Funny thing. As soon as The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal refers dismissively to the Ivanpah solar site’s tortoise population as being “around 25,” the BLM ups the ante a little.
To 140 tortoises. A hundred forty tortoises on a bit less than four thousand acres.
I wonder if we can look forward to essays of equivalent numerical accuracy by Madrigal about all nine United States, the Two Amendments to the US Constitution that make up the Bill of Rights, or the one and a half planets in the Solar System.
Anyway. More constructively, some quotes from people who actually matter, as reported in David Danelski’s piece linked above:
Before construction started, Fish and Wildlife biologists estimated that the BrightSource site was home to 32 adult and 35 juvenile tortoises. The estimates were based on the 17 animals found in company-commissioned surveys conducted there in 2007 and 2008.
BrightSource contended in public hearings that the Ivanpah Valley was poor tortoise habitat.
Lois Grunwald, a Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman, said Wednesday that the agency’s estimates were based on the best information available at the time.
Some environmentalists were skeptical, however. They said the higher tortoise population shows that environmental reviews done for the project were flawed, in part because the project was fast-tracked so it could qualify for hundreds of millions in federal stimulus dollars.
Sid Silliman, a Desert Tortoise Council board member, said the new estimates are not surprising. The council is a nonprofit organization of scientists and others who work to protect tortoises and their habitat.
“Our expectation was that a large number of tortoises would be affected,” Silliman said. “That is just excellent habitat.”
Some of the best tortoise habitat in the Mojave, in fact. Too bad that didn’t matter to the large groups who could have stopped the project.
What happens now? The BLM and Fish and Wildlife are meeting to figure out how to let BrightSource move more tortoises:
Just how the new estimate will affect BrightSource Energy’s $2 billion project is unclear. A spokesman for the Oakland-based company said the higher number of tortoises won’t change the project’s scope or construction schedule.
[…]
Fish and Wildlife has until Aug. 7 to issue a new “biological opinion” that will set limits on how many tortoises may be moved from the site. The opinion also must determine whether moving the tortoises jeopardizes the survival of the species.
There were ten times as many tortoises in the desert when I was born as there are now. There’s a good chance that by the time I die, there won’t be any left. Interesting that pushing the tortoise closer to extinction is seen as a reasonable path, but the idea that maybe we accept a diminished supply of electricity – perhaps even a scheduled outage or two per week – is anathema, unthinkable, completely out of the question. Mention the possibility of not being able to leave the closet light on, and you get accused, as in some of the comments on Madrigals’ hack job, of wanting the human race to go extinct. The actual extinctions are unremarkable. Funny, that.
How to limit energy consumption is indeed a very thorny question, especially in a society that prefers freedoms of the consumerist variety. There was a depressing chart on Grist the other day about the energy efficiency gains of the last 50 years or so being eaten up by the increased number of appliances and electronics. Most of the decrease came in space heating, while most of the increased use came from air conditioning and “appliances and electronics”—I wish they’d broken down the latter into two categories. Still, if all the other states would just do what California has done in energy efficiency—and California could do more—we’d need far fewer massive energy projects.
Numeracy: I’ve never seen the bumper sticker, but I was told about it: “Earth First! We’ll log the other 9 planets later.”
In the bizarre world of the renewable energy sector and their supporters, this will probably be regarded as great news. I can see the comments now- “see there are a ton of desert tortoises out there, let the projects go through!”
Of course what they will never get is the fact that the projects will destroy the habitat connectivity and
even if they did get that, they probably still wouldn’t care and would repeat the above mantra.
My cynicism knows no bounds when it comes to the motives of some of the folks commenting on the other side.