Lyon County files protest opposing BLM Western Solar Plan

Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

At the direction of the Lyon County Commission, County Manager Andrew Haskin has filed a letter of protest to the Bureau of Land Management regarding its environmental impact statement for its Western Solar Plan.

Haskin filed the letter of protest Monday, following a vote by the County Commission on Sept. 19 directing him and Resource Concepts, Inc. to submit the letter regarding the Utility-Scale Solar Energy Development Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement  with concerns with the scope of the planning area, the request for a water exclusion for over-allocated basins, and the need to keep a variance process to allow for local input on locating solar projects. The proposed BLM Western-Solar plan has significant acreage in Lyon County for solar projects.

The RMPA, as proposed, will make 16% of the approximately 1.3 million acres of land that make up Lyon County and 38% of the BLM-managed land in the County available for solar application. The County is not opposed to solar development on public lands, but believes it is imperative to locate solar development in areas that avoid or minimize impacts to critical natural resources and the customs, culture, and economy that are directly tied to the multiple uses of public lands.

The protest letter expresses the County’s extreme disappointment in the outcome of the Proposed Plan as well as the process to develop it. The letter states that comments previously submitted by Lyon County in April of this year, including the County’s Master Plan and Public Lands Policy, were not acknowledged. The County is concerned the proposed plan will result in fiscal impacts as it will be left to deal with speculative solar applications in inappropriate areas.

In the protest, County Manager Haskin wrote “...BLM’s complete disregard for its own mandatory processes, procedures, regulations and policies have resulted in an unsupported Proposed RMPA and Final PEIS. The only way to sufficiently resolve the many errors and insufficient analysis is to adopt the No Action Alternative and support future State and District-specific RMPAs as related to solar energy development on BLM managed public lands.”

The protest letter and supporting documents are available to view on the Lyon County website.