Petition to Protect Searchlight Desert and Mountains
I request that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) designate the desert and mountains around Searchlight, Nevada as an Industrial Wind Energy Free Zone in the Southern Nevada Resource Management Plan. This pristine desert area contains one of the largest concentrations of desert tortoises and golden eagles in Nevada. On October 30, 2015, a federal judge voided the permits for the Searchlight Wind Energy Project because BLM inadequately evaluated the project’s impacts to wildlife.
The 87-turbine project would have been built within ten miles from 28 golden eagle nests.
Wind energy has had negative impacts on golden eagles, killing birds in locations like Altamont, California where approximately 70 eagles are killed each year, and Spring Valley, Nevada where that state’s first industrial wind project has already killed two eagles in just three years of operation.
Constructing 87 wind turbines, each 430 feet high, would ruin the views from Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the scenic town of Searchlight, the proposed new Castle Mountains National Monument in California, and Spirit Mountain, sacred to several local Native American Tribes. The word project would also be visible from eastern ranges in the Mojave National Preserve. The area has a great potential to develop a greater tourism economy based on these unique resources.
The map (right) shows a keyhole-shaped boundary surrounding the town of Searchlight, Nevada which is now zoned for industrial-scale wind energy development. This is the region we request be designated as a Wind Energy Free Zone in the Southern Nevada Resource Management Plan.
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