3. ENDANGERED SPECIES: Squirrel casts long shadow over solar project (ClimateWire, 04/24/2008)

Debra Kahn, ClimateWire reporter

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) raised some eyebrows last week when he ended a speech on states' role in fighting climate change with a diatribe against his own agency.

"It's not just businesses that have slowed things down, it's not just Republicans that have slowed things down, it's also Democrats and also environmental activists sometimes that slow things down," he said of the pace of installation of renewable energy generators. He singled out a squirrel as a symbol of environmental protections run amok.

"Our Department of Fish and Game is slowing approval of a solar facility in Victorville. It's because of an endangered squirrel, an endangered squirrel which has never been seen on that land where they're supposed to build the solar plants. But if such a squirrel were around, this is the kind of area that it would like, they say."

This is technically true; the Mojave ground squirrel (Spermophilus mohavensis), a shy animal that burrows underground in the winter, has not been seen on the 388 acres proposed for the project in San Bernardino County. The project consists of about 300 megawatts of natural gas-fired power and 268 MW of steam-fired power, 50 MW of which would come from solar thermal power.

But the squirrel, which is listed as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act but not the federal Endangered Species Act, has been seen a few hundred feet away from the site, as have other rare species like the desert tortoise and burrowing owl.

Mojave ground squirrel. Photo courtesy of Defenders of Wildlife.

Misa Ward, a senior biologist with the California Energy Commission who has worked on the plant's application, said the squirrel sighting means the species probably inhabits the area proposed for the plant. "It's a suboptimal rain year, and squirrels are pretty inactive as it is, so the fact they found one is pretty significant," she said.

Furthermore, she said, the city of Victorville agreed earlier this month on a mitigation plan for the land to be used by the solar array and the gas turbines. The city will set aside about 3 acres for every acre used up by the plant, for a total of 1,315.5 acres, some of which might have to be acquired through eminent domain. All that remains on the state level is for the Energy Commission to issue a final permit, Ward said.

As for Schwarzenegger's charge that the Department of Fish and Game has delayed the onset of renewable energy projects, Ward pointed out that the permitting process is already streamlined through the Energy Commission. "It's a one-stop shop; everything you need to do for various [state] agencies is contained in our permit," she said. "We include the requirements that Fish and Game would normally require in an incidental take permit were it not for the Energy Commission's exclusive licensing -- we roll those requirements into our permit."

'Are we going to sacrifice the desert for solar and wind?'

"In the '70s, you had to go to all these different agencies and do independent permits," she continued. "We tie it together -- all your CEQA permitting with all the other ones. I think it does streamline things versus having the applicant do all this multi-agency coordination."

It's not clear exactly how many solar projects are proposed for areas inhabited by endangered species, because most projects have not gotten to the environmental analysis stage, but the Bureau of Land Management lists at least 60 proposals for public lands alone in its California Desert district, a congressionally created conservation area that covers about 10.4 million acres. It also lists eight projects as having been rejected for being within the BLM's existing habitat conservation area for the squirrel.

D'Anne Albers of Defenders of Wildlife said the Victorville case could be the first of many, however. The Mojave is one of the best areas in the world for solar radiation. "This is going to be, I think, a huge thing going forward," she said. "Are we going to sacrifice the desert for solar and wind? ... It makes me kind of crazy because there is life in the desert, there is importance to the desert. And once life is disturbed, it's not coming back. You need to scrape the ground for solar, and it will be difficult for conservationists to get across the point that there are areas in the Mojave that need to be protected.

"If we don't abide by the environmental laws and pressure gets greater and greater ... if it happens here, where everything is so protected, it could happen anywhere."

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