RIDGECREST – Citing the drought and lack of water from state resources as a reason to revisit the environmental documents, the Kern County Planning Department is recommending the Fremont Valley project be reviewed, again, before approval from county supervisors, according to a letter.
One, or maybe two, new revised environmental impact reports will take four to six months to compile before being released and available for public scrutiny and comment. Meanwhile, all workshops and meetings planned for the project have been cancelled until a new EIR is produced. The letter states that if AquaHelio still wants to move forward with the plan, the project may be portioned into two separate components, and two EIRs. The letter does not go into what two components the project would be separated.
The proposal was outlined in a letter from the department head, Lorelei H. Oviatt, released at 3 p.m. Friday. The letter is addressed to “Interested Party” or anyone who had attended one of the workshops or public forums on the project or lives in close proximity to the proposed project.
The Fremont Valley Preservation Project, proposed by AquaHelio, LLC, has three parts; a 1,000-megawatt photovoltaic solar-farm, a water extraction component, and a water banking or storing component. The proponents want to produce electricity from the sun, and pump water out of, and store water in, the Fremont Valley aquifer. The amount of water being asked to extract far exceeds the aquifer’s recharge. Despite mitigation and monitoring measures to accompany the water project, the water extraction component has raised a haboob of controversy from neighbors of the valley, including residents of Cantil, Randsburg, Inyokern and Ridgecrest.
The call to revisit the environmental impact report will give the public another chance to comment on the project.
The Planning Department has determined the current DIER to not be adequate to make a decision on the project.
“As lead agency for the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and in consultation with County Counsel, Staff has determined that the Final Environmental Impact Report is insufficient to satisfy the requirements of CEQA for public disclosure of potential environmental impacts for the two water components of the project,” states the letter.
The department lays part of the blame for the revisiting of the documents on the current emergency drought conditions impacting the state and region.
“The Kern County Planning and Community Development Department has determined that since the project was recommended for approval by the Planning Commission on Jan. 23, 2014, the recent decision from the State of California to allocate no State Water Project water to Kern County this calendar year and drought declarations and decisions issued by Gov. Brown and the Department of Water Resources represent new information that needs to be considered in a revised and re-circulated environmental document before any of the project components can be considered by the Kern County Board of Supervisors.
Full story by Mike Bodine at ridgecrestca.com.
