BLM approves large-scale solar project in eastern Riverside County over local opposition

The Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday gave the go ahead for a large-scale solar plant in eastern Riverside County that would cover 3,000 acres southwest of Blythe.

The project by First Solar subsidiary Desert Quartzite would generate up to 450 megawatts of electricity, enough power for roughly 117,000 homes. With 2½ years of construction expected, the facility could come online as early as 2022.

Although the project faces some local opposition, regulators hailed its progress.

“It’s another step toward diversifying the energy supply. In the Trump administration, we’ve been big supporters of the ‘all of the above’ approach,” said Casey Hammond, acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management in the Department of the Interior.

Facing sea level rise and severe weather fueled by a changing climate, California passed a law in 2018 to shift its electrical grid completely off carbon-emitting sources by 2045. The state still needs an aggressive transition to meet that goal, as fossil fuels accounted for more than a third of the state’s power mix in 2018, according to the California Energy Commission.

At the federal level, the Bureau of Land Management has approved the development of 3,135 megawatts of solar power on public land in Riverside County. However, the agency announced in 2018 that it was reviewing an agreement called the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, which was envisioned to protect desert habitats, plants, animals and ecological processes while allowing for the development of renewable energy from solar, wind and geothermal facilities.

Project will cost $1 billion, create jobs

The Desert Quartzite project is expected to cost $1 billion to build, support 870 jobs during construction and provide $2.7 million to the U.S. Treasury in annual fees.

Still, some environmental groups have opposed this and similar projects over concerns of the scale of habitat destruction they would bring to areas supporting Mojave fringe-toed lizards, ironwood trees and other species.

“The Palo Verde Mesa and Chuckwalla Valley have taken the brunt of so-called renewable energy development in the last 10 years, as public lands wildlife habitat is gobbled up for mega-power plants,” environmental organization Basin and Range Watch wrote on its website.

Instead, groups opposing the project have called for alternatives such as increased rooftop solar in urban areas and solar plants on already disturbed land.

Plan scaled back by 1,000 acres

Nearly 30,000 acres of photovoltaic solar farms are planned for the region in the coming years, and the 4,000 megawatts they could produce will have to be weighed against additional ecosystem loss.

Hammond defended the permitting process, arguing federal regulators and the company listened to public comments and worked to minimize the project’s footprint.

“They were able to reduce that 1,000 acres, which is a big chunk of land to reduce, yet still maintain the output,” he said. The project’s final environmental impact report, published in September, included additional mitigation plans ranging from installing fences to keep tortoises at a safe distance to creating management plans for desert kit foxes.

While this decision represents the culmination of the federal approval process, opposition groups could still file litigation against the authorization.

“We think we’ve done our part to narrow the possibility that those would be successful, but people have the right to challenge decisions,” Hammond said.

Mark Olalde reports on the environment for The Desert Sun. Email him at molalde@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @MarkOlalde.