[A release we sent out last week, embargoed until today.]
Project needlessly destructive of fragile desert, endangered species habitat
Camp Ivanpah, a group that opposes the pending construction of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station in California’s Mojave Desert, will conduct a non-violent, legal gathering on the site on September 14-16 to educate the public about the ecological treasures the site holds, and to publicize the group’s opposition to locating an industrial solar facility on the site just as government agencies are poised to approve the project.
The site, on 3,600 acres of intact old-growth creosote habitat adjacent to the Mojave National Preserve, is prime habitat for the federally listed threatened desert tortoise, and is important to at least 19 other animal species of concern including desert bighorn, golden eagles and burrowing owls. Surveyors have detected 10 plant species of concern on the site, with more likely present. Centuries-old Mojave yucca clumps are abundant on the site, as is so-called “desert pavement,” a naturally occurring soil type that may have taken as long as 10,000 years to form, and which is a crucial component of the desert’s erosion control systems.
The group is planning educational discussions on the site to discuss wildlife, plants, geology, and other facets of the old-growth desert slated for destruction, as well as viable alternatives to the project.
“This is some of the finest desert landscape I have seen in many years of exploring and enjoying our deserts,” said longtime desert protection activist Sid Silliman. “To bulldoze intact, ancient habitat like this for a few years of inefficient power generation is an atrocity.”
The project would install more than 170,000 moving mirror assemblies, called “heliostats,” that would focus the desert sun’s rays on boilers atop three towers that would stand 459 feet tall — taller than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. The glare from the mirrors and from the white-hot boilers atop the towers would be visible from a large part of the Mojave National Preserve.
Approval of the project is expected this month. Desert tortoises will then be dug out of their burrows on the site almost immediately thereafter, said tortoise biologist Laura Cunningham. “And that will be a death sentence for many of those tortoises, perhaps most of them. Even with the best science, tortoise relocations have resulted in almost 50 percent short term mortality, and probably much more than that in the longer term.”
“It’s not just the tortoises,” said Chris Clarke, an environmental journalist and desert writer. “This is a landscape that is unimaginably ancient. It is diverse, it is thriving, and it is ours. This is public land, and we object to handing it over to the energy industry so that it can be destroyed for short-term profit. We absolutely need to move away from fossil fuels, and the sooner the better, but rooftop solar is cheaper, faster, and far less destructive than giant subsidized desert projects like the Ivanpah SEGS.”
The group’s experts will be available by cell phone at the encampment for press questions.
Additional Information:
The proposed project would be constructed within the Northeastern Mojave Recovery Unit for the desert tortoise. This population is genetically the most distinctive unit of the desert tortoise in the Mojave Desert. The Ivanpah Valley is considered excellent quality tortoise habitat. The project, combined with future proposed projects, would also significantly affect a genetically distinct subpopulation of desert tortoise that occurs in the Ivanpah Valley.
Given the project’s location on a large portion of the Ivanpah Valley, and that the project site supports 10 special-status plant species, it is reasonable to conclude that a substantial portion of the suitable habitat for some of these plants would be affected by construction of the project, increasing the threat of local extirpation of the Ivanpah Valley portion of these species’ ranges.
It’s good to see that some direct action is being taken. Good luck! Hopefully this will result in some kind of public uproar which will make them take more time to approve the project, at minimum.
Wish I could be there! Hope you get some coverage.
*clenched-tentacle salute*
Great write-up, I learned quite a bit from this relative to the potential destruction of a unique ecosystem. Good luck, this will take a lot of tenacity and patience. I’ve been in these fights before and it will come down to who has the last person standing, barring an unfair referee.
Bill:www.wildramblings.com
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