County supervisors to intervene in Ivanpah solar project

SAN BERNARDINO • A massive solar project planned near the California-Nevada border projected to generate 1,000 construction jobs won’t move forward without resistance from San Bernardino County supervisors.
   On Tuesday the county Board of Supervisors agreed in closed session to intervene in BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah Solar Power Complex proposed on 4,000 acres of federal land about 50 miles northwest of Needles and five miles away from Primm, Nev.
   The 400-megawatt solar project has drawn criticism from environmentalists and county officials expressing concerns over its potential to harm the habitat of the iconic desert tortoise and other wildlife while limiting future developments and recreational options.
   “The county’s going to bear the impact from these projects,” said Andy Silva, spokesman for 1st District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt. “We want to make sure we don’t bear those impacts without some kind of off-setting benefit.”
    Another concern is mitigation requirements that could require the developer to purchase another 12,000 acres of protected land, possibly limiting off-road vehicle riding or opportunities for future building.
   “If you have a number of these large projects approved, there’s not going to be any mitigation land left, which means either they need to buy up private land and take it off the tax rolls, and that’s an economic hit to the county, or you may have public lands that currently have a multitude of uses on them and you may have to restrict those uses,” Silva said.
   Currently the Bureau of Land Management and California Energy Commission are working on a joint environmental review of the project, which BrightSource hopes will begin construction later this year and open its first plant in mid-2012.
   Though county officials aren’t officially opposing the project at this point, they intend to file a statement this week with the BLM and a legal brief in coming weeks with the CEC expressing their concerns.
   “This gives us a strong voice in that process and it keeps our options open down the road,”
Silva said.
   County officials also intend to work with federal and state fish and wildlife bodies to create an effective strategy for dealing with the potential loss of habitat in the Mojave Desert.
   BrightSource has projected the Ivanpah project will create as many as 1,000 construction jobs which will likely go to Barstow and Victorville residents first, and 86 permanent jobs, likely to benefit Las Vegas residents.
   To maximize potential jobs and economic activity, Mitzelfelt has said that the more than 60 large solar projects proposed for Bureau of Land Management land in the California desert, including the Ivanpah project, should be built on private land closer to urbanized areas.