A Native American group filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior on Monday in an effort to block six large solar power plants approved for development on public lands in the Southwest.
La Cuna de Aztlan Sacred Sites Protection Circle, which filed the lawsuit in federal court, said the pressure of the "fast track" process approved by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar resulted in inadequate Environmental Impact Statements and inadequate government-to-government consultation with the tribes, under Section 106 of the National Register of Historic Places.
The group says hundreds of sacred and cultural sites could potentially be destroyed by the six projects, which will cover a combined 23,842 acres of desert lands.
The six projects named in the lawsuit are the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Project (Brightsource Energy), the Blythe Solar Power Project (Chevron Energy Solutions and Solar Millenium, LLC), the Imperial Valley Solar Project (Tessera/NTR), Chevron Energy Solutions Lucerne Valley Solar Project, Calico Solar Project (Tessera/NTR), and the Genesis Project (Florida Power and Light subsidiary NextEra™).
La Cuna founder Alfredo Figueroa notes that the desert lands are designated as class "L" under the California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) Plan. Class L (Limited Use) lands protect "natural, scenic, ecological, and cultural resource values." The lands are "managed to provide for generally lower-intensity, carefully controlled multiple use of resources, while ensuring that sensitive values are not significantly diminished." The complaint indicates that each of the projects was permitted with an "amendment" to the CDCA, according to the Bureau of Land Management.
Lawyers for the group have asked for a temporary restraining order against construction to give time for an injunction to be considered by the court.
The suit follows the filing of the Quechan tribe’s legal challenge to the imperial Valley Solar Project which was granted an injunction by Judge Larry Burns on December 15.
Five additional projects were approved under BLM’s "fast-track" process, and the court’s ruling could affect development of those sites as well.
Loading...
And Secretary Salazar also has done this for offshore wind farms. Many cultural properties are at stake with “fast tracking.”
None is more imminently at risk, however, than Nantucket Sound, Sacred to the Wampanoag Nation. Although it’s taken several years to get approval, Ken Salazar personally did the fast-tracking himself last April. According to this link, Interior knowingly skipped the studies that should have been done because they were too much work: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/12/23.
Salazar overstretches with development, and whatever can be legally done to stop him from permitting invasion of Sacred places must be done.