Increased Wildlife Protections Secured for California Solar Flats Project in Monterey County

 

July 10, 2015

 

Contact:

Garrison Frost, Audubon California, (510) 601-1866, ext. 225, gfrost@audubon.org

Greg Suba, California Native Plant Society, (916) 447-2677

Ileene Anderson, Center for Biological Diversity, (323) 654-5943, ianderson@biologicaldiversity.org

Kim Delfino, Defenders of Wildlife, (916) 201-8277, kdelfino@defenders.org

Sarah Friedman, Sierra Club, (215) 300-8572, sarah.friedman@sierraclub.org

 

 

MONTEREY, Calif.— Conservation groups have reached an agreement with the First Solar, Inc. to provide additional conservation protections to wild lands and wildlife as part of construction of the California Flats Solar Project, a proposed 280-megawatt solar energy project in Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties.

 

The negotiations have resulted in better siting of the project to avoid harming a rare year-round stream and to preserve more than 1,000 acres of adjacent land for wildlife, with a $10.5 million fund to purchase additional land for habitat protection through an independent land trust. These conservation gains are in addition to the several thousand acres of habitat conservation required by Counties. The conservation groups in the agreement are Audubon California, California Native Plant Society, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club.

 

“First Solar and the conservation organizations worked constructively in reaching an agreement that provides significant new renewable power to California while protecting the environment — exactly the type of result encouraged by the Governor,” said Ken Alex, senior policy advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown and the director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research.

 

The California Flats Solar Project will affect 2,720 acres of important habitat for a number of rare and sensitive plants and animals. The project site is currently part of the 72,000-acre “Jack Ranch,” which is owned by the Hearst Corporation and currently operated as a cattle ranch.

 

Over recent months, with the assistance of Gov. Jerry Brown’s office, the conservation groups and First Solar, developer of the California Flats project, have worked together to design and implement strategies to protect and enhance the important habitat in the vicinity of the project in order to better balance environmental impacts of the project while allowing new sources of renewable energy to be built.

 

This agreement will result in significant environmental benefits, including:

“This project raised a number of concerns about the potential impacts to Golden Eagles at the site,” said Garry George, Renewable Energy Director, Audubon California. “This agreement calls for important compensation for the loss of nesting and foraging habitat, which is good news for one of California’s most iconic birds.”

 

“As California makes a rapid transition off climate-disrupting fossil fuels, it’s crucial to do so in a way that also protects wildlife and important wild places.” said Ileene Anderson with the Center for Biological Diversity.

 

“We all support the development of renewable energy in California as a way to reduce carbon emissions and rapidly transition off of climate disrupting fossil fuels,” said Kim Delfino, California Program Director, Defenders of Wildlife “But renewable energy projects, like other forms of industrial development, must be designed sustainably and sited correctly to ensure that endangered species like the San Joaquin kit fox continue to survive and thrive in the face of climate change.”