Atwood said. Since then, there have been less than 10, though the “sulfur-type” odor still lingered in some parts of the region.

Atwood said a meteorologist for the AQMD has looked at the thunderstorm reports, and that along with wind-measuring instruments in the Coachella Valley, they determined that winds of more than 60 mph blowing from the southeast probably blew the rank odor to the L.A. Basin.

“That’s unusual because usually the winds are blowing in the opposite direction,” he said.

The Salton Sea has lost much of its depth. It's about 50 feet at its deepest point, with an average depth of about 30 feet, Schlange said. That means it doesn’t take as potent a weather event as it did in the past to cause an upswell that sends the water near the bottom to the top.

Schlange said the Salton Sea is losing much more water through evaporation than is being replenished through agricultural runoff and other sources. If water wasn’t flowing into the sea, it would lose a depth of about 4 to 6 feet a year through evaporation.

If something isn’t done to better replenish the Salton Sea, Schlange said issues with far-flung odors could be more common in the future. He said there’s a plan to do mitigation work on the sea, but money to fund it is lacking.

“All of a sudden Sunday evening, we had all these conditions that came together to allow something like this to occur,” Schlange said. “It’s occurred before, but not at this magnitude.”

Silence of the Lambs

Feds Authorize Killing of Bighorn Sheep in Path of Wind Project

Endangered Bighorn on boundary of
Pattern's Ocotillo Express wind facility

By Miriam Raftery
East County Magazine

Ocotillo -- In a precedent that has horrified wildlife experts, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has authorized the “take” (meaning harassment, displacement or even death) of 10 endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep – five ewes and five lambs.

The decision comes after federal wildlife officials were provided photographic evidence that the endangered animals were seen in recent weeks on the site of the just-approved Ocotillo Express wind energy facility—a presence federal officials and the project developer have long denied.

Mark Jorgensen is the retired Superintendent of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which shares a five mile border with the Ocotillo Express wind project now under construction on adjacent public property owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). He is horrified at the decision to allow the killing of the sheep on land that until recently was designated as critical bighorn habitat.

Jorgensen calls the decision “astounding” in a comment submitted on the Biological Opinion, adding that the USF&W “is charged with protecting this endangered population—and it is not showing any leadership in safeguarding the [Endangered Species Act] ESA.”

According to the USF&WS website, “The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.”

There are only about 950 Peninsular Bighorn Sheep left in the U.S. as of 2010. Their numbers had steadily declined prior to being declared an endangered species in 1998, according to the Bighorn Institute.

The “take” authorization is found in a Biological Opinion issued by the Carlsbad, California office of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&WS) to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on April 25, 2012. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed a final Record of Decision last week authorizing the Ocotillo wind facility. His decision relied on the USF&WS document, among others.

Wind energy corporations in other parts of the country have been issued take permits for endangered eagles, our national symbol--all part of new policies implemented amid the rush to fast-track so-called "green" energy projects.

Until recently, over 800,000 acres in the area were designated as critical habit for the Peninsular Desert Bighorn Sheep. But that number was recently sliced to less than half—370,000 acres—by the USF&WS, a convenient decision for Pattern Energy, developer of the 12,500 acre Ocotillo Express wind project as well as other local developers whose proposed projects were similar removed from bighorn habitat designation.

Jorgensen accuses the USF&WS of bowing to political pressures and ignoring evidence. “They claim this was a result of `new science’ and a legal challenge, but they’ve never produced the science to substantiate their reduction,” he wrote in the the Biological Opinion submitted on May 2, 2012.

At times, the habitat removal borders on sheer incredulity. The only officially designated bighorn habitat on the 12,500 Ocotillo wind site is an “island”, or median area between the north and southbound lanes of the Interstate 8 freeway.

The Ocotillo wind project shares a five-mile boundary with Anza Borrego Desert State Park. Jorgensen and others have voiced concerns that the wind project cuts off a key corridor used by the sheep to migrate to and from the park seasonally.

Jorgensen has previously turned whistleblower, telilng ECM that the California Governor's office issued a gag order two days before the deadline for comments on the wind project's Environmental Impact Statement -- preventing state park employees from turrning in a comment that had been worked on for months. The muzzled comments included concerns over the project's impacts on endangered Bighorn sheep, according to Jorgensen.

Governor Jerry Brown's office has denied that a gag order was issued. But the Borrego Sun subsequently published a news article revealing that multiple individuals with close ties to Anza Borrego Desert State Park confirmed that state park employees were gagged. The nonprofit Anza Borrego Desert State Foundation, however, has issued scathing criticism of the project's potential impacts on wildlife including Bighorn sheep and denounced both state and federal officials for failing in their duties to protect endangered wildlife and habitat.

Above the project site to the west, construction of the high-voltage Sunrise Powerlink line in McCain Valley has disrupted additional bighorn habitat—and now a second wind facility, Tule Wind, has been approved by the BLM for construction in McCain Valley. With trucks and helicopters throughout the region, California Highway Patrol has recently had to use bullhorns to scare displaced bighorn off the freeway itself.

Pattern did remove some turbines slated to go into rocky areas, but has insisted that no bighorn sheep have been seen on the flat, sandy areas.

Two photographers sent ECM photographs of bighorn in the area as recently as April. Those photos showed a herd of the endangered animals on the project boundary—some with radio tracking collars and ear tags visible. One shot shows sheep standing in flat sand, not rocks.

ECM sent those photos to federal wildlife officials to document presence of the sheep on the project site. But instead of taking action to protect the endangered animals, the USF&WS authorized their destruction—and Secretary Salazar signed their death warrant.

Jorgensen had proposed that the entire project be rejected. Failing that, he sought removal of eight turbines within three-quarters of a mile of a documented lambing area. He also urged federal officials to consider the “overwhelming cumulative impacts being generated in the area” including two wind projects, two high-voltage powerlines, I-8, Border Patrol’s increased activity, off-road-vehicle activity and more.

Astoundingly, the USF&WS document claims that the project does not constitute a significant loss in habitat.

Pattern has agreed to a monitoring and mitigation plan, including restoration of historic bighorn habitat at Carrizo Creek. However that does not account for the disruption in habitat conductivity that the massive project will cause -- a concern raised by numerous wildlife experts in the area.

The project developer misleadingly has stated that only a small fraction of the 12,500 acres will be impacted—but fails to count the spaces between turbines as impacted areas even though they will be beneath blades each with a sweep area the size of a football field, each generating infrasound capable of causing health impacts, blade flicker, and noise described by some as similar to a helicopter hovering constantly. Wind facilities can also generate stray voltage capable of causing injury or even death; entire herds of cattle have been known to die from ground current.

Ominously, the Biological Opinion further makes reference to “incidental take”, leaving the door open to authorize even more bighorn deaths.

“This is not acceptable for USF&WS to permit,” Jorgensen says of the five ewes and five lambs authorized for potential destruction. His comment concludes emphatically that the USF&WS has “NO EXCUSE for this action!”

A massive excavation area at the site will be for a 785,000 "pond", a worker told an ECM photographer Jim Pelley. Pelley fears the pond may contain brackish water that could harm bighorn sheep or other wildlife.

Courtney Coyle, attorney for the Viejas tribe, told ECM she did not see a reference to where the pond would be locatedin the project EIS. "This is part of the changing project descriptions issue," she said.

Significantly, the final project approval document signed by Salazar state that the project will power a mere 25,000 homes--a four-fifths drop from the 130,000 homes claimed by Pattern in its testimony to Imperial Valley Supervisors, County Planners, and in the EIS. Where did the missing 105,000 homes go? Were approvals granted under false pretexts?

Moreover, the wind speeds Pattern know acknowledges at the project site are lower than the Department of Energy's recommended minimum standard for a viable wind energy project.

The site also poses risks to human health, from deadly Valley Fever spores being kicked up by construction dust to infrasound hazards to residents of Ocotillo, who will be surrounded on three sides by whirling turbines 450 tall or more.

If the project is going to generate only a fifth of the power promised by proponents, and the hidden costs are staggering and irreversible, why hasn't the federal government halted the project and weighed whether federal subsidies should be withdrawn?

Robert Scheid is spokesman for the Viejas Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, one of several Indian tribes fighting to halt the project due to threats to Native American remains, artifacts, ancient geoglyphs and sacred sites. Scheid has called the Ocotillo project a "land grab of public lands by private corporations."

The Quechan tribe on Friday asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the devastation, after forensic dogs hired by tribes found six additional apparent cremation sites.

Meanwhile, bulldozers have begun the task of destroying the fragile desert terrain, wiping out habitat even as multiple lawsuits make their way into the courts seeking to protect Native American cultural sites as well as wildlife habitat.

Absent a restraining order soon, however, both the endangered Bighorn and countlesss Native American sacred sites may soon be gone with the wind.