Purple Sage Solar

Tell BLM to select a Conservation Alterative to protect the irreplacible resources in the South PahrumpValley, Nevada. Comments due February 13th - Sample letter below

February 11, 2025 - The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Southern Nevada District Office, has released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the construction and operation of the 400 megawatt Purple Sage Energy Center including battery energy storage and interconnection to the regional transmission system proposed on public lands. Comments are due on February 13th, 2025.

Noble Solar, LLC seeks to construct and operate a 400 megawatt solar facility and interconnection to the regional transmission system for the proposed Purple Sage Energy Center Projec. The Project would include a 400 megawatt battery energy storage system on approximately 4,445 acres of BLM-managed public land located in the Pahrump Valley in Clark County, Nevada, immediately adjacent to the Nye County line, southeast of the town of Pahrump, and approximately 26 miles west of the city of Las Vegas. The project includes an amendment to the 1998 Las Vegas Resource Management Plan to modify two existing utility corridors that intersect the project. This plan amendment could also be used to deny the project Right of Way and establish a long-term conservation alternative for the project site.

The project will create multiple environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Due to these impacts, the BLM has reduced the development footprint of the project to 2,317 acres. The BLM says that limiting grading on the site to 20 percent is not feasible so will allow grading on 36 percent of the site. 

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, the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, and groundwater. 

The Purple Sage Energy Center will need up to 900 acre-feet of water for construction. The environmental impact statement says that groundwater use for construction of the project could affect discharge in the Amargosa Desert if water is purchased from users in the Pahrump Valley Hydrographic Basin. Increased groundwater pumping from the Pahrump Valley Hydrographic Basin for construction activities could reduce groundwater discharge to the Amargosa Desert and the Wild and Scenic Amargosa River. Depending on the ultimate location of the well from which groundwater would be purchased, nearby springs and the Amargosa Desert could be adversely affected by the Proposed Action groundwater use. It could also lower private wells in the south Pahrump Valley. 

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

The project contains significant Pleistocene fossils. About 50 percent of the site being classified as Class 5 Potential Very High Fossil Yeild. In 2023, Laura Cunningham from Basin and Range Watch located a Columbian mammoth tooth fossil on the site for the Purple Sage Energy Center. Prior to this find, the BLM was not even concerned about fossils on the site. But the mammaoth tooth got them to require a survey which found other fossils including invertebrtates, tortoise shell, small mammals and others. This caused the development footprint to be reduced to avoid fossils, but many will still be destroyed by construction.

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

The BLM is claiming that the project would not have significant impacts on the Old Spanish National Historic Trail but the project would be located just one and half miles from the trail. The project is located in the Stump Spring Analysis Unit. The Old Spanish Trail is a historical trade route that connected the northern New Mexico settlements of (or near) Santa Fe, New Mexico with those of Los Angeles, California and southern California. Congress designated the Old Spanish National Historic Trail by statute in 2002. The National Trails System unit spans 2,700 miles and crosses through wild and scenic country in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. 

Over 2 miles of the trail in this region are classified as National Historic Trail II (NHT II) defined as "documented and evident with minor altercation". The Purple Sage Energy Center will have solar panels, lithium battery banks and new transmission line, all of which are well within the viewshed of the trail. 

The National Trails System Act requires that within two fiscal years of designation, the Interior Secretary must submit to Congress a comprehensive plan for the management and use of the trail, but this still has not happened. An infomal 5 mile buffer was recommended for each side of the trail, but with no fomal plan, this has been violated several times. Environmental organizations have filed a lawsuit over this issue.

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 Purple Sage Energy Center 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 believe a conservation alternative is reasonable.

Sample Letter

Below is a letter you can copy and send to BLM. If you add your own thoughts, it will be more effective. Tell BLM to select a Conservation Alternative over approving the Purple Sage Energy Center. Comments are due on February 13th, 2025.

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 Las Vegas Field Office

Attn: Purple Sage Energy Center

4701 N. Torrey Pines Drive

Las Vegas, NV, 89130

"Dear BLM,

The Purple Sage Energy Center should be rejected and the BLM should designate the 144,714 acre South Pahrump Valley-Old Spanish Trail Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) as an alternative to approving the solar project. In spite of several requests from the public, the BLM failed to consider this as an alternative in the Environmental Impact Statement for the project. This can be done in two ways. The first way would be to designate the ACEC through the Plan Amendment for the Las Vegas Resource Management Plan being reviewed for the Purple Sage Energy Center.

The second way is to pause the review of the Purple Sage Energy Center and review the proposed ACEC through a new plan amendment and National Environmental Policy Act review with its own Environmental Impact Statement.

The Purple Sage Energy Center is one of 5 more solar projects proposed for the South Pahrump Valley spanning nearly 19,000 acres and these developments will industrialize the region, and the power would be exported to California.

The Purple Sage Energy Center would have the following impacts:

The Project would need 900 acre-feet of water for construction. This would potentially draw down the aquifer, impact local wells in the region of South Pahrump, and damage the local ecology of Stump Spring and other local mesquite trees. All of the solar projects in the area could end up needing over 4,500 acre-feet of water. The basin is overdrafted and this is not sustainable. 

Project construction will create fugitive dust by removing desert pavements, biological soil crusts and disturbing clay-based soils. This can result in health impacts to local people.

Grading and site disturbance will cause invasive weeds to move in. This is a fire hazard and will need to be controlled with toxic herbicides. The nearby Yellow Pine Solar Project had a recent invasive weed outbreak and sprayed herbicides on a significant part of the project site. These herbicides can enter the watershed. 

The project will remove a significant number of threatened desert tortoises from the site and the ones that are missed could be killed during construction. The species is seeing a range-wide decline of nearly 40 percent in the last two decades. Desert tortoises should not be disturbed in the Pahrump Valley.

The site has habitat for rare plants like the Pahrump buckwheat which grows on the alkali soils on the project site. Over 2,000 acres would be removed for the Pahrump buckwheat.

The project and associated construction will impact, crush and kill millions of living organisms. These include kangaroo rats, horned lizards, kit foxes, Mojave yuccas, pencil chollas, burrowing owls, leopard lizards, tarantulas, roadrunners, desert iguanas - the list is gigantic. 

Paleontological surveys have located significant Ice Age fossils on the site. These include mammoths, small mammals, invertebrates, and others. This site should be protected and not developed. Fossils are irreplaceable resources. 

The project will use lithium battery banks which can burn in a thermal runaway fire. It will take a large quantity of water to control these fires, and the fires will create toxic fumes.

The project site contains valuable mesquite woodlands which are rare and provide habitat and food for many species. 

The project will cut off public access to nearly 5 square miles of public land.

The project will have visual impacts to the Old Spanish National Historic Trail and Native American cultural landscapes. The project is well within the 5 mile visual buffer recommended for the Old Spanish National Historic Trail. The project review should be paused until a Comprehensive Management Plan can be established for the Old Spanish National Historic Trail. 

The project will have irreversible visual impacts and will be visible from the community of Pahrump, wilderness areas in Nevada and California, Tecopa Road and public lands throughout the region. This project and the other nearby proposals will lower the property values of nearby residents." 

Thank you, 

(your name and information here)