Sample Letter to Send to BLM
Comments due June 9th, 2023. Below is a sample letter with the main issues listed. You can copy and send to BLM. Please personalize the message to give them a diverse selection of comments. Your own ideas will make a difference to them when considering comments.
Comments can be emailed to: BLM_NV_SND_EnergyProjects@blm.gov or mailed to: BLM Las Vegas Field Office
Attn: Golden Currant Solar Project
4701 N. Torrey Pines Drive
Las Vegas, NV, 89130
To Whom it May Concern,
"Please reject the application for the Golden Currant Solar Project.
The Bureau of Land Management should not even consider reviewing this application until the Southern Nevada Resource Management Plan can be updated. The plan is outdated by 25 years. Visitor use to the Tecopa Road has increased in this time and the visual resources along with other resources need to have better protection. Pausing this project for a better review could protect visual, paleontological, visual and hydrological resources.
The project site is located on badlands that have the same geological formations found in the Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument. Pleistocene megafauna fossils of mammoths and camels have been found less than one mile away from the project site. BLM should require the solar company to conduct a full paleontological survey before even considering this project.
Approval of the project would result in the removal of tens of thousands of Mojave yuccas and cacti. Many of the plants are hundreds of years old and provide habitat and food to the wildlife of the area.
The project site is located in an important desert tortoise habitat. When desert tortoises were moved off the Yellow Pine site in May, 2021, just to the east of the proposed Golden Currant project site, nearly 3 times more tortoises than predicted were found and 30 of the 139 moved were killed by hungry badgers in drought conditionsH. Please do not allow a repeat of the recent desert tortoise disaster that took place on the Yellow Pine Solar site. Desert tortoises are protected under the Endangered Species Act and are seeing sharp declines throughout their range.
Nearly 50 percent of the project site is made up of badlands eroded by canyons and over a 5 percent slope. This topography would need to be leveled or cut and filled to accommodate solar panels.
The project site contains old biological soil crusts and desert pavement that is about 100,000 years old. Removal of the desert surface and clay-based badlands topography will result in uncontrollable fugitive dust. This will impact public health in nearby Pahrump, Nevada and Charleston View, California.
The project site contains hundreds of rare Parish Club Cholla, mesquite, kit fox, desert iguana, burrowing owl, coyote and several other species. Millions of living organisms would be killed in the construction of the project.
The project will require up to 1,000 acre-feet of water for construction and 29 acre-feet each year for operation. The Pahrump Valley Basin is over-drafted by 12,000 acre-feet. This could impact Stump Spring and nearby wells. Other solar projects in the area could use up to a total of 10,000 acre feet.
The project will destroy habitat for mesquite and associated species, a unique groundwater dependent habitat.
Solar projects can mimic lakes and will often kill a number of bird species. The project would be in the vicinity of Stump Spring and the Amargosa River which attract several birds.
The project would be located less than 1 mile from the Old Spanish National Historic Trail. Developing an industrial eyesore so close to the trail will destroy the historic character of the region. The BLM should propose an alternative that prohibits any solar development within the 5 mile buffer of the Old Spanish National Historic Trail.
The project will cut off access to over 7 square miles of public land and be visible from recreation trails, Highway 160, Mt. Charleston, the Kingston Range Wilderness in California and the South Nopah Range Wilderness also in California. Public access would be impacted on the Front Site Road and to Cathedral Canyon.
To preserve diverse Mojave Desert habitat on public lands and the quality of life in Pahrump, Nevada, BLM should reject the application for the Solar Project. Solar panels do a fine job located on rooftops, over parking lots and on brownfield sites. There is no need to waste important resources like this. "
(Your name and address here)