The California Energy Commission (CEC) held a public meeting in Barstow, CA, as the lead agency for environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and it intends to prepare a Staff Assessment analyzing the project impacts on these Mojave Desert public lands. This is the fourth company to buy the project and try to push it forward, ignoring previous controversies and vocal opposition.

The proposed 2,670-acre photovoltaic solar project with battery storage would be constructed on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which already undertook an environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) more than 10 years ago. The BLM issued an approval and Record of Decision, but has not yet released a Notice to Proceed. 

So the federal review is complete, and now the State of California is undertaking another parallel review because of a new developer taking over the zombie project.

The project location is controversial because it lies next to the western boundary of Mojave National Preserve, a popular national park unit, and would have huge visual impacts. A population of desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) uses the area as a migration corridor, and Mojave fringe-toed lizards (Uma scoparia) also inhabit the sandy creosote habitats on the site. A population of federally endangered and state endangered Mojave tui chub (Siphaletes bicolor mohavensis) inhabits a nearby articifial spring-fed lake at Zzyzx, which serves as a refuge population as the species' original habitat in the Mojave River has suffered degradation. 

Federally threatened Mojave desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) also inhabit these alluvial fans. 

A huge outcry resulted in the power purchaser--Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP)--ending its agreement to buy power from the project many years ago. The new developer is again seeking to interconnect the Soda Mountain Solar Project with LADWP's existing 500-kiloVolt Marketplace-Adelanto Transmission Line which runs to the north of the proposed solar project. Will the utility change its mind and agree this time? 

The work of protectors of nature is never fully finished.

From the CEC website: The project applicant, Soda Mountain Solar, LLC, submitted a revised application on Aug. 1, 2024, to the CEC’s Opt-In Certification program to construct and operate a combined solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage system (BESS). The project would:

• Generate up to 300 megawatts (MW) of renewable electricity via a utility-scale solar PV array.

• Incorporate up to 300 MW of battery energy storage capable of storing 1,200 megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy.

• Be sited on approximately 2,670 acres of land administered by the Bureau of Land Management in the California Desert District, within the Barstow Field Office jurisdiction.

• Include associated infrastructure, such as operation and maintenance buildings, stormwater controls, substation and switchyard for interconnection to the Marketplace-Adelanto 500-kilovolt transmission line, and battery storage facilities across an 18-acre pad.

A previous Environmental Impact Review under CEQA was undertaken but never certified by San Bernardino County.

The Soda Mountain Solar Project would obtain water from pumping five groundwater wells on the site, according to the proponent in their PowerPoint presentation at the meeting today. There would be an estimated 34 daily water truck trips during constuction. The acre-feet number was not mentioned.

Tesla Lithium battery storage buildings would be located on 18 acres within the project, "in order to compete with nuclear plants," said the developer. We note that solar project battery storage units only provide approximately four hours of (declining) energy generation after sunset. 

A berm would be built to divert stormwater on the alluvial fan from flooding the solar project. We have often seen these fail to halt floodwaters on solar projects in operation. 

During public comment, a representative of the San Bernardino County fire district had concerns about the potential for emergency response to the project given the small number of fire crews serving the region. The one fire station in the area is at Baker to the east, with four fire crew and 2 additional emergency medical response team mambers stationed there. They cover a huge area in the largest county in the U.S.--4,000 square miles. Response times are often delayed as the area is busy with a "moving city" of traffic along I-15 which has large numbers of transportation from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Construction and hazardous materials are commonly transported on this freeway. 

He explained the issues with transporting large Battery Enegy Storage Systems (BESS) on highways: in July 2024 a battery unit hauled on an 18-wheeler truck on I-15 tipped over near Baker. This caused a two-day closure of the busy interstate for two days. People were trapped in the remote desert stretch of 15, and there were problems with heat exhaustion and vehicle fires. The economic loss becuase of the highway closure was enormous--estimates are that $2 million per hour were lost for two days. 

He told the Commissioners that he was only in informal email conversations with the solar developer, and that they would try to come up with a Lithium fire emergency plan if the solar project was apprpved.

"Our services will be impacted by this," he said of the Soda Mountain Solar Project.

The Rasor Off-Highway Vehicle Area managed by the BLM is a sand dune area next to Soda Mountain that has thousands of visitors and recreationists on weekends during the cool season. The Baker fire crew serves this area.

The next public commenter was Greg Bowman, General manager of the City of Baker, CA, up the interstate from the project area. He said that they were concerned by the groundwater wells or trucking of water from nearby sites. This was pushing it as far as a solar project in the area was concerned, in an arid region. 

"For the record, we oppose it."

A representative of the Off-highway vehicle group Friends of El Mirage gave a comment that he has sought protections for the Rasor OHV area for many years, including through the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) process which was approved on public lands in the California Desert District by BLM in 2016. Again in 2019, he sought protections for the Rasor sand dunes recreational area in the Dingell Act.

He was happy that the solar developer wanted to enter into a community agreement to purcahse picnic tables and shade structures for recreational users, in exchange for their support of the solar project.

We photographed this herd of desert bighorn sheep at springs and rush meadows next to Zzzyx, at the base of the Soda Mountains.

Bighorn sheep biologist Clinton Epps from Oregon State University gave a public comment about his research into this bighorn population. He has been studying this syetm since 1999. Populations of desert bighorn are small, with probably not more than about 5,000 in California. Each mountain range in the desert has dozens to a few hundred bighorn at most. 

Survival in this harsh environment depends on the ability to move either seasonally or permanently between mountain ranges: to seek forage and water sources or to disperse. Genetic diversity is maintained between populations north of I-15 and those to the south. Soda Mountain was colonized from the Cady Mountains, and a new wildlife overpass crossing is planned over I-15 in order to mitigate the planned high speed train track which will block all connectivity along the freeway. I-15 has certain wash undercrossings that sheep sometimes may use, but a train track would completely block these. 

Epps is concerned that sheep would not have time to familiarize themselves with any new wildlife overcrossing if a vast solar project were constructed before the train corridor was built. Bighorn also occasionally use the desert flatlands to forage, where the solar project is proposed. This is all habitat.

Two representatives of National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA) spoke that their organization opposed this solar project. This is the fourth owner, and it was extremnely disappointing to see the new owners think this is a good idea--"it is the worst site," said Neal Desai of NPCA. The climate future should not come at the expense of the Mojave National Preserve and wildlife. The impacts of solar projects have been clear for over a decade they said.

Comment Deadline September 3, 2025

The following slides are from the CEC presentation today.

For more information and background, visit the Basin and Range Watch archives >>here, and below.