Big farm mobile harvest fishing4/29/2023 A poorly sited solar development in Wyoming that blocked a migration route and forced more than 1,000 pronghorn into a nearby highway right-of-way is a recent reminder of the potential for unintended consequences from solar development. The magnitude of habitat removal and loss of public access from the BLM’s proposed expansion of utility-scale solar development on public lands is unprecedented.Įven with the most careful planning, the expansive size of utility-scale solar developments may have unintended consequences for habitat connectivity and migratory wildlife like big game. This exclusive use of the land can span thousands of acres for a single solar facility and will cover hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands to meet the administration’s goals. My unease comes from the fact that unlike other forms of energy development-such as wind, or even oil and gas-utility-scale solar generating facilities are usually high-fenced and allow for no other uses of the land within their boundaries. After touring several utility-scale solar facilities myself, I hesitate to enthusiastically endorse the widespread deployment of this type of development on our public lands. There are, however, trade-offs that the BLM must consider when updating its Western Solar Plan. Expanding the geographic scope of this planning document and updating it to incorporate the best available science, like new data on recently mapped big game migration corridors, is the most responsible way to expeditiously meet the administration’s goal of deploying 25 GW of renewable energy development on public lands by 2025, while minimizing adverse impacts to wildlife and other public land resources. I was encouraged by the Bureau of Land Management’s recent announcement detailing its intentions to revise and potentially expand its 2012 Western Solar Plan to all 11 Western states. There is an undeniable need to transition as quickly as possible to low-carbon sources of energy to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. The push for increased renewable energy production on public lands is creating new challenges that we are doing our best to address with public land managers. The TRCP has long worked to defend a balance of the many demands on our public lands, which sustain so many of our hunting and fishing opportunities in the U.S. What hunters and anglers need to know about implications of expanding utility-scale solar on public lands
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