Environmental Engineering Reference
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of mirrors to concentrate sunlight toward a central tower where it heats
water and drives a steam turbine. Other desert solar energy projects are
simply massive, ground-mounted PV solar arrays.
Siting wind and solar energy farms in sparsely populated rural desert
areas may reduce the likelihood of neighbor conflicts, but sometimes its
disruptions of protected animal populations can be just as difficult to
overcome. As the utility-scale solar energy development industry has grown
in the past couple of decades, it has faced near-constant resistance because
of its potential harms to a diverse list of desert creatures that includes every-
thing from squirrels and foxes to lizards and toads.
In the southwestern United States—a region with superb solar resources
and aggressive government support for renewable energy—conservationists
concerned about impacts on the desert tortoise have been a major imped-
iment to solar energy development. Because its name appears on the U.S.
threatened species list, 107 the desert tortoise receives significant protection
under the ESA. Particularly in the states of California and Nevada, this
listing has complicated efforts to develop solar energy plants on vast
public lands aimed at harvesting more of the region's superb solar energy
resources.
Several characteristics of desert tortoises make them particularly suscep-
tible to population declines from the introduction of solar energy projects
in their habitat areas. These slow-moving reptile creatures typically do not
begin reproducing until they are about 12 years old, and only 2 percent
of hatchlings born in the wild survive. 108 They eat mostly cacti and other
desert plants that solar energy developers may partially clear in connection
with their projects, and solar mirror installations have the potential to
penetrate and disturb their buried eggs or underground burrows. 109
Events surrounding the Ivanpah CSP project in California's Mojave
Desert exemplify the conflict between desert tortoise habitat conservation
and solar energy development in this part of the world. Initially, U.S.
government officials estimated that the massive and innovative Ivanpah
project would impact less than 40 tortoises. The developer, BrightSource
Energy, obtained an incidental take permit under the ESA in connection
with the project, agreeing among other things to help fund the safe
relocation of tortoises it displaced. Based on those estimates and the devel-
oper's habitat conservation plan, the Sierra Club and similar conservation
groups supported the project, concluding that this project's climate change-
fighting benefits exceeded its localized wildlife habitat risks. 110
Unfortunately, as construction on the Ivanpah project proceeded, it
became increasingly apparent that many more tortoises were being affected
than originally expected. By June of 2012, construction activities had
displaced at least 144 desert tortoises, prompting federal officials to delay
further construction to allow the gathering of better information about
tortoise population impacts at the site. 111 A conservation group law suit
followed, aimed at enjoining any further construction. 112
 
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