NATIONAL PUBLIC LANDS NEWS
A non-partisan, non-profit California Corporation
July 6, 2010
Ms.
Janet Eubanks, jeubanks@ca.blm.gov
BLM
California Desert District
22835
Calle San Juan de Los Lagos
Moreno
Valley, CA 92553
California Energy
Commission
Attention: Erick K.
Solorio, Project Manager, esolorio@energy.state.ca.us
1516 Ninth Street, MS-15
Sacramento, CA 95814-5512
Ref: January 22, 2010 ltr docket number
March 12, 2010 ltr BLM Receipt to Air
Resources Board
July 28, 2009 letter to local BLM
Ridgecrest Office
May 21, 2010 ltr to CEC
Re: Ridgecrest Solar Power Project Staff
Assessment – Draft Environmental Impact Statement
Dear Ms.
Eubanks,
NPLNEWS is neither
opposing nor endorsing the Solar Millennium Project. We are a non-profit, non-partisan, public interest
organization. NPLNEWS focuses its
interest on the integrity of the public land management processes including
CEQA, NEPA and the pre and post permit disclosure requirement programs.
NPLNEWS has long
advocated for the balanced special management of the California desert
resources. NPLNEWS goal is to assure
the public that publicly owned resources would not be unduly degradated.
NPLNEWS staff has been involved in federal land management
issues in the California Desert area since 1975 and some of us have been
commenting as private citizens and as chairmen of organizations with interest
in public land issues including the Federal Land Policy & Management Act
(FLPMA) and the California Desert Conservation Plan of 1980 and Amendments,
including the West Mojave Plan (WEMO).
Congress mandated, and BLM prepared, a comprehensive land
management plan to manage the resources with the CDCA in accordance with FLPMA
and NEPA.
NPLNEWS is commenting specifically on the Solar Millennium
Ridgecrest Project. This project is on public lands within the California
Desert Conservation Area (CDCA), specifically, the WEMO amendment. From the outset, the BLM has out-sourced its
responsibilities under FLPMA and NEPA to the California Energy Commission (CEC)
by delegating the responsibility to comply with the federal acts to that
agency. This is contrary to the letter
and spirit of FLPMA and NEPA as legislated by Congress. The CEC is a permitting agency not a land
management agency and is not responsible to the American people for the
management of the CDCA.
The BLM is required to strike the right balance between use
and conservation of the CDCA, as mandated by Congress. The CEC has no such mandate and therefore
not administratively and technically equipped to lead the NEPA process.
The process, as conducted by the CEC during the past couple
of years, in processing the federal right of way application for the solar
project is fundamentally flawed for the following reasons:
1.
NEPA has primacy in this case since this is a federal action on federal
lands administered by the BLM under the CDCA Plan of 1980 and amendments,
including WEMO. Designating a state
agency as the lead for a federal agency is inconsistent with federal law. The CEC’s responsibility is limited and only
focuses on licensing of solar projects 50 MW and larger.
2.
BLM is the lead agency under NEPA and is the only legal entity for this
federal action. Other federal and state
agencies can participate as cooperating agency under NEPA (40 CFR 1501.6). The reason BLM must be the lead is due to
the fact that BLM is a federal land and
resource management agency. In other
words BLM must manage the project within the context of a larger more
comprehensive resource management planning process in order for the project to
be compatibility with other land uses within local and regional areas.
3.
Delegating the responsibility to
the CEC for federal actions, within the CDCA, is unworkable – evident by project-related problems and
issues raised by the public to date, and it’s most recent petition to ask for
more time to get more data.
4. The federal Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ)
promulgated regulations implementing NEPA at 40 CFR 1500. Part 1502 dedicates an entire section of the
regulations addressing the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process. Not a
single provision of 40 CFR 1502 was followed by BLM during presentation of the
Solar project.
5. Some specific comments regarding the content of the
DEIS.
a.
The Draft was written
in March of 2010 and there has been numerous workshops where the draft was
substantially re-written and not purview to the public.
b.
The Draft has not been
circulated to the public in a meaningful way that is generally used for comment
periods under NEPA. Regulation at 40
CFR 1502.10 requires that “agencies shall use a format for EIS’s each will
encourage good analysis and clear presentation of the alternatives including
the proposed action”. This has not been
adhered to with the presented Staff Assessment and Draft Environmental Impact
Statement and Draft California Desert Conservation Area Plan Amendment dated
March 2010 Report.
c.
BLM did not share the
above-mentioned report with the public until requested to do so. This is
evident by a link that was just posted by the BLM on the BLM California Website
to the CEC Website the week of June 15, 2010 on a document that is four inches
thick (1500 pages) with a deadline of July 8, 2010.
d.
Two historical asserted
road rights by Kern County were not discovered until June 24, 2010. Other rights of ways issued related to Cal
Trans and private citizens properties still need to be examined and are not
included in the above-mentioned report.
e.
A complete water study
needs to be included in the EIS, including alternatives to the proposed water
usage. There are major water management
issues in the Indian Wells Valley and the EIS process is the only appropriate
framework for timely disclosure and analysis of the impacts of this project on
the water resources. For example, it is
a well known fact that the Indian Wells Valley is over-drafting the basin by 2
to 6 feet a year, which will eventually lead to degradation of the water
qualities that could start reflecting more arsenic and total solids in their
water. Water Quantity may not be
defined as significant, but Water Quality is.
We understand that the water consumption has been cut significantly,
however, we question the quality of water that will be left in the Indian Wells
Valley as the decrease to the aquifer will at some time be exponential and not
linear.
f.
The DEIS socio
economics section does not clearly define the impacts to the Indian Wells
Valley’s largest employee, the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at
China Lake.
g.
The Naval Air Warfare
Center Weapons Division at China Lake expressed concerns regarding air clarity
impacts associated with the cooling tower plumes, thermal signatures, glint,
fugitive dust, light pollution, radio frequency encroachment, impact to navy
water resources and encroachment into military influence areas.
h.
The applicant proposes
to utilize 165 acre-feet of water for maintenance and operations of the
facility plus 1500 acre-feet of water for construction. This has been pointed out at numerous
workshops (after the DEIS) that this number is too low to move and grade 7.5
million cubic yards of material that may possibly contain Valley Fever
spores. Numerous people in the industry
estimate 6000-8000 acre-feet is needed.
i.
Under Cultural
Resources and Native American values, letters were sent out to the Tule River
Indian Tribe, Tejon Indian Tribe, Kern Valley Indian Council and Tubatulabals.
The analysis of pre-historic and native resources associated with this area
overlooks the ties between this area and other significant resource districts,
including the Coso District to the north.
The DEIS excludes the Terese Petroglyph and significant papers such as
dating Classic Coso Style Sheep Petroglyphs in the Coso Range and El Paso
Mountains; Implications for regional prehistory dated 2/15/04. This significant find dictates that the
tribes to the north and east should be added to the consultations; i.e. the
Bishop Paiute Tribe, Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley, the Fort
Independence Paiute Tribe, the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, the Panamint
Indian Tribe, and the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe.
The BLM should continue the dialogue with Tule Indian Tribe, the Tejon
Tribe, The Kern Valley Indian Council and the Tubatulabals, but add the other
tribes for consultation.
j.
Many of the safety
aspects of the proposed solar plant have not been adequately discussed with
Kern County - as discussed in the workshops on April 22 and 23, 2010. The applicant had set up a meeting with the
County regarding fire and police safety but these meetings were not to occur
before the thirty day deadline that superimposed the discretionary 45 day
period as per CEQA and were not disclosed to the public before the July 8, 2010
NEPA deadline.
k.
Many changes regarding
hazardous waste and air quality were scheduled in workshops in April and still
have not been documented in the DEIS.
l.
Changes in wet cooling
towers from 16 hours to 24 hours have not been adequately addressed in the
document.
m.
The addition of two
4-acre ponds has not been adequately addressed.
n.
The additional acreage
that was added to the first proposal straddling the watercourse has not been
adequately addressed. There has not
been adequate scientific data provided by the Corp of Engineers nor the United
States Geological Survey regarding the possibility of actually changing a
watercourse which was instrumental in a flood that damaged personal property
and Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division Property in the 1980’s nor is it
documented anywhere in above mentioned report.
Recently Bob Abbey,
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director said at a recent presentation, "The
fast-track process is about focusing our staff and resources on the most
promising renewable energy projects, not about cutting corners, especially when
it comes to environmental analyses or opportunities for public participation”.
Greg Miller of the
BLM California Desert District Renewable Energy Manager said to the District
Advisory Council on June 19, 2010 that the fast track projects include only the
applications that are far along in the permitting process. By any standard of
measurement, Ridgecrest Solar has not published a single page of a NEPA EIS. It
is not clear what criteria BLM used to determine that this project warrants
fast-track status?
Please see our
referenced letters for more specifics that although some were docketed, they
were not acknowledged received in the text.
These letters do have date stamps by the local BLM Office.
It is still unclear how this
water-intensive project located on federal lands can possibly be properly
managed when the federal permitting agency has no jurisdiction over the most
critical aspect of the project: water quality and quantity.
In other words, the agency that is
issuing the permit is not the agency that manages the water. This leaves the public with no clear single
regulatory agency to manage the water resources or our aquifer.
To reiterate, the CEC and the BLM is required under CEQA and NEPA
to prepare an EIS that fully analyzes the impacts of Alternatives,
including the Proposed Action, in order to disclose to the public the
impacts of the project on the public lands.
Respectfully
Sophia Anne Merk
Public Coordinator
for NPLNEWS.COM
Cc: BLM Ridgecrest Field Office, BLM California
District Office, BLM State Office, BLM National Office
California Fish and
Game Department
US Fish and Wildlife
Services
Environment
Protection Agency
Kern County Planning
Department, Kern County Water Agency (Terry Rogers)
Kern County Water
Resources
Lahonton Water
District, Indian Wells Valley Water District
California Resources
Branch
Native American
Tribes
USGS at Menlo Park