BrightSource Energy Mitigation Plan Falls Short
Basin and Range Watch posted a review of the proposed desert tortoise habitat mitigation plan being considered by BrightSource Energy LLC. The company's Ivanpah Solar Energy Generating System is being built on 5.6 square miles of public land, and has already displaced as many as 50 endangered desert tortoises. As part of it's agreement allowing the company to bulldoze and operate on public land, the company must purchase several thousand acres of privately held desert as mitigation -- the land must serve as good quality desert tortoise habitat and habitat for other special status species affected by the massive solar project. The mitigation land under consideration near the Castle Peaks in the northeastern Mojave Desert is mostly at an elevation higher than 4,000 feet, which is above the average range of the desert tortoise. The proposed site also does not host many of the rare plants that will be destroyed by the Ivanpah solar project Desert experts have raised seri