Giving Tuesday - Basin and Range Watch

^ Boundary Peak Trail, White Mountains, Nevada

Giving Tuesday -Thank you to our friends and supporters!

Basin and Range Watch cannot Defend the Desert without your help

November 29th, 2022: Please consider a donation to our 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We are a grassroots, all-volunteer, science-based conservation group. We do not accept government grants, or funding (with strings attached) that hampers our work towards protecting the California and Nevada deserts. We are the last resort against the bulldozers. We need your help to continue our work! Thank you.

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What we have been working on lately, and your support will keep us going:

Basin and Range watch supports renewable energy, but only in the right places. Not on thriving biodiverse ecosystems or culturally important landscapes.

Basin and Range Watch is following the green energy land-rush throughout the Basin and Range Province that will greatly impact biological, cultural, hydrological, visual and socioeconomic impacts to the region. We are following 8 wind projects, over 40 solar projects, 5 geothermal projects, 9 lithium mining proposals and 3 pumped energy storage projects.
Basin and Range Watch is opposing 6 large-scale solar projects on nearly 20,000 acres of public lands south of Pahrump, Nevada. They are called: Rough Hat Clark County Solar, Copper Rays Solar, Mosey Solar, Golden Currant Solar and Cathedral Solar. They will destroy habitat for desert tortoise , kill over half a million Mojave yuccas, impact the Old Spanish National Historic Trail and cut off all access to these public lands. BLM has already approved the Yellow Pine Solar Project in the area which has had major impacts on the desert tortoise.
Basin and Range Watch is opposing the proposed Green Link West Transmission Project. The 476 mile line would run from Reno to Southern Nevada, cross sensitive habitats and cultural landscapes and enable destruction of tens of thousands of acres of public land for utility scale solar projects. The transmission line is actually a dirty fossil fuel line that would connect baseload natural gas generating plants at Apex, NV, to the Tesla Gigafactory, Amazon warehouse, and other tech facilities in Sparks, NV.
Basin and Range Watch is opposing the Gridliance West Core Upgrades Project which would upgrade the existing transmission network to hook up over 50,000 acres of large-scale solar projects to the grid with new switchyards in southern Nevada.
Basin and Range Watch continues to monitor and oppose the Greenlink North Transmission Project. The 235 mile long transmission project would run from Ely to Reno, NV and has already enabled over 40,000 acres of large-scale solar along the Loneliest Road in America (US 50).
Basin and Range Watch is opposing the Esmeralda 7 Solar Projects near Tonopah, Nevada. The BLM is reviewing 7 proposed solar projects covering 118,631 acres of your public land! The projects will impact pronghorn, cultural resources, visual resources and hydrology.
Basin and Range Watch is monitoring the industrial green energy plans that are unfolding near Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and east of Death Valley National Park in Nevada. The BLM is moving forward with 3 large-scale solar projects in Amargosa Valley spanning 23,000 acres or 37 square miles, but has also placed 6 of these projects on Low Priority Status as we requested. But two projects next to Death Valley National Park can still potentially move forward.
Basin and Range Watch has also joined a coalition of groups who are opposing a lithium exploration project next to Fairbanks Spring in Ash Meadows. A series of drill holes would likely hit the aquifer and could damage the delicate hydrology of the area endangering 13 Threatened and Endangered Species in the refuge.
Basin and Range Watch supported the new Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. We successfully pushed away two large scale wind energy applications that would have impacted the view-shed of the national monument.
Basin and Range Watch is helping the local community south of Joshua Tree ask for buffers around their community, Lake Tamarisk CA to help protect them from solar projects proposed to their doorstep. Easley Solar would be built very close to the community.
Basin and Range Watch is opposing the Lava Ridge Wind Project in SE Idaho and working with a coalition of groups who want to protect the cultural landscape of the Minidoka National Historic Site that commemorates the more than 13,000 Japanese Americans who were imprisoned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center during the Second World War.
Basin and Range Watch continues to advocate for distributed energy resources and microgrids in both the states of Nevada and California.
Basin and Range Watch submitted a proposal to the BLM to designate the 58,000-acre Cactus Springs Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). The region has been identified by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as "the most critical desert tortoise connectivity corridor in Nevada". But there are 3 large-scale solar applications on 20,000 acres of this area. The ACEC would protect connectivity, unique habitat and wetlands and would be an alternative to the large-scale solar proposed for the area.