Last week the Mojave Desert got some good news for a change:
Development of the proposed Ivanpah Airport, considered crucial to Southern Nevada’s future just a few years ago, has been suspended indefinitely because of lower passenger numbers and planned improvements at McCarran International Airport.
The Ivanpah plan has been going through an environmental review, and studies already under way will be completed, said Rosemary Vassiliadis, deputy director of aviation for the Clark County Aviation Department.
There also will be continued monitoring of the site, on Interstate 15 north of Primm, in case other plans or developments would have an effect on the proposed airport, she said.
But with passenger counts at McCarran declining, it was decided that a new airport wasn’t an immediate need after all.
Between the airport proposal and the handful of giant solar facilities proposed for the area, the Ivanpah Valley has lately been Ground Zero for destructive desert projects. The solar facilities still threaten the desert, but the airport would have been the most intrusive, most peace-shattering use of the valley by far, permanently destroying the character of the entire Mojave National Preserve, a constellation of wilderness areas in Southern Nevada, and more distant National Park holdings from Lake Mead NRA to Death Valley National Park.
Putting the airport on hold is a huge victory for the desert. While developers have reserved the right to rescusitate the project should Las Vegas’ growth require it, water shortages will almost certainly permanently truncate said growth long before the first bulldozer arrives on the site.
The Ivanpah Valley is still threatened: almost every square foot of public land on the Valley’s floor and surrounding alluvial fans is slated for energy development. The Valley is in no way “saved.” But stopping the airport removes the most serious single threat to the velvet-black night skies above the Mojave National Preserve.
Now if BrightSource would give us some more good news…
Thanks, Chris—(temporarily) good news indeed!
yeah. That’s never going to stop. I-15* and the dry lake and Vegas and LA is the perfect geographical storm.
*and its concomitant utility corriders