A lawsuit by the Western Lands Project in Seattle, Idaho’s Western Watersheds Project and the Desert Protective Council challenge the Obama Administration’s program to designate public lands that are appropriate for solar power development.
The suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in California, challenges outgoing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s decision to open 285,000 acres in 17 zones in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah for large-scale solar projects. The groups say they are not against renewable energy projects; they just want them in developed areas such as parking lots and on rooftops.
Think about how these groups’ overall approach conflicts with that of many utilities, which are making it harder and more costly for customers to invest the capital themselves in rooftop solar power. The groups also are sending the message that while climate change may be an issue it certainly is no crisis that requires increased risks to address.
Don’t worry about the increased fires in the desert ecosystems due to global warming. No need to change priorities, after all, some of these advocates argue, climate change makes stopping the development of these ecosystems even more important since they will become even drier.
The Obama administration surveyed public lands across the five southwestern to come up with the lands where they welcomed renewable development so it would not be proposed in habitats where its scientists don’t think it should go. Some of the people in these groups question whether any renewable development should take place on public lands.
If the Obama Administration’s approach to energy policy is “all of the above,” the environmental groups appear to be saying “none of the above, except rooftop solar and on developed private lands.”
It is no surprise that utilities like Idaho Power Co. are keeping their options open by continuing to depend on coal instead of jumping into a new energy world also fraught with legal battles. Since after all, climate change is tomorrow’s problem.
environemental work = lawsuit.
it would be nice to be able to do an ‘edit’ on this forum. Or as The Rock calls it, “update”.
Par for this course.
To fully understand the issues being raised by the lawsuit, some critical facts, not noted in this article, need airing: The Administration’s approved, preferred plan opens 19 million acres of public land to industrial solar applications – far more than the 285,000 acres in 17 SEZ’s reported above.
To date, 11 solar projects have already been approved on 41,350 acres of public land. The projects range from 516 to 7,025 acres, with the average power plant exceeding 3,700 acres. An additional 87 projects are pending on 670,599 acres. The 98 total approved and pending projects do not fall within the framework of the solar PEIS, which is designed to facilitate future projects under a more expedited review.
These public lands provide habitat for many special status species of wildlife and rare plants. Michael Connor, California Director for Western Watersheds Project stated that “If these species are to survive in the face of climate change, we need to protect their habitat, not convert it into an industrial wasteland.” The BLM says itself that ecological recovery after solar plants are decommissioned, if even possible, “could take 3,000 years”.
Lastly, it needs to be noted the EPA has identified more than 15 million acres of degraded lands suitable for utility scale solar in its RE-Powering America Plan. During the solar PEIS/NEPA public process, the agency filed many of the same concerns as the conservation groups who filed the lawsuit. The DOI ignored both.
For the full story, visit: http://solardoneright.blogspot.com/2013/02/public-land-activists-sue-interior.html
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