U.S. to “fast track” solar siting
July 5th, 2009 by Jim JustThe U.S. Department of the Interior has announced an “environmentally-sensitive” plan to provide landscape-scale planning and zoning for solar projects on BLM lands in the West, allowing a more efficient process for permitting and siting responsible solar development. The Interior Department, in collaboration with the Department of Energy, will identify appropriate Interior-managed lands that have excellent solar energy potential and limited conflicts with wildlife, other natural resources or land users.
The 24 Solar Energy Study Areas, located in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, encompass about 670,000 acres. Only lands with excellent solar resources, suitable slope, proximity to roads and transmission lines or designated corridors, and containing at least 2,000 acres of BLM-administered public lands were considered for solar energy study areas. Sensitive lands, wilderness and other high-conservation-value lands as well as lands with conflicting uses were excluded. The BLM will temporarily “segregate” the study areas from new mining claims and other actions initiated by third parties under public land laws during the environmental reviews until any final decisions are made.
BLM has provided a map showing solar potential in the four southwestern states:
