April 12, 2018
Letters, Nevada

Searchlight wind project would be a travesty for the area

Las Vegas Review-Journal | April 11, 2018 | www.reviewjournal.com

I read where they want to build the Crescent Peak Wind Project near Paiute Valley west of Searchlight. This would be a travesty.

The location, as described by the Review-Journal’s Henry Brean on March 25, could not be worse when you consider the natural beauty and expanse of one of the largest Joshua tree forests in the United States. Documentation of the slow growth of Joshua trees exists in the scientific literature, indicating that seedlings and older trees grow at the rate of slightly more than one inch per year. Thus, a 20-foot-tall Joshua tree is likely greater than 200 years old. Would you cut down a 200-year-old tree to build a network of roads and plant wind turbines and destroy 32,000 acres of Mojave Desert habitat?

I have resided and worked in the desert of Southern Nevada for the past 50 years, and I have seen much destruction take place. Let us not destroy our scenic areas with wind turbines and solar plants any longer. There are better locations for wind turbines, i.e., place them along the median of the new Interstate 11 as part of the construction plan. Alternatively, install them along the I-15 median or right-of-way, where no new disturbance needs to occur and access roads presently exist.

Or, better yet, construct levees on Eldorado Dry Lake and install wind turbines on them. The natural beauty of this valley west of U.S. Highway 93 has already been impacted with solar panels.

Philip A. Medica
Las Vegas


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/04/12/searchlight-wind-project-would-be-a-travesty-for-the-area/