Copper Rays Solar Project

January 17, 2025 - Pahrump Valley, NV - Earlier this month, basin and Range watch protested two applications by Copper Rays Solar LLC for change of use to the Nevada State Engineer. The applications were filed on November 14th, 2024 for the underground waters of Pahrump Valley (Hydrographic Basin No. 162) situated in Nye County, so that the solar developer could truck water to their Copper Rays Solar Project if it gets approved.

The applications also fail to satisfy NRS § 533.345(2), which prohibits the State Engineer from granting of temporary change applications that would impair existing water rights or prove detrimental to the public interest. As noted, the application contains no information as to how existing rights, community wells, or public resources such as groundwater-dependent ecosystems might be impacted.

Monitoring wells in interconnected basins show downward trends in groundwater, so that even modest flow reductions could threaten public resources in Amargosa Basin, the Amargosa River, the Wild and Scenic section of the Amargosa River, Chicago Valley, California Valley, and Stewart Valley.  The local Western honey mesquite (Neltuma glandulosa) thickets in these basins provide a rare stopover for Neotropical migrant birds during spring and fall, including warblers and flycatchers. Phainopepla (Phainopepla nitens) are common in local mesquite groves, feasting on the berries of mistletoe. Rare fish such as the Shoshone pupfish (Cyprinodon nevadensis shoshone) could also be significantly impacted by groundwater pumping in these interconnected basins.

The Water Supply Assessment for the Copper Rays Solar Project prepared by Farr West Engineering (2022) for the BLM and is also not complete and we have attached an analysis of the report by Roux Associates, Inc., dated January 8, 2025. It is clear that more analysis is needed to address the potential impacts that groundwater use for construction of the solar facility will have on the local groundwater basin, well owners, groundwater dependent vegetation, the Wild and Scenic section of the Amargosa River, and interconnected basins.

The cumulative demand for groundwater from five additional solar projects in review in Pahrump Valley would equal approximately 5,000 acre-feet. This has not been analyzed. Basin and Range Watch has nominated to the Bureau of Land Management a Pahrump Valley/Old Spanish Historic Trail Area of Critical Environmental Concern in order to preserve these lands and groundwater resources for the public interest, as an alternative to massive solar project development.

See the hydrology report that Basin and Range Watch contracted to send with our protests:

See our two protests of the two applications for change of use of groundwater pumping in Pahrump Valley by Copper Rays LLC:

December 12th, 2024 - The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has prepared this Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Copper Rays Solar Project and is taking comments until December 19th, 2024.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Southern Nevada District Office, has released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the construction and operation of the 700 megawatt Copper Rays Solar Project project including battery energy storage and interconnection to the regional transmission system proposed on public lands. The Copper Rays Solar Project is located on approximately 4,414 acres of BLM-managed public land in Nye County, Nevada, southeast of the town of Pahrump and 40 miles west of Las Vegas and includes a photovoltaic solar power generating facility with battery storage and interconnection to the regional transmission system. The electricity generated from the project would be collected at the onsite substation and conveyed to the existing Gamebird substation located northwest of the project site via a gen-tie transmission line. Construction for the facilities is estimated to take approximately 54-months over two phases. All energy would be exported to California. 

The project will create multiple environmental and socioeconomic impacts. 

Development would impact mesquite woodlands, habitat for rare plants on alkali soils, desert tortoise population, Ice Age fossils, cultural landscapes and archeology sites, visual resources (including the Old Spanish Trail viewshed), and overuse of groundwater. 

The Copper Rays Solar Project will need 1,750 acre feet of water and seeks to drill a well onsite. This will draw down the aquifer and most likely impact the mesquite on the site which is used by neotropical migrating birds. It could also lower private wells in the south Pahrump Valley. 

The project site has significant habitat for the Federally Threatened desert tortoise and the alkali soils on a portion of the site support rare plants like the Pahrump buckwheat. 

The project potentially contains significant Pleistocene fossils. About 50 percent of the site being classified as Class 3 Moderate Potential Yield and a small portion of the site having a Class 5 Potential Very High Fossil Yeild. In spite of this, BLM has not required them to do a paleontological survey. In 2023, Laura Cunningham from Basin and Range Watch located a Columbian mammoth tooth fossil on the nearby site for the Purple Sage Energy Center with the same soil type.

The project will have significant visual impacts. It will be visible from Mt Charleston, the Bonanza Peak Wilderness Area, Highway 160, the South Pahrump Valley, the Kingston Wilderness Area in CA and a variety of other vantage points.

In 2024, Basin and Range Watch along with a coalition of other organizations sent in a nomination for a South Pahrump Valley/ Old Spanish National Historic Trail Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) instead of sacrificing over 18,000 acres of public land for large-scale energy sprawl. The Copper Rays Solar Project is just one of 5 proposed solar projects in the region.

The ACEC would protect 144,715 acres of public lands in the region and if designated, is intended to prevent the solar construction from taking place. We are supporting this as an alternative to the projects. OR we are supporting a pause on the review of the 5 projects until the ACEC can be fully evaluated in a separate public review. The BLM has said the proposal does not fit in the Purpose and Need of the 3 solar projects under review. We do not agree with this. Due to all the opposition to these projects, we beleive a conservation alternative is reasonable. The ACEC would continue public lands recreation and multiple uses as is, but exclude sola development.

Deadline: December 19th, 2024.

The BLM prefers that you send the comments electronically from the BLM eplanning page here. To make sure comments are received, also copy and send to BLM_NV_SND_EnergyProjects@blm.gov. 

Comments can also be mailed to:  

BLM Pahrump Field Office

Attn: Copper Rays Solar Project

4701 N. Torrey Pines Drive

Las Vegas, NV, 89130