Desert Tortoises Endangered by Approval of Rough Hat Clark Solar Project

For Immediate Release

Mojave desert tortoise. Photo: Kevin Emmerich.

Pahrump, Nevada - The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a Record of Decision today approving the Rough Hat Clark County Solar Project on public lands located just south of Pahrump, Nevada, in spite of the grave impacts the project will inflict on federally protected Mojave desert tortoises.

The project site is located on diverse high elevation habitat for several other important Mojave Desert species as well. These include Joshua trees, Mojave yuccas, kit foxes, American badgers, rare cacti, kangaroo rats, roadrunners, and LeConte’s thrashers.

The Rough Hat Clark County Solar Project is a proposed 400-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility on 2,400 acres of public land that would replace nearly 4 square miles of Mojave Desert habitat with solar panels, battery storage banks, substations, and new transmission lines. The project is one of 5 new large-scale solar projects and new transmission lines proposed for Mojave Desert habitat on public lands south of Pahrump, Nevada.

The biological analysis for the Rough Hat Clark County Solar Project estimates that there are 114 adult desert tortoises on the site, and a density of 13 per square kilometer. Usually the number of juvenile tortoises is more than the number of adults on any given habitat site. The US Fish and Wildlife Service only requires that adult tortoises be moved and not juveniles due to the difficulty of finding quarter-sized juvenile tortoises, but this means that hundreds of desert tortoise juveniles and hatchlings could be crushed by large earth-moving equipment. It should also be noted that nearly 3 times more tortoises were found on the adjacent 3,000-acre Yellow Pine Solar Project site than predicted by project biologists. They were relocated on a record-breaking drought year and 33 were killed by badgers in their new location.

“In the spring of this year, biologists will excavate every burrow and hole in the ground on the project site to find and move as many desert tortoises as possible,” said Kevin Emmerich, Co-Founder of Basin and Range Watch. “We continue to be amazed that the BLM pushed so hard for this project at the expense of the declining desert tortoise. Solar energy does not need to be built on the most sensitive habitats. Alternatives on rooftops, degraded lands and even Solar Energy Zones on public lands could be used to avoid these impacts. Enough important habitat has been compromised for energy, and we have the technology and ability to avoid these habitats”.

Joshua tree on the approved solar project site in the undisturbed south Pahrump Valley, Nevada. Photo: Laura Cunningham.

The desert tortoise was listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990 and has seen sharp declines in several of its Recovery Units due to multiple causes in the last two decades. Starting in 2009, large-scale solar energy applications have been accepted on thousands of acres of tortoise habitat throughout the range of the species and over 80,000 acres of this habitat has been developed so far for solar energy.

In March of 2024, a coalition of organizations and several individuals requested that the Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management cancel the environmental review for the Rough Hat Clark County Solar Project over significant impacts to the Mojave Desert tortoise. It appears that BLM values the wishes of the large-scale solar industry over protection of endangered species.

Final decision on from the BLM: https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2019992/510

Organizations request to cancel the Rough Hat Clark County Solar Project: https://www.basinandrangewatch2.org/solar-projects/rough-hat-clark-solar

Basin and Range Watch is a nonprofit working to conserve the deserts of Nevada and California and to educate the public about the diversity of life, culture, and history of the ecosystems and wild lands of the desert.

Even before approval the developer drove across county on delicate desert soils to start placing survey makers and geotechnical instruments. Destroying this intact landscape seemed like a “done deal.” Photo: Laura Cunningham.

The Kingston Range Wilderness can be seen from the Rough Hat Clark Solar Project site, which harbors thousands of Mojave yuccas. These will be mostly shredded or driven over. Photo: Laura Cunningham.

The Yellow Pine Solar Project in operation, which lies next to the Rough Hat Clark Solar Project site in Pahrump valley, Nevada. The solar panels, new on-site substation, Lithium battery banks, gravel roads, and tall gen-tie line can be seen though the chainlink fence. The ground disturbance here led to an explosion of invasive splitgass (Schismus sp.), now dry. Photo: Laura Cunningham.