Draft Environmental Study Available for Proposed Ridgecrest Solar Power Project

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) today released a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) and the California Energy Commission (CEC) released a staff assessment (SA) for the proposed Solar Millennium’s Ridgecrest Solar Power Plant, in Kern County, Calif.

Solar Millennium has requested a right-of-way authorization to construct and operate a solar-thermal power plant with an expected capacity of 250 megawatts using commercial solar parabolic-trough technology.  Within the approximately 3,995-acre right-of-way application, 1,944 acres of BLM-administered public land are needed to develop the project.  The project site is in northeastern Kern County about five miles southwest of Ridgecrest on the north and south sides of Brown Road, southwest of Highway 395.
 
The joint DEIS/SA, which also includes a possible BLM land use plan amendment, is available online at  www.energy.ca.gov/sitingcases/solar_millennium_ridgecrest/documents/ . An official 90-day comment period will begin upon publication of the notice of availability in the Federal Register by the Environmental Protection Agency, expected shortly.  BLM and CEC will hold at least one joint public hearing or meeting on the project.  The exact date, time and location for the public hearing or meeting, as well as the end of the comment period, will be published on CEC and BLM websites and announced in local media.
 
The BLM and CEC will use the public comments received to prepare a staff assessment; errata and final EIS, with separate agency decisions expected later in the year.

Comments can be sent by e-mail, carspp@blm.gov, esolorio@energy.state.ca.us, by fax (916) 654-3882 attention Eric Solorio, or in writing to Eric Solorio, Project Manager, Siting, Transmission and Environmental Protection Division, California Energy Commission, 1516 Ninth Street, MS-15, Sacramento, California, 95814.

Copies of the Solar Millennium’s Ridgecrest Solar Power Project draft EIS/SA are available from the CEC and the BLM at the above addresses and in the BLM Ridgecrest Field Office, 300 South Richmond Road, Ridgecrest, California 92555 or the California Desert District Office, 22835 Calle San Juan de los Lagos, Moreno Valley, California 92553.  For more information, contact Janet Eubanks (951) 697-5376 or Eric Solorio, CEC project manager at esolorio@energy.state.ca.us.

California Desert District   22835 Calle San Juan de Los Lagos, Moreno Valley, CA 92553