JOSHUA TREE – The community of Joshua Tree has been attracting a strange circle of investors as of late. And these are not the sort of investors to pump financial appreciation into local culture, historic landmarks, a thriving art scene or even priceless scenic vistas.
These are investors who have bought the solar farm and are waiting for the state’s renewable energy policies to pay off!
The San Bernardino County Planning Department has received two recent applications for solar development in the Joshua Tree community: a 6.5-megawatt commercial solar photovoltaic energy generating facility on a 32-acre portion of 56 acres at the southeast corner of Terrace Drive and Cascade Road – and a proposed 4 1/2-megawatt project site encompassing 56 acres south of Alta Loma Drive and west of Olympic Road in an area zoned for rural living in south Joshua Tree.
The proposed location for the Soda Mountain Solar project is six miles southwest of Baker in San Bernardino County. And the developer anticipates producing “enough energy to power about 170,000 homes,” so to help California meet its renewable energy goals as stated on the developer’s website at sodamountainsolar.com.
However, Seth Shteir, a representative for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association, said the Soda Mountain Solar project is an inappropriately sited renewable energy project that threatens the Mojave National Preserve, its bighorn sheep migration corridors, desert tortoise habitat, scenic viewsheds, and the federally endangered tui chub – a fish native to the Mojave River basin.
“Soda Mountain Solar is on Bureau of Land Management land, and it is a proposed project within one mile of the boundary of the Mojave National Preserve,” Shteir told the Bee by phone. “And so we’re very concerned about that project from a variety of standpoints.”
Shteir said one concern is the project’s pumping for operations and construction, which could threaten the MC Spring in the Mohave Preserve. This spring is home to the endangered tui chub.
A second concern is that the size and scope of the solar project may threaten bighorn sheep migration corridors to the north and south of Soda Mountain, he said.
“Putting in this project there would pretty much put an end to that unless you can believe that bighorn sheep would weave their way through solar panels in their path,” said Shteir, who, as part of NPCA, sees to the protection of the three desert national parks: Joshua Tree, Mojave National Preserve, and Death Valley. “We believe that this has not been thoroughly studied in terms of bighorn, and we’re very concerned about it.”
Photo of proposed site for the Soda Mountain Solar project – courtesy of Michael E. Gordon, http://www.michael-gordon.com
Shteir said his organization, along with members of the community, are asking for a 60-day extension to perform an independent analysis of the hydrologic section of the Environmental Impact Study, knowing that there are some “different perspectives” from scientists on the project’s impact to water resources in the Mojave preserve.
“We want to see this project relocated, and we believe that this project is complex enough and could have enough potential impact to merit a 60-day extension to the public comment review,” Shteir told the Bee. “We hope that they will understand that the public really wants to see a project of this size and scope go somewhere on disturbed land where it doesn’t impact our national treasures, like the Mojave National Preserve.”
Shteir said there are lands in San Bernardino County that already have been designated for the intent of solar development – “So our question is, why can’t this go on disturbed lands or somewhere else that would have lesser impact?”
He said his group is also addressing the misplaced siting of the proposed solar project by working to establish a reserve designation for the community of Joshua Tree. A reserve designation could help the local land trust to raise funds for conservation easements and purchases. This would be done by demonstrating a unified vision for the area to funders, he said.
Shteir said that a unified understanding of a vision for the area’s land would include municipal, county, state and federal government agencies, as well as local businesses.
“It’s a sound investment, essentially,” he said. “We have a local land trust here, the Mojave Desert Land Trust, and that land trust is very good at obtaining grants. But a reserve designation might even be able to help it get more funds for the type of work they do in preserving conservation land and purchasing conservation easements.”
According to Shteir, a reserve designation would be the community’s foremost goal to “harmonize development” of local lands. A community would develop a trust board for the reserve, and this trust board would form subcommittees and different groups for managing the resources, while making recommendations and decisions related to land uses – especially commercial development.
“We have a really big tradition of art and culture here as well as being a gateway to Joshua Tree National Park,” Shteir explained. “We have a vision for ourselves as a recreational and cultural tourism capitol, and so we don’t see big box stores being a part of that necessarily – speaking for many of our residents – and many of our residents see renewable energy developments within residential areas the same way.”
Shteir said his organization is asking for a feasibility study to determine if a reserve designation is currently feasible. Performed by the National Park Service, the study would look at the local resources themselves, while determining if those resources were “nationally significant” to be included in the National Park Service.
“And let me just say that the Park Service’s primary role isn’t as a landowner – it provides technical expertise about protecting resources for the community,” he said. “And so that’s a little different from a lot of our National Park units. Because in many of those other National Park units, like Joshua Tree, the Parks Service is a landowner and there’s federal regulations, etc. In a reserve, it’s quite different; it’s a designation, but the NPS doesn’t have authority over private landowners.”
He said a reserve designation can help the community of Joshua Tree by raising its profile as a destination for cultural and recreational tourism – because of the community’s rich history of art and culture.
Shteir said that many sculptors, painters and musicians come to Joshua Tree to work because of the area’s beauty and its history of western settlement, homesteading, and Native American heritage.
“We also have incredible natural attributes and vistas and habitats,” he said. “So we believe there’s something special about the community.”
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The National Parks Conservation Association held a workshop on Jan. 10 at Joshua Tree Art Gallery, joshuatreeartgallery.com, to prepare local members of the community to discuss their concerns with the Soda Mountain Solar project the next day at a scheduled BLM meeting in Yucca Valley.
Shteir hosted the Jan. 10 meeting to inform local folks on what can be done to make sure proposed renewable energy projects are planned ‘smart from the start.’
“What we would like to see is a great deal of thought put into where these projects should go,” he said. “Smart from the start really means that you are thinking from the onset of the project about making careful choices that your project won’t impact community resources, natural resources or archeological resources.”
He said that 35-40 people attended the Pre-BLM meeting, and about 50 members of the community attended the BLM meeting the next day.
“We thought there were many good comments made by the public, but we were a little disconcerted because BLM isn’t recording public comments,” Shteir said. “We believe they should be recorded because it begs the question – What’s the incentive for the public to come out if what they say does not go down on the public record?”
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The Bureau of Land Management continues to seek public comments on planning issues, concerns, potential impacts, alternatives, and mitigation measures that should be considered in the analysis of the proposed action for the Soda Mountain Solar project.
The public may send written comments to the attention of Jeffery Childers, Soda Mountain Solar Project Manager, 22835 Calle San Juan De Los Lagos, Moreno Valley, CA 92553. The public may also e-mail comments to [email protected]. Further information on the project may be obtained from Childers by calling 951-697-5308.
Soda Mountain Solar, LLC, the project owner, is a subsidiary of San Francisco-based Bechtel Development Company, Inc., which, as a global engineering and construction company, is the current developer of the Soda Mountain Solar project.
The company provides a project fact sheet to the public at sodamountainsolar.com, while stating on its website that “the Soda Mountain site was chosen specifically for its excellent solar resources, its location in an existing utility corridor and due to the low density of sensitive plant and animal species. As a result, the project will not have to build new large-scale transmission, which will minimize further impacts to the landscape.”
Other online resources regarding information on the Soda Mountain Solar project include michaelegordon.wordpress.com, basinandrangewatch.org, and desertreport.org
