Solar energy plans should respect our wildlife habitat

Clint Bentley, Henderson

Monday, Feb. 28, 2011 | 2:03 a.m.

Which of Nevada’s public lands are good places for solar energy development? That’s the question federal officials were asking at meetings throughout our state this month.

As a lifelong sportsman and wildlife conservationist, former chairman of the state wildlife commission and current director of the Fraternity of the Desert Bighorn, I’m concerned about the effects that large-scale energy developments could have on our wildlife habitat in Nevada.

The Interior Department has several proposals on the table. The department has identified about 9 million acres in Nevada that could be suitable for solar energy development. One proposal is to confine solar developments to smaller, preapproved solar energy zones — places that have been identified as having high solar energy potential and the least impact on water and wildlife. Currently, the Interior Department has identified seven potential solar energy zones in Nevada.

I would like to encourage the Interior Department and the Energy Department to adopt this approach. As a fellow Westerner, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar should understand what is at stake here.

More important, we need to know that the Interior Department and the Bureau of Land Management are going to work with local interests and stakeholders to make sure these solar energy zones are properly sited and that they have been developed using a “ground up” approach, rather than “top down.”

This means local interests and local input are the foundation, rather than forcing energy developers with no local knowledge to try to justify and downplay the real impacts to our local economies and recreation interests.

Some boundaries of these solar energy zones need to be modified due to the concerns of local interests. BLM needs to work with stakeholders to make sure the zones are properly drawn from the start.