Western Lands

Update
Summer 2010 Research, Outreach, and Advocacy to Keep Public Lands Public
Western Lands Project
Seattle, Washington
Vol. 14, No. 1

Rethinking Big Solar on Public Lands

S
ince passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, scale, intensity, and irreversibility of the impacts these
the federal government has been strongly projects will bring to public land essentially render
promoting renewable energy projects on public them permanent. In fact, we consider the projects to
land, including large-scale solar facilities in parts entail “virtual privatization,” because they completely
of California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, alter their sites and preclude all other uses and public
Utah, and Colorado. Companies are taking values.
advantage of fast-track federal permitting and huge
Some of the national environmental groups have
tax incentives that will come to those who can present
called for large energy projects to be built on
substantial plans by the end of 2010. The Southwest
“already-degraded” public lands, or on private
could be especially hard hit, with hundreds of
agricultural land that has gone out of use. But for
thousands of acres of fragile desert paved in mirrors,
the most part, they have acquiesced to the sacrifice
if the projects planned there go through.
of large areas of public land they might otherwise
Intuitively, large solar energy projects strike most defend to accommodate a non-fossil-fuel energy
people as sensible, an unquestioned public good, policy they also support.
even benign. For public lands advocates, however, it is
We were more sympathetic to the dilemma before
much more complicated. The average proposed “Big
we found copious (if largely unpublicized) evidence
Solar” project occupies 5,000 acres. Of the hundreds
that better, far less damaging, and more efficient
of projects lining up for permits, about 35 are
technology is available in the form of distributed
currently on the fast track, and of those, 14 (planned
solar—i.e., installations
on about 50,000 acres)
on rooftops and other
are in critical habitat for
areas of the built
the threatened desert
environment. The
tortoise.
common “wisdom”
These facilities must also has been that these
hook up to transmission technologies cannot
lines, and hundreds of compete in cost-
miles of new lines and
Continued next page 
extensions are planned.
Where permits succeed,
the projects will be built
on public land rights-
of-way, a temporary use. The desert is perennially
The solar plants have undervalued and too easily
estimated project lives abused.
of only 30 years. Yet the Photo: Chris Clarke
 —Continued from page 1
effectiveness and efficiency with the large-
scale solar developments—that’s what the
power companies would like the public to
believe in order to protect their bottom
lines, and it’s what they are telling members
of Congress every day. Yet this is not the
If you would like to case at all.
help push things in While Congress has put considerable
political will and momentum behind
the right direction, Big Solar, it has not studied distributed
generation—let alone considered
please contact your promoting and deploying it on the grand
scale that could transform our energy use.
representatives in Now 13 years into our organization’s
well-established mission to keep public
Congress. Tell them land public, we know we cannot dedicate
ourselves wholly to the issue of distributed
you don’t want solar technology, but neither can we ignore
the fact that there is an alternative to the
your public lands destruction of so much public land. Our
obvious course of action is one we often
relegated to the take: turn to the grassroots!
While the big national environmental
status of an energy
groups are issuing bland statements of
concern about the dilemma of Big Solar,
factory, and that the grassroots activists all over the desert
Southwest spend their days studying,
critiquing and dreading the arrival of these
projects. In the nature of so many local
activists we have known, their passion has
driven them to become experts and to
seek an alternative scenario. Because we
have several years’ experience educating
policymakers on our issues, the Western
Lands Project is now working with activists
in the desert to help them deliver their
message to Congress about the impacts
of, and sane alternatives to, massive public
lands “renewables” development. We are
demonstrating to congressional staff that
there is another story to be told, and a
tremendous reservoir of information they
can and must tap into.
It’s unlikely we can turn things around
completely, but citizens must act to spare
as much public land as we can and bring a
better alternative, distributed generation,
to the forefront.
You can read an excellent summary of the issues
at writer-photographer Chris Clarke’s blog, Coyote
Crossing: http://faultline.org/ index.php/site /
item/desert_solar_faq/

far better alternative

of distributed
generation must be
our policy.

The Mojave Cross.

Photo: Gina Ferazzi
LA Times-Newscom

Western Lands Update 2 Summer 2010

Supreme Court Sends Back Mojave Cross Case
I
n late April, the United States Supreme
Court issued a knotted and narrow ruling
in Salazar v. Buono, a case concerning
the display of a Latin cross as a war
memorial within the Mojave National
Preserve in California. Six opinions were
issued, none representing a majority of
justices. By a 5-4 decision, the Court
remanded the case back to the district
court, finding that the lower court used a
faulty legal standard when it invalidated a
Congressional land exchange involving the
land on which the cross sits.
The cross was first erected in 1934, by
private citizens, though on federal land.
Plaintiff Frank Buono, a war veteran and
retired National Park Service employee,
first brought suit in 2001, arguing that the
Park Service permitting the display of the
cross was a violation of the Constitution’s
Establishment Clause. After the district and
Ninth Circuit courts ruled in Buono’s favor,
Congress tried to keep the cross in place
by inserting language in a defense bill that
directed the Park Service to make a land
trade with a local VFW post for the acre of
land on which the cross sits. Buono again
brought suit and the district and Ninth
Circuit courts ruled that the legislative end-
run did not cure the Establishment Clause
violation.
Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion said
that “the goal of avoiding governmental
endorsement [of religion] does not require
eradication of all religious symbols in the
public realm,” and “the Constitution does
Western Lands Update 3 Summer 2010
not oblige the government to avoid any
public acknowledgement of religion’s role
in society.” This opinion had the most
votes, but not a majority, so it did not speak
for the court. Even the five justices that
signed on to the judgment ordering the
remand were split: Three said that the
district court erred in holding that the
land exchange did not conform with the
Establishment Clause while the two others
said the lower court should not have even
reached the issue because the plaintiff
lacked the standing necessary to challenge
the land trade. (It is somewhat surprising
that seven justices found that Buono did
have standing, as in the last 20 years or so,
the court has generally narrowed standing).
The judgment directs the district court
to reevaluate whether the land trade
violated the Establishment Clause. Given
Kennedy’s opinion, it seems likely that
the lower court will allow the land trade
to proceed and the cross to remain.
Nonetheless, despite reaching the Supreme
Court, the case may not have much of
an effect on Establishment Clause law, as
Kennedy implied: “To date, this Court’s
jurisprudence in this area has refrained
from making sweeping pronouncements,
and this case is ill suited for announcing
categorical rules.”
Western Lands Project, with Public
Employees for Environmental
Responsibility (PEER), submitted an
amicus brief in support of Frank Buono in
this case.
 Land Grab is the Latest Threat to Tongass National Forest
I
n 1971, Congress passed the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act, creating
a system whereby Alaskan aboriginal
land claims could be resolved. The bill
was given strong impetus largely by oil-
development proposals that would otherwise
be stalled. ANCSA created 200 native Village
Corporations and thirteen native Regional
Corporations to select lands on behalf of
native groups. Boundaries were established
from which the respective corporations could
make land selections. All together, the native
entities were entitled to 44 million acres and
cash payments of almost a billion dollars.
The regional corporation Sealaska made
its land selections in and around the lush
Tongass National Forest—our largest.
Under lax state regulations governing
private forest practices, Sealaska proceeded
to cut down to bare dirt the forest it
had claimed under ANCSA. (To see the
extremity of their practices, go to YouTube.
com and search for “Hoonah’s Legacy”).
In the meantime, Forest Service-managed
forest in the Tongass was also subject to
massive exploitation and environmental
damage. The publicly-owned trees of
the Tongass were clear-cut under 50-year
contracts—unique in the National Forest
System— granted to just two corporations,
Alaska Pulp Corporation and Ketchikan
Pulp Company. APC and KPC received this
largesse for building and running mills to
employ area workers. Also unique was a
waiver that allowed trees from the Tongass
to be exported as whole logs—something
not allowed in other national forests—and
much of the Tongass was shipped to Japan
barely processed. The contracts were a
huge money loser for taxpayers, and when
the mills shut down in the mid and late
1990s in the face of shrinking subsidies
and lower mandated timber targets, the
contracts were terminated.
Now, Sealaska has cut all of its most
accessible trees and wants to cherry-pick
the largest remaining trees in the Tongass.
Legislation now in Congress would allow
Sealaska to claim up to 85,000 acres of
public land outside the mandated ANCSA
boundaries. Senator Lisa Murkowski,
ranking Republican member of the Senate
Energy and Natural Resources Committee,
is sponsor of S. 881, the Southeast Alaska
Native Land Entitlement Finalization Act.
Sealaska’s entitlement under ANCSA was
some 350,000 acres, of which about 63,000
acres have yet to be selected. The pool of
lands from which it can currently make
selections comprises 327,000 acres —this
is public land, but the corporation persists
in characterizing this as a “trade.” The
trees Sealaska hopes to end up with are
accessible by way of a road system put in
place under Forest Service management
(and thus provided by you and me).
Sealaska wants mainly “big-tree old-growth”
on areas of karst, a relatively rare and fragile
soil and soluble-rock regime that supports
exceptionally biologically-rich forest.
Residents of southeast Alaska are, frankly,
freaked out at the prospect of Sealaska
claiming the areas they have targeted.

Much of the private,

state, and Native
Corporation land in
southeast Alaska looks
like this.
Photo: David Beebe

Western Lands Update 4 Summer 2010

These are located on North Prince of
Wales and Kosciusko islands, where small
communities are scraping by on tourism,
guiding, fishing, small-scale logging and
milling, and—very important—subsistence
hunting and gathering. All are imperiled
by the Murkowski-Sealaska plan. Despite
their geographic isolation and logistical
challenges, residents have coalesced to
fight the bill, and Western Lands supports
their efforts. Like them, we respect
Sealaska’s claim to more land within the
ANCSA boundaries, but not a re-drawing of
those lines. We simply have to stand on the
side of the Tongass.
Phosphate Mine Proposal Includes Land Sale & Exchange
O
n April 13, the Bureau of Land
Management and Forest Service
announced a proposed land sale and
land exchange that would facilitate
development of the Dairy Syncline
phosphate mine by J.R. Simplot Company.
The mine site is in southeast Idaho, one of
the two primary phosphate deposit areas
in the U.S. The proposal includes a Forest
Service land exchange; a BLM land sale;
an open pit phosphate mine; a new milling
facility; installation of underground lines
for phosphate slurry, tailings and water;
a new tailings impoundment; and a new
power line. In total, the Dairy Syncline
Mine would impact more than 2,100 acres
of federal land. Simplot already holds
leases from the BLM that give the company
exclusive rights to mine and dispose of the
phosphate deposit at the site.
The lands Simplot wants to purchase and
acquire by exchange would become the
mine’s tailings pond area. The pond would
be an earthen dam structure with a capacity
of 20 million cubic yards of material, large
enough to hold all tailings created during
the mine’s lifetime.
Environmental damage from phosphate
mining is already widespread in southeast
Idaho. Selenium, a persistent, bio-
Western Lands Update 5 Summer 2010
Please help by registering your opposition to
S. 881. Because most members of Congress
don’t allow email through their websites
from non-constituents, your best bet is to
call and leave your comment. Here are
three key contacts:
Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK),
bill sponsor, 202.224.6665
Senator Mark Begich (D-AK)
co-sponsor, 202.224.3004
Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) Chair
of Energy & Natural Resources
Committee, 202.224.5521
accumulative mineral that contaminates
soil and air, occurs naturally at very high
levels in the phosphate fields, and is
brought to the surface during mining.
Selenium is listed as a priority pollutant by
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
and there are fifteen related Superfund
sites in Caribou County. Elevated selenium
concentrations have caused significant
declines in, or even eliminated, Yellowstone
cutthroat trout populations in some
watersheds. Over the years, sheep, cattle
and horses have died from grazing or
drinking water near phosphate operations.
Last year, eighteen cattle died after
being moved to an abandoned Simplot
phosphate-mining site located just a few
miles from a federal wildlife management
area. The cattle began dying less than a
week after being moved to the site.
Campaigns by local and regional groups,
including the Caribou Clean Water
Partnership (www.cariboucleanwater.org)
and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition
(www.greateryellowstone.org) have brought
greater scrutiny to the phosphate mining
industry in the past few years. Western
Lands will be working with Idaho groups to
scrutinize the Dairy Syncline project as it
proceeds.
 Turn a Dollar for Public Land into Two
Take a good look at the names to the right.
Those are the people that keep Western
Lands Project going strong.
Among our current donors are longtime
members and those new to the fold. There
are fellow activists, retirees, ex-Forest
Service officials, BLM whistleblowers,
birders, writers, academics, and those who
just want to help. Some members give a
little and some give a lot. The one thing all
of us share is our love of America’s public
lands and our belief in the value of the
commons.
In our very first newsletter back in the fall
of 1997, when the project was just getting
started, there were only five names on that
list. Members may have been few, but they
shared Janine’s outrage at the dismantling
of the commons.
Thirteen years later, our uncompromising
approach to public lands protection has not
changed, but our expertise and influence
on policy has steadily grown, along with our
membership list.
Some of those original donors from back
in 1997 continue to support us today. It’s
that kind of steadfast backing that inspires
us onwards and allows us to protect the
public places that we all treasure. And that’s
what the grassroots are all about – people
coming together to lift up the causes they
believe in.
There is just one hope of repulsing
the tyrannical ambition of civilization
to conquer every niche on the whole
earth. That hope is the organization
of spirited people who will fight for the
freedom of the wilderness.
—Robert Marshall
Western Lands Update 6 Summer 2010
This year, there’s a special incentive by one
of our funders to get even more members
to join the ranks of those supporting our
mission. The Good Works Institute has
offered to match all contributions from
individuals, up to a total of $10,000 -
doubling your gift.
There’s never been a better time to donate
to Western Lands Project or tell others
about our work. Please consider taking
advantage of this opportunity to make your
donation (and those of your friends and
neighbors) go twice as far.
As always, thank you for being a part of our
community of public land protectors. We
couldn’t do this good work without you.
Sincerely,
Western Lands Project
P.O. Box 95545
Seattle, WA 98145-2545
phone 206.325.3503
www.westernlands.org
Board of Directors
Erica Rosenberg, President,
Washington, DC
Marianne Dugan, Sec’y-Treasurer,
Eugene, OR
Sandra Perkins, Seattle, WA
Steve Gilbert, Helena, MT
David Gladstone, Snohomish, WA
Sandy Lonsdale, Moab, UT
Rebecca Rundquist, Portland, ME
Staff
Janine Blaeloch, Director
blaeloch@westernlands.org
Christopher Krupp
Staff Attorney
krupp@westernlands.org
Emily Crandall
Development Manager
crandall@westernlands.org
Thank you, wonderful members!*
Marlin Ard, Jerry & Mildred Asker, Molly Attell, Jack & Rosemary Bailey, Lynne Bama, Gregory
Bartha, Robert Beck, David Beebe, Janine Blaeloch, Joann Blalock, Denise Boggs, Chris &
Sandy Boothe, Joseph & Susan Bower, Bob Brister, Bart & Martha Brown, Julie Brugger,
Linda Campbell, Meg Campbell, Mel & Sheila Canal, Roald Cann, Irene Cannon-Geary, Rob
Castleberry & Joyce Thomas, Mark Collier, Charles Couper, Emily & Drew Crandall, Frank
We  our
Culver, Shirley Dahlner, Betsy Dennis, Tom Deveny, Craig & Lynn Dible, David & Martha
Doty, Mark Drake, Marianne Dugan, Mark & Lois Eagleton, George Early, Michelle Eaton,
monthly
Paul & Gladys Raye Eaton, Judith Enich, Jim & Elizabeth Erickson, Alan & Myra Erwin, Garth
Ferber, Donald Ferry, Deborah Filipelli, Jared Fuller, Lydia Garvey, Steve Gilbert, Thelma donors,
Gilmur, David & Melinda Gladstone, Nunzie Gould, Marshall & Elizabeth Hamilton, Charles
E. Hancock, Ginger Harmon, Roger Harmon, Ann Harvey, Rebecca Haseleu, RJ & Annie shown in
Haskins, Randall Holmberg, Heidi Hubbell, William Hull, Dave & Corey Jacobs, Dave Kaiser
& Kristin Temperly, Steve Kelly, Thad King, Fayette Krause, Chris Krupp, Jessica Langsam, bold.
Joseph Lee & Susan Eisner, David & Teri Leibforth, Michael Lengyel, Phyllis Lindner, Allan
J. Lindrup, John Livermore, Sandy Lonsdale, Craig Lorch, Joseph T. Maier, Mike Maloney, Become one
today.
Brandt Mannchen, Louise Mariana, Jon Marvel, Clyde & Joan McClelland, Ann McConnell,
Rick McGuire, Laurene McLane, Jo Anne Monday & Daniel Daneff, Kim Morton, John
Mumma, Barbara Myers, Ralph Nader, Andrew Nelson & Teresa Ward, Rich Nelson, George
Nickas, Lyle Oberg, John & Rachael Osborn, Colleen O’Sullivan, Deborah Paulson, Forrest * These lists include
Peebles, Sandra Perkins & Jeffrey Ochsner, Scotty Phillips, Theresa Potts, Bill Rodgers, Ben donations/grants
Rogers & Myra Bergman Ramos, Paul Rogland, Erica Rosenberg & Dan Sarewitz, Erich received from December
1, 2009 to May 31,
Franz Schimps, Mr. & Mrs. Marvin L. Schinnerer, Justin Schmidt, Gordon Schochet, Mary
2010. If your gift was
Ann Schroeder, Michael Shurgot, Richard Slagle, Bernadette M. Sonefeld, Richard Spudich, received after this date,
Robert Stivers, Sally Strain, Richard Strickland, Bob Strumpf, Val & Mary Ann Tollefson, you’ll be acknowledged
Kay Tornborg, Stephen Trimble, Jeanne Turgeon, Pete & Lisa Turner, Wolter & Anneka Van in our next newsletter.
Doorninck, John Viner, Wade & Shirley Vaughn, Gwen Warren, Cathy Weeden, Terry Weiner, We are grateful to have
Edward & Victoria Welch, Jerry Williams, Jennifer Yogi & Matt Adams, Ray Ziarno your support.

We are grateful for the foundations & businesses supporting our work!
The Elinor Patterson Baker Foundation
Clif Bar Family Foundation
Dancing Tides Foundation
The Darby Foundation
Firedoll Foundation
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – Matching Gift
Horizons Foundation
Norcliffe Foundation
Park Foundation
PCC Natural Markets – Scrip Card Program
Pew Charitable Trusts – Matching Gift
Quail Roost Foundation
Safety Systems Foundation
Satterberg Foundation
The White Pine Fund
Western Lands Update 7 Summer 2010
 Western Lands Project PRSRT STD
US Postage
PO Box 95545 PAID
Seattle, WA 98145-2545 SEATTLE WA
PERMIT #1445

Keeping
public lands
in public
hands
…
westernlands.org


We’re scrappy...
If you prefer not to
receive this newsletter,
& we get the job done!
Making a donation is easy. You can give online or by mail — for yourself or to honor your
please send an
family and friends. No matter how you give, your generosity helps Western Lands Project
email Crandall@ keep public lands public. To make your donation today, please complete this
westernlands.org form and return it with your tax-deductible contribution to:
or call us at Western Lands Project
PO Box 95545
206.325.3503. Seattle, WA 98145-2545
Phone 206.325.3503 Fax 206.325.3515
OR give online at www.westernlands.org/give
Name:__________________________________________________________________________

Address:________________________________________________________________________

City:____________________________________ State:_ _____________ Zip:_________________

Phone:_ ________________________________ Fax:_____________________________________

 Add to e-newsletter _Email:_ _____________________________________________________

 $50  $100  $250  $500  Other $_________________

6/10