DRECP Spotlight: Development Focus Areas

The draft Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan identifies 2,024,000 acres (3,162 square miles) of "development focus areas" (DFA) in the preferred alternative.  Of that total, 367,000 acres (573 square miles) are on lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).  I wrote yesterday about the assumptions that were used to come up with this many acres of DFAs.

DFAs By County:
The following numbers include a both private and BLM-administered lands.  Imperial County shoulders the heaviest DFA burden at 734,000 acres (1,146 square miles), followed by San Bernardino County at 399,000 acres (623 square miles), Kern County at 360,000 acres (562 square miles), Riverside County at 268,000 acres (418 square miles), Los Angeles County at 218,000 acres (340 square miles), and Inyo County at 45,000 acres (70 square miles).

Construction crews bulldozing Joshua tree woodland habitat in Kern County to make way for a wind energy facility.  Most of the wind facilities in this corner of the western Mojave Desert are built on private lands, although the BLM has also approved wind development here.  Photo courtesy of Friends of Mojave.
Incentives for Industry:
On BLM lands, DFAs will allow renewable energy projects to receive fast-track environmental review.  The DRECP will aim to make it cheaper and quicker for projects to be reviewed and permitted on BLM lands designated as DFAs.  You can read more about the specific incentives for DFAs on BLM lands in Volume II of the draft DRECP (PDF- page II.3 - 304).  On private lands, DFA status may make it easier for projects to receive Federal permits for the "take" (to kill or harass) of endangered species, although further benefits of the DFA designation for private lands will depend on the specific county's zoning and permitting process.

DFAs By County:
Imperial County shoulders the heaviest DFA burden at 734,000 acres (1,146 square miles), followed by San Bernardino County at 399,000 acres (623 square miles), Kern County at 360,000 acres (562 square miles), Riverside County at 268,000 acres (418 square miles), Los Angeles County at 218,000 acres (340 square miles), and Inyo County at 45,000 acres (70 square miles).

How Much Will be Developed?:
As I mentioned in yesterday's post about the DRECP's assumption that the California desert must host 20,000 megawatts of renewable energy projects by the year 2040, the industry needs far less than 2 million acres to generate 20,000 megawatts.  According to the DRECP acreage calculator, generating just above 20,000 megawatts would actually require developing somewhere in the ballpark of 284,000 - 351,000 acres (443 - 548 square miles).  This is still an enormous amount of land, but less than the total number of DFA acres.

A map of the draft DRECP's Preferred Alternative, with the DFAs designated in dark pink:



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Many Plants Species in the Desert?

Would you expect that California's desert hosts gives the redwood forest a run for its money when it comes to plant biodiversity?  It's easy to take the desert for granted when all you want to do is zoom through it on the highway and get to your destination. But you are passing by an amazing and biologically diverse ecosystem.  There are at least 2,450 native plant species found in California's desert, according to a great article by Chris Clarke on desert life , posted at KCET. If you want to learn more about our amazing deserts, join Desert Biodiversity, a new organization dedicated to exploring, respecting and defending the deserts.
Read more

Mowing Vegetation as Mitigation: Trump Administration Practice Goes Unchallenged

Image
The Trump administration is again touting the practice of mowing thousands of acres of desert vegetation as environmentally-responsible, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.  The draft environmental review of the Yellow Pine Solar project in southern Nevada claims that vegetation mowing - as opposed to bulldozing - will yield positive outcomes that are highly doubtful.   This positive framing of the construction practice misleads the public and decisionmakers and ignores decades of scientific research regarding the impacts of mechanized disturbance on desert wildlands.  According to the draft environmental review: "Mowing is becoming the standard on large site-type ROWs to prevent permanent impairment of public lands (as mandated by FLPMA) and in lieu of off-site mitigation... Mowing methods are designed to help preserve soils, biological soil crusts, soil seed banks, native perennial vegetation diversity and structure, and cacti and yucca species, and t...
Read more

Unlikely Allies: Trump Administration Joins Enviros to Plan Solar Project on Prime Tortoise Habitat

Image
The Trump Administration this month released an assessment that concludes that a solar developer can crush and mow vegetation across several square miles of prime desert tortoise habitat, and still consider those lands as viable habitat for the species.  The silence of some national-level environmental groups regarding the unconventional and unscientific conclusion appears to signal their comfort taking risks with a species already facing significant peril, as well as these groups' inability to champion more sustainable locations to generate clean energy in Nevada. The biological opinion released by the Trump Administration constitutes the official position of the Fish and Wildlife Service regarding the impacts of the proposed Gemini Solar project; its curious willingness to declare heavily disturbed lands as viable tortoise habitat was necessary for the project's approval because the project would be built on lands that have been identified as a vital habitat linkage sustai...
Read more