As crews saw down Joshua trees, Mojave Desert community protests solar project

When Roy Richards spotted workers cutting down and chipping Joshua trees for a massive solar energy project near his home in the Mojave Desert last week, he started taking photos.

“Once the trees go through the shredders, they disappear,” he said, showing a reporter a photo of a small pile of brown dust left behind by the crews.

Developer Aratina Solar Center has state approval to cut down all of the thousands of trees on the site. The solar farm won a controversial exemption from Joshua tree regulations four years ago after closed meetings between industry executives and state wildlife officials.

On Saturday, residents of nearby Boron and Desert Lake, as well as other opponents of the project, will hold a rally to demand that the project be halted.

A 2020 survey found 4,700 trees in the project area. However, the project size has since been reduced.

Residents say hundreds of Joshua trees have been destroyed in the past week, but some areas of the site are still standing. Neither the company nor government agencies would say how many trees have been cut down. Avantus, the developer, said fewer trees would be destroyed than the government approved.

Heavy equipment has not yet begun to level the area, where trees have been cut down to prepare it for the installation of solar panels.

Residents fear the excavation will increase the risk of San Francisco Valley fever, a fungal respiratory infection carried in dust. Local group found Valley fever fungus in topsoil samples from five plots surrounding the cities where solar panels will be installed.

“I don’t want another city to have to go through this,” Richards said.

Avantus executives say the company is following development rules set by the state and Kern County in building the 2,300-acre project, which is expected to produce 530 megawatts of renewable energy. They said they will limit dust by minimizing grading.

“Aratina will produce clean, affordable and reliable energy for hundreds of thousands of Californians, contributing to California’s renewable energy goals,” the company said in a statement. “And as a changing climate forces Californians to endure more frequent and intense heat waves like the one we are currently experiencing, projects like Aratina will help stabilize the grid and keep the lights on.”

Boron, where the poverty rate is twice the state average, won’t have access to that green energy. Instead, it will be sent hundreds of miles away to wealthier communities on the Central Coast and Silicon Valley, in accordance with the agreements signed in advance by the company.

The Mojave Desert project controversy is an example of the many trade-offs being made in California as it pushes for a rapid transition from planet-warming fossil fuels to renewable energy. The solar and wind fields are expected to help mitigate climate change — one of several factors pushing Joshua trees toward extinction — but they also destroy undeveloped land, harm endangered plants and wildlife, and raise concerns in rural communities.

“We need sustainable energy solutions that don’t cost nature’s irreplaceable treasures,” says a petition trying to stop the project, which has been signed by more than 51,000 people.

Joshua trees create habitat for other species, and Avantus has had to take action to relocate the wildlife that lives there.

The company said biologists will be on site throughout construction to ensure compliance with rules set by wildlife officials. Workers have been trained to notify a supervisor if they see wildlife.

The area is habitat for desert tortoises and Mojave ground squirrels, which are listed as threatened species under the state Endangered Species Act.

Avantus said so far they have found one Mojave ground squirrel and no turtles.

In all, 44 species of animals have been found in the project area. One of them is the desert fox, a cat-sized dog with long, delicate ears and fur on the soles of its feet to protect them from the hot Mojave sand.

During a 2020 survey of the area, biologists discovered more than 150 dens used by desert foxes.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, kit fox dens are increasingly being destroyed by large-scale industrial energy development. “Even smart, climate-saving clean energy developments, such as solar projects, are often poorly sited and destroy important kit fox habitat,” the center says.

Kern County documents say Avantus must “passively relocate” the kit foxes by blocking their burrows with dirt, sticks and debris. The burrows are then destroyed to prevent the kit foxes from reusing them when the panels are erected, according to the documents.

Avantus explained in a statement to The Times that the tactic encouraged foxes to “temporarily” leave the construction site. The company said the fence has an opening at the bottom so the wildlife can return once construction is complete.

“Solar panels can provide shade and protection from predators. We have found that foxes and other wildlife sometimes return to the area after construction is complete,” the company said.

The Aratina project was one of 15 solar projects that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Fish and Game Commission voted to exempt from Joshua tree protections in September 2020, using a controversial “emergency” order. At the time, solar executives argued that the 15 projects had already undergone extensive environmental reviews and were so close to construction that they were “ready to go.”

Representatives from 15 projects have repeatedly told the state they are ready to build and that it would be unfair to impose new restrictions on Joshua trees on them.

In fact, according to documents, Aratina executives had just begun the project review process with the Kern County Planning Board. Construction didn’t begin until this summer — nearly four years after the county board voted to approve the project.

“It’s obvious they weren’t ready to start,” said Casey Kiernan, a photographer who lives in Joshua Tree. Kiernan started a petition to stop the construction.

Melanie Richardson, a nurse whose sons attend schools in Boron, said it was “hard to even watch” as crews began cutting down trees.

She was part of a team that found the fungus that causes Silicon Valley fever in soil samples taken from around the facility.

Richardson said she was working on banners for Saturday’s rally, including one that read, “Why solar energy is more important than your health.”

“Nobody wants this to happen,” she said.

This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.