2. RENEWABLE ENERGY: Regulators seek stronger hand in guiding Mojave development (Land Letter, 12/03/2009)

Scott Streater, E&E reporter

Federal and state regulators are undertaking an ambitious effort to ensure that renewable energy projects in California's Mojave Desert are built quickly and in a manner that protects the region's sensitive ecosystem.

But the effort by the Bureau of Land Management and the California Energy Commission likely won't affect dozens of already proposed solar and wind projects in the region, a fact that concerns some environmentalists who fear the mounting federal push to expand renewable energy across the country will destroy sensitive plant and wildlife habitat.

The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) would cover eight counties in Southern California's Mojave Desert region -- the nation's unquestioned solar-energy hotspot, stretching from the Mexico border northwest to the Los Angeles area and up to Barstow.

The goal is to streamline the permitting process for solar arrays and wind farms needed to meet California's 33 percent renewable portfolio standard (RPS) by 2030. At the same time, regulators want to ensure such development does not further imperil sensitive species in the region, including federally protected desert tortoises, bighorn sheep and California condors, said Percy Della, a spokesman for the California Energy Commission.

Regulators plan to meet those goals by surveying areas with high ecological value and then directing development toward areas with lower value, said Tom Pogacnik, BLM's deputy state director of natural resources in Sacramento.

"If industry applies to build in an area of least environmental concern, the process goes faster," Pogacnik said. "This is an incentive for industry to go to areas with the least environmental concern, and we're helping them do that by identifying those areas with the least anticipated impact."

The state of California and Bureau of Land Management are developing a management plan that would govern the siting of new renewable energy projects in eight counties, including the environmentally sensitive Mojave Desert region. Map courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Game. Click the map for a larger version.

If approved, the plan would be the first of its kind in the country, Pogacnik said.

BLM is preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS) on the management plan, and the public has until Dec. 21 to comment on what should be included in the analysis.

Environmentalists, who have raised concerns about the siting of commercial-scale renewable energy projects in the Mojave, say they are encouraged by the planning process. "It has a lot of promise," said Kim Delfino, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife, a national conservation group.

Planning overdue

At the same time, some worry that the management plan is being rolled out too late to capture projects that are already in the permitting pipeline, including five projects that the Interior Department last month agreed to "fast track" through the federal permitting process.

That is on top of the more than 120 solar and wind-power project proposals currently under review by BLM's California Desert regional office, which oversees 11 million acres of federal land. If built, the 63 solar and 63 wind projects would cover more than 1 million acres and be able to produce enough electricity to power several million homes, according to federal records.

Federal regulators acknowledge, however, that some of these projects will likely be approved or even built prior to the DRECP taking effect in 2012.

An October draft planning agreement outlining how the DRECP will work notes that while mitigation will be required of projects that precede the plan, they may not be "consistent with the approaches that are ultimately reflected" in the final document.

To deal with this, the California Department of Fish and Game has devised "best management practices" (BMPs) for renewable energy developers that are expected to be finalized this month. The BMPs should guide industry development practices until the more formal plan is finalized, said Kevin Hunting, the fish and game department's chief deputy director.

In addition, the state and BLM have devised a conservation strategy expected to be finalized early next year that will reflect the approaches expected to be included in the final DRECP.

"Between the two things, we think it will help," Hunting said. "It's not the solution, but it would help to minimize the impacts until the plan is finalized."

While Hunting concedes such measures will be voluntary, he said the renewable energy industry has in the past been eager to develop projects that are as environmentally friendly as possible.

Some groups want more assurance, however, that the Mojave Desert will be protected in the near-term. Defenders of Wildlife, for example, has asked the California Energy Commission to adopt tougher interim standards.

"The tricky part is how do we move some of these fast-track projects forward in a way that does not gut the larger vision, and they have not answered that question," said Delfino, Defenders' California program director. "It would be an exercise in futility if in the interim you go ahead and move projects forward that gut your longer-term conservation strategy."

Surge in projects

What is clear is that renewable energy developers are not waiting for the management plan to be finalized.

In the past two weeks, BLM has announced environmental reviews of five additional solar projects and one proposed wind farm, covering more than 17,000 acres in Kern, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. All are within the boundaries of the proposed Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan.

In total, the six projects would have an electricity capacity of 2,034 megawatts -- enough to power roughly 1.7 million homes for a year.

The largest proposal is from Chevron Energy Solutions and Solar Millennium to build two solar arrays with a generation capacity of 1,452 megawatts, or enough to power about 1.2 million homes for a year, according to federal records. The Chevron-Solar Millennium project would require two BLM rights-of-way covering 10,100 acres in eastern Riverside County.

Among the other projects proposed in the region within the last two weeks that BLM is considering:

• NextEra Ford Dry Lake Solar Power Plant, a 250-megawatt solar array that would cover 1,800 acres of public land in Riverside County, about 25 miles west of Blythe, Calif.

• Solar Millennium's proposed 250-megawatt Ridgecrest Solar Power Plant in Kern County, which would cover 3,920 acres about 5 miles southwest of Ridgecrest, Calif.

• Daggett Ridge Wind Farm in San Bernardino County, which would generate 82.5 megawatts of electricity and cover 1,957 acres southeast of Barstow.

"I don't know how ultimately those projects will fit in with this larger conservation planning effort," said Ileene Anderson, staff biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity in Los Angeles. "We're definitely watching them."

Anderson said she is particularly concerned about Solar Millennium's Ridgecrest plant. "Of all the projects, it's proposed in an area that has the greatest desert tortoise density," she said.

The state and BLM should have devised a desert management plan for the region at least a couple of years ago, Anderson said.

"That's part of the frustration. The whole desert has not been surveyed well, and that fact surfaces all the time with these projects," Anderson said. "The developers go to the BLM and say, 'Where can we put a wind farm or solar plant?' And the BLM says, 'Well, go over here, it's not in an existing area of critical environmental concern.' But we don't know where all the sensitive areas are in the desert. We've only just begun to scratch the surface."

Scott Streater writes from Colorado Springs, Colo.

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