Giving Tuesday - Basin and Range Watch

^ Spirit Mountain (Avi Kwa Ame), Lake Mead National Recreation Are

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 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 350 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 continues to monitor and oppose the Greenlink North Transmission Project. The 235 mile long transmission project would run from Ely to Reno and has already enabled over 40,000 acres of large-scale solar along the Loneliest Road in America.
Basin and Range Watch continues to monitor new proposals for large-scale solar, wind, geothermal and pumped storage projects in California, Nevada and adjacent states. Close to 400 square miles of large-scale green energy projects have been built and proposed in Nevada.
Basin and Range Watch successfully opposed 4 solar projects proposed to be built next to the border of Death Valley National Park. The projects were called Beatty Energy Center - 6,500 acres, Sawtooth Solar - 10,000 acres, Bonnie Claire Solar - 8,300 acres, and Chill Sun Solar - 26,000 acres. Universal pushback from the public and the local community of Beatty caused the BLM to shelve these project proposals by placing them on Low Priority Status.
Basin and Range Watch joined 3 other organizations in a Federal Lawsuit challenging the construction of the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine - a huge Nevada lithium mine approved in the final days of the Trump administration. The mine would destroy habitat for sage grouse and other wildlife and waste valuable water.
Basin and Range Watch supports the proposed 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 continues to advocate for distributed energy resources and microgrids in both the states of Nevada and California. We love rooftop solar!
Basin and Range Watch protested a dewatering pump test for the North Bullfrog Project - a proposed open pit gold mine proposed near the Amargosa River north of Beatty, NV. The mining company wants to dump 160 acre-feet of Amargosa River water on the ground to prepare for a new open-pit strip-mine on the Amargosa. The test was delayed but still in the planning process.
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 Fish and Wildlife Service as "the most critical desert tortoise connectivity corridor in Nevada". But there are 3 large-scale solar applications on 12,000 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.