The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), through a Programmatic
Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), is currently developing
utility-scale solar energy policies and land allocations on public
lands in six southwestern states. This federal effort encompasses
more than 90 million acres of BLM-managed lands in Arizona,
California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah.
I hope you will weigh in during BLM’s public comment period, which
ends January 27, 2012.
Your letter should go to:
Bureau of
Land Management
Attn.:
Shannon Stewart
Solar
Energy Draft PEIS
Argonne
National Laboratory
9700 S.
Cass Avenue—EVS/240
Argonne,
IL 60439
Domestic energy resources like solar can reduce our reliance on
overseas energy, improve the quality of our air and water, and put
people in counties across the West to work today. Large-scale solar
projects are needed to help meet these goals, and much of the region’s
solar energy potential is found on public lands. As with any energy
development, these projects will have impacts on local communities,
wildlife, and traditional uses of these lands.
Thanks to comments received on a draft plan this spring, the BLM has
put forward a balanced proposal that focuses on pre-screened,
low-conflict zones for large-scale solar energy development. This
proposal—effectively a roadmap for solar development on public
lands—puts forth specific areas where development should (and should
not) occur based on solar potential and environmental and other
impacts. The BLM’s plan provides an opportunity for county governments
to help shape solar development areas, and the accompanying economic
development in rural areas across the West. To review the BLM’s
plan, go to:
http://solareis.anl.gov/documents/supp/index.cfm.
The BLM’s plan contemplates a unique and flexible approach for siting
solar power plants which includes three key components: 1) guiding
development to low-conflict lands through solar energy zones, which
have been prescreened to minimize environmental and other impacts and
are protected from competing uses; 2) a clear process to receive
nominations, including by counties, to propose new zones; and 3) a
variance process to allow development of well-sited projects outside
of pre-screened zones. This plan would provide counties with much
greater say into where solar projects and adjacent transmission
development is to occur, while also protecting the outstanding
landscapes that so many Western families rely on for hunting, fishing,
recreation and tourism.
You have
the opportunity to influence how this program is developed. The
zone-based system of siting solar projects could be an important model
for energy development generally on public lands. The Department of
the Interior is accepting public comments on the Solar PEIS on federal
lands through January 27, 2012.
