Solar project to destroy thousands of Joshua trees

BORON, Calif. —

A renewable energy company will soon begin cutting down thousands of protected Joshua trees on the outskirts of this desert city, including many believed to be century-old, to make way for a sprawling solar project that will generate power for 180,000 homes in wealthier coastal neighborhoods.

The 2,300-acre project has angered residents of Boron and nearby Desert Lake, two small towns in Kern County where the poverty rate is twice the California average. Residents say their concerns about construction dust, as well as damage to the mostly pristine area that is home to endangered desert tortoises, were ignored by county and state officials who approved the decision.

“Let’s destroy the environment to save the environment. That seems to be the mentality,” said Deric English, who teaches at Boron Middle School. “It’s hard to understand.”

English was part of it the group that found valley fever fungus in soil samples from five plots surrounding two cities where solar panels will be built.

“How will children be able to play outdoors?” asked Melanie Richardson, a nurse who has sons in schools near the scene. “So many people in our community begged them not to approve this project, but they approved it anyway.”

The controversy over the Mojave Desert project is an example of the trade-offs being made in California as state and local officials push for rapid clean energy development. While solar and wind fields are expected to help mitigate climate change, they also destroy undeveloped land, harm endangered plants and wildlife, and cause distress in nearby communities, which are often small and remote from the state’s cities.

“Rural communities that don’t have political power are just being destroyed,” English said.

The facility, known as the Aratina Solar Project, is being built on private land by Avantus, a California-based company majority owned by KKR, a global private equity firm.

Crews are scheduled to begin clearing the area with the famous Joshua trees on Monday, according to a person briefed on the project. The person declined to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

The company decided to take the extra step of chopping up the trees on site rather than leaving them in piles or pulling them out whole, the person said, to reduce the visibility of the felling.

Avantus executives did not confirm the June 3 date, but said contractors began site preparation this month and “will soon begin selectively clearing the area of ​​vegetation and other large natural obstructions” approved for removal by county and state wildlife officials .

The company said the massive solar and battery storage project would have environmental benefits that outweigh the destruction of Joshua trees and protected wildlife habitats.

“Although trees will be impacted by construction of the project, many more Joshua trees are at risk from climate change caused by rising greenhouse gas emissions, which the Aratina solar project directly addresses,” the company says on your website.

“Avantus ensures that all projects minimize any unnecessary impacts, such as noise, dust or traffic, at all stages of the project,” the company said in a statement to The Times. He added that he was “committed to being a good neighbor.”

The Kern County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the project in October 2021 despite comments and letters from dozens of residents.

“It looked like the decision had already been made,” Richardson said.

Aratina will be the ninth solar project that Avantus, formerly called 8-Minute Solar, has built in Kern County.

During the board meeting, Alexander Sundquist, a company director, said the project’s benefits to the county include $3 million in sales taxes and $73 million in property taxes.

Asked why the company chose to pursue the project in an area adjacent to the two cities, Sundquist said executives wanted to keep the solar field in Kern County rather than further south in San Bernardino. “We like doing business here,” he said.

In 2019, San Bernardino County officials voted to ban the construction of large solar and wind farms on private land spanning more than 1 million acres.

Kern County, home to the state’s largest oil deposits, has long been friendly to energy companies. Lorelie Oviatt, Kern County’s director of planning and natural resources, has spoken repeatedly at industry conferences to emphasize how the county strives to approve projects quickly.

Oviatt told The Times that so far, the county has approved 160,000 acres of solar and wind projects. Most of these projects are carried out in the desert, she added, because there is easier access to electric transmission lines.

“I’m a supporter of Kern County, not necessarily a supporter of solar,” Oviatt said. “The process took over 18 months and no one was in a hurry. My recommendation (approval of the project) carefully took into account all comments from the community.”

“Land development is always a balance of private property rights and people’s views,” she said.

The county said Avantus has committed $1.4 million to the fund, which will be used to protect Joshua trees in other areas of the state.

To mitigate damage from Aratina and several other solar projects, Avantus also acquired grazing rights on 215,000 acres of federal land in Kern County and is working with government officials to preserve them.

Avantus declined to disclose details of where the energy will be sent. But the company had previously signed contracts to send some of its power to Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Central Coast Community Energy, nonprofit agencies that provide green energy to homes in those regions.

“The energy produced doesn’t even stay here,” English said. “It is being sent to other communities hundreds of miles away.”

It is often said that Joshua trees, with their twisted, otherworldly shape, look like they were taken straight from the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. They grow only 1 to 3 inches per year, which means a 5-foot tree can be over 100 years old.

Aratina’s environmental impact statement said nearly 4,700 Joshua trees were found in the area during surveys. More than 500 of these trees are at least 16 feet tall.

“I don’t know of any other projects that have removed this many trees,” said Kevin Emmerich of the environmental group Basin and Range Watch.

Avantus agreed to reduce the original footprint of the project to create more space between the solar panels and both communities. A person with knowledge of the project said the company’s plan now included destroying 3,500 Joshua trees.

Last year, state lawmakers passed the Western Joshua Tree Conservation Act, which prohibits the unauthorized killing of trees while providing a mechanism for building green energy and housing projects.

However, state officials approved Aratina’s project before the law’s passage and the state’s earlier decision to designate the Joshua tree as a candidate for protection under California’s Endangered Species Act.

In 2020, the California Fish and Wildlife Commission agreed that Aratina and 14 other green energy projects would not be subject to increased tree protection measures.

Unfortunately, said Brendan Cummings, director of conservation at the Center for Biological Diversity, “thousands of Joshua trees will be sacrificed.”

State wildlife officials told The Times that the company must still relocate any Mohave desert tortoises and ground squirrels, listed as endangered under California law, that are found during construction.

English said his group’s discovery of the soil-dwelling fungus has not yet received much attention. coccidioids, which causes valley fever.

Valley fever has found many times infect workers building solar fields in California.

On Thursday, a half-mile from the Boron Little League field, a construction crew wearing yellow vests was building a fence at the edge of the site while a truck sprayed water to try to keep the dust at bay.

Antje Lauer, a professor of microbiology at Cal State Bakersfield, worked with English and Richardson to test the soil samples.

“Desert land is really cheap and there’s not a lot of regulation,” Lauer said. “We need renewable energy, but it has to be done correctly.”