CEC Staff Delivers Favorable Assessment of Mitigated Ivanpah Proposal
According to an addendum to the California Energy Commission's (CEC) Draft Environmental Impact Statement for BrightSource Energy's proposed solar site in Ivanpah, CEC staff declared that the altered site proposal to avoid special status plants (see previous post ) fully compensates for damage to biological resources. The staff previously concluded that the Ivanpah proposal did not fully account for the harm it would cause to an array of desert wildlife, to include the rare Rusby's Desert Mallow, Mojave milkweed, desert tortoises, and potentially bighorn sheep. The addendum does concede, however, that "on-site" mitigation for special status plants -- which would involve leaving some plants located on the site intact and keeping solar structures away from them--would likely fail and result in the loss of many of the protected plants. The significance of the updated CEC assessment is that BrightSource's altered proposal is a step closer to being approved s