Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Damaged croplands could have a second life with solar farms.

BREAKING: The California State Legislature passed a highly controversial bill (AB 1073) today allowing a single massive solar-energy project to bypass mandatory environmental reviews by state and local regulatory agencies.

Despite concerns raised by local citizens, conservation groups and American Indian tribes, the California Energy Commission approved in 2011 an earlier iteration of the Calico solar project, but the project has since changed ownership from Tesserra to K-Road Power and change in content and scope.

Revamping the project would normally require additional local and state environmental studies to evaluate the impact of the new technology, but AB 1073 would send the project straight back to the California Energy Commission (CEC), who is expected to rubberstamp its permit.

Defenders’ California program director, Kim Delfino, criticized the legislature’s vote.

“The legislature’s action is a serious setback in the effort to plan for the best renewable energy future for our nation and California,” Delfino said. “The Calico solar project poses such a significant threat to the sensitive Pisgah Valley that it comes as no surprise that K-Road Power would push for legislation that short circuits any environmental review that would bring to light the project’s true impacts.”

DESERT TORTOISE, (C) Jeff Aardahl/Defenders of Wildlife

The Calico solar project is slated to be built on some 4,000 acres of environmentally sensitive public lands in Pisgah Valley, which provides vital habitat for threatened desert tortoise, golden eagles, desert big horn sheep and other imperiled wildlife.

A number of the nation’s leading conservation groups, including Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, recently filed federal lawsuits against the project due to incomplete, insufficient environmental review of the project’s potential to harm imperiled wildlife and protected species..

“Unfortunately, California’s lawmakers allowed a single developer to bypass environmental laws designed to protect the public’s interest,” Delfino added. “This move is purely for the benefit of one company, does nothing to speed up our transition to clean energy, and will only lead to more controversy, costly delays and destruction of environmentally sensitive lands.”

Approval by Imperial County officials means work can begin on what will be the world’s largest solar farm.

The project will produce enough electricity to power more than 200,000 households and create about 700 construction jobs.

Conservation groups say they support it because it isn’t being built on environmentally sensitive public lands. Kim Delfino, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife, says the project is a great example of the “right way” to develop solar energy.

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Listen to Defenders’ Kim Delfino on California News Service radio.

“There’s a lot of land out there. They don’t need to be going into these more intact, pristine areas. We think that, with good planning and good information, they can choose good, low-impact sites.”

Burrowing owls like this one are threatened by the Calico solar project.

Delfino calls the proposed California-based Calico solar project near Barstow an example of the “wrong way” to develop solar. She says the project fails to meet basic environmental-protection requirements and threatens fragile wildlife.

The Calico project covers more than 4,000 acres of vital wildlife habitat in the Mojave Desert’s Pisgah Valley, she says, and is located on key habitat for the desert tortoise.

“Despite the fact that we have been meeting with the developer of this site for the last three years, urging them to move the project because of the conflicts with wildlife, they’ve chosen to move ahead.”

Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club are filing a federal lawsuit in an attempt to stop the Calico project.

Lori Abbott, Public News Service – CA

The Calico project's footprint, comprised of fields of solar panels similar to this one, will fall on 4,000 acres of public land in California, including key habitat for threatened desert tortoise.

BREAKING: The proposed California-based Calico solar project fails to meet basic environmental protection requirements and threatens imperiled wildlife, according to Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club. The groups are filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior after failing to reach agreement with the developers and the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to move the project to a location without major environmental conflicts.  

Read our fact sheet to learn more about what’s wrong with the Calico project.

Over the course of three years, the environmental groups met 10 times with the Bureau of Land Management and Calico’s current and former developers, K-Road Power and Tessera Solar (respectively), to urge the developers and Interior to relocate the project to less environmentally sensitive lands. Some of these options included degraded private agricultural lands near the proposed project that would significantly reduce the project’s impacts and bring it more in line with “smart from the start” principles. All these options were rejected.

The proposed project covers 4,000-plus-acres of vital wildlife habitat in the Mojave Desert’s Pisgah Valley – an area four times as large as San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park – and is located on key desert tortoise habitat that connects several tortoise recovery areas in the region. Building a solar project here, the groups contend, would threaten at least six other imperiled animals and plants, including golden eagles, burrowing owls and Mojave fringe-toed lizard.

Desert tortoise benefit from smart planning of solar power projects.

Defenders, NRDC and the Sierra Club have previously supported or reached agreements with developers of five of the seven large-scale solar projects approved in California by Interior since 2009. This consensus building effort resulted in better projects that would create almost 3,670 construction jobs, about 525 permanent jobs and nearly 2,600 megawatts of clean power while minimizing impacts on key species and wild lands.

Collaborative solar development efforts among these conservation groups, solar developers and federal, state and local agencies will continue, including a joint effort to help shape Interior’s national solar program that will provide a robust blueprint for successful and responsible solar development on public lands in California and the rest of the West.

Following are statements from leaders of the conservation groups presenting the lawsuit:

Kim Delfino, Defenders' California program director.

“What’s frustrating about the Calico solar project is that the developer and the Bureau of Land Management can avoid the worst impacts to wildlife by being ‘smart from the start’ and moving the project to degraded agricultural lands near the proposed site,” said Kim Delfino, Defenders of Wildlife’s California program director. “If this project moves forward at this location, Calico will irreversibly harm the sensitive Pisgah Valley and the desert tortoise.”

“We drew a line in the sand and the Calico solar project crossed it,” said Johanna Wald, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “My colleagues and I tried very hard to avoid litigation and filed this suit as the last resort. We have focused instead on consensus building to improve as many large-scale solar projects as possible to transition our nation to clean energy sources while protecting wild lands and wildlife. The Calico project, however, is an example of a solar project done wrong from the start.”

“The Pisgah Valley is just too critical for desert tortoise recovery and for a whole suite of important desert species like golden eagles,” said Sierra Club Senior Representative Barbara Boyle. “We need to build renewable energy, but we can find much better places that don’t harm important wildlife and habitat.”

DESERT TORTOISE, (C) Jeff Aardahl/Defenders of Wildlife

NEWS: Conservation groups urge Interior Department to move the Calico Solar Project to less sensitive lands

A coalition of conservation groups made a last-ditch appeal to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today, urging the Bureau of Land Management to move the Calico Solar Project from vital desert habitat to degraded lands that could produce the same amount of energy, but pose less risk to imperiled wildlife and the environment.

Kim Delfino, Defenders' California program director.

“The conservation community wants to see clean energy projects succeed, but development has to be done smart from the start, where projects are designed up front to avoid, minimize and mitigate impacts on wildlife and the environment. The Calico Solar Project is a glaring example of the wrong way to pursue solar energy projects,” said Kim Delfino, California Program Director for Defenders of Wildlife.

“The harm to imperiled wildlife, plants and fragile desert habitat caused by this project if it is built in this location seriously outweighs any benefits. And while we’ve worked successfully with a number of large-scale solar project developers to reduce their project’s impacts on the environment and supported other projects with no changes, the impacts of this project are too great in its present location. As we have done successfully with other solar developers, we hope we can find a way to modify this project to reduce its impacts and permit it to proceed.”

Related: Read Defenders’ fact sheet explaining why Calico is an example of solar development done wrong.

The groups have notified the Interior Department of their intention to file a lawsuit against BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for approving the 4,613-acre solar power facility, which will impact seven imperiled species in the fragile Mojave Desert landscape, including desert tortoise, burrowing owls and bighorn sheep.

The Calico Solar Project is a glaring example of the wrong way to pursue solar energy projects. – Kim Delfino

But the groups hope to work out an agreement with the project’s developer, K-Road Power, and BLM outside the courts if the developer is willing to move the project to less sensitive lands. The groups have pointed out that the project could work well on mostly private lands — including some degraded agricultural lands and former industrial sites, called brownfields, that are close to the current site, but outside of the sensitive Pisgah Valley.

The Calico project will use solar dishes like thisone and solar panels to capture sunlight and create electricity. (C) NERL

The California Energy Commission found that these alternative sites would be a good option for the project and would likely result in fewer impacts on wildlife and the environment. But BLM and the project developer at the time, Tessera Solar, rejected these locations.

Together, Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club have worked out agreements with developers to resolve concerns over four projects on public lands, resulting in the permitting of some 2,595 megawatts — nearly 90 percent of the solar energy to be built on BLM lands in California. Despite the groups’ strong track record of working with developers to reduce impacts on wildlife and natural resources, K-Road Power has been unwilling to consider a less environmentally damaging alternative.

“The area where the Calico project is currently planned is simply not appropriate for renewable energy development,” said Barb Boyle, Senior Representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.  “If built in this location, the Calico project will unnecessarily sacrifice important and irreplaceable wildlife, plants and habitat.  Especially when there are ample disturbed and/or degraded sites throughout California that are appropriate for renewable energy development, selecting this specific land for the project has created a preventable conflict between the project’s developers and Californians who want to preserve our state’s native wildlife and landscapes.  There is still time to get this right and we hope to work with K-Road Power to find an alternative location that has far fewer impacts on wildlife and desert ecosystems.”

Related: Read our letter to Interior Secretary Salazar.