ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION – NO HARD COPY TO FOLLOW
Submitted by email to: rp*****@ac**.gov
November 7, 2024
Rodney Parker Jr., ACHP BLM Liaison
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
401 F Street NW, Suite 308
Washington, DC 20001
Subject: ACHP Section 106 Review of the Bureau of Land Management Western Solar Plan
Dear Mr. Parker:
I am writing on behalf of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks (Coalition), which represents over 2,900 current, former, and retired employees and volunteers of the National Park Service. Collectively, our membership represents over 50,000 years of national park management and stewardship experience. Our members include former National Park Service directors, deputy directors, regional directors, and park superintendents, as well as a variety of program specialists and field staff. Recognized as the Voices of Experience, the Coalition educates, speaks, and acts for the preservation and protection of the National Park System, and mission-related programs of the National Park Service (NPS).
As background, the Coalition submitted detailed comments 1https://protectnps.org/2024/04/01/coalition-comments-on-blm-eis-for-solar-energy-development/to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) regarding its proposed revision of the Western Solar Plan 2https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2022371/510(Plan). As a result, we are quite familiar with the perceived benefits and obvious shortcomings of the Plan with regard to the protection of historic properties and cultural sites that are eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
We are writing now to provide input for you to consider as you prepare a response to BLM’s letter 3https://eplanning.blm.gov/public_projects/2022371/200538533/20121074/251021054/ACHP%20letter%20regarding%20CA%20SHPO%20Section%20106%20Consultation%2010022024.pdfdated October 4, 2024. In the letter, BLM requested that the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) “review, pursuant to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and ACHP’s implementing regulations at 36 CFR 800.4(d)(1)(ii), the BLM’s proposed finding under 36 CFR 800.4(d)(1) that the Proposed Updated Western Solar Plan would not affect any historic properties.”
With all due respect to the BLM, their October 4 letter contains a number of partial-truths that overstate the historic preservation benefits and obscure the obvious historic preservation shortcomings of the Plan. Below we will briefly address a few of the statements in the letter that we are concerned will lead you to believe that the Plan would be more effective at protecting historic properties than it actually will be.
On p. 3 of letter, BLM asserts that “The Updated Western Solar Plan Would Not Affect Historic Properties. The BLM’s Proposed Updated Western Solar Plan would not authorize any individual solar project and would not itself result in any ground disturbance.” While it is generally true that any programmatic guidance issued by federal agencies would not normally approve any specific project, in this case the Plan provides the policy framework that BLM field managers will apply when determining whether to approve, restrict, or deny applications for solar energy development on public lands. To the extent that the Plan would allow poorly sited projects in close proximity to historic properties, which it would allow in abundance as explained below, the potential adverse effects of the Plan on historic properties are inevitable and significant.
So, yes, the Plan itself may not authorize any specific solar energy project. However, provisions of the Plan would allow BLM to approve future solar energy development that could and would likely result in direct and/or indirect adverse effects to hundreds, if not thousands, of historic properties due to serious flaws found in the Resource-Based Exclusion Criteria summarized in Table 2.1-3 of the Plan. The exclusions proposed in the Plan are similar to existing criteria found in Table A-2 of the 2012 Western Solar Plan.4https://blmsolar.anl.gov/solar-peis/ The crux of our concern is that, as applied by BLM, the resource based exclusions only preclude solar energy development within the actual footprint of NHRP-eligible properties or other protected resource sites. As applied by BLM heretofore, these exclusions allow large-scale solar energy projects to be developed in close proximity to historic properties including sensitive cultural sites, just not within the footprint of the protected site.
As a result, western conservation and historic preservation groups, and presumably the California State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO), are quite familiar with the shortcomings in the Plan’s exclusion criteria, having seen how BLM has applied those criteria in the past. And many groups, as well as the California SHPO, are deeply concerned about likely impacts to historic properties, cultural sites, and other protected resources if BLM were to implement the Plan, including its exclusion criteria, as proposed. The extent of such concern is evidenced by a news report 5https://www.eenews.net/articles/dozens-of-protests-challenge-blms-western-solar-build-out/that BLM has received 162 formal administrative protests to the proposed updated Western Solar Plan. According to the report, BLM has declined to identify the local governments, groups, and individuals that filed the formal protests to provide specific issues that are being challenged in the updated Plan.
Although BLM has not been transparent about the nature of the protests, one such protest that we are familiar with was jointly submitted to BLM by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, Western Watersheds Project, Basin and Range Watch, Amargosa Conservancy, and John W. Hiscock. Our protest focuses on concerns related to management and protection of National Historic (NHT) and National Scenic Trails (NST) in the western region of the U.S., including the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, if the Plan is implemented as proposed. The protest describes numerous shortcomings in BLM’s management of National Trails (NT). It is a complex issue that is covered in detail in the protest document6https://peer.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/9_30_24-Western-Solar-Protest.pdf, which speaks for itself regarding the nature of the concerns. Besides BLM’s chronic failure to comply with planning requirements related to its management of the Old Spanish NHT, the gist of our concern about potential adverse effects of solar development under Plan is that the resource based exclusions provided for National Trails in Table 2.1-3 would only prevent solar development on an infinitesimally narrow line associated with the Trail’s narrow but lengthy footprint. Such a measure would not protect resources, values, and public opportunities, or “settings” that are undoubtedly associated with each Trail and often located just outside the Trail’s footprint. This is just one protest out of the 162 submitted; and we can imagine there are many more protests voicing similar concerns.
The potential extent of such adverse effects of the Plan on historic properties is summarized succinctly in several places in the Plan. For example, Table 6-5 of the Plan indicates there is the potential for solar energy development on lands open for application under the Action Alternatives to adversely affect 87,855 cultural resource sites, including 55,562 NRHP-eligible and Unknown/ undetermined Sites and 32,293 sites that are not NRHP-eligible. Similarly, Table 5.3-1 in the Plan indicates that solar energy development on lands available for application under Alternative 3, BLM’s Preferred Alternative, has the potential to adversely affect 72,718 total cultural resource sites, including 45,534 NHRP-eligible and unknown/undetermined sites and 29,184 sites that are not NHRP-eligible.
In other words, if the Plan is implemented as proposed with exclusion criteria precluding solar energy projects only within the footprint of historic properties, tens of thousands of cultural sites will be “at risk” of adverse effects under BLM’s Preferred Alternative. This reality is vastly different than the “there will be no effect on historic properties” finding that BLM portrays in its letter. Despite BLM’s creative wordsmithing, there is truly a serious risk of adverse effects if the Plan is implemented as proposed.
As you undoubtedly know because of your involvement in the Section 106 review of the Lava Ridge Wind Project, a landscape setting provides important context for historic properties in general and especially for historic properties located in remote, relatively undeveloped, open landscapes of the American West. Large-scale renewable energy development, whether solar or wind, has the potential to be highly visible in the western landscapes covered by the 11-state planning area. The Coalition and other advocacy groups recognized the importance of this context in our comments about the proposed revisions to the Plan; and we advocated in our for BLM to go a step further and provide standardized exclusion zones or “setbacks” that would preclude solar energy development in close proximity to historic properties and other protected resources. The basis for creating such setbacks is well documented in BLM planning documents, which include the following:
- Because of the potential adverse effects of renewable energy projects on the landscape setting of historic properties (i.e., the context), visual resource impacts are a common concern with many proposed renewable energy projects managed by BLM. This is reflected in “Best Management Practices for Reducing Visual Impacts of Renewable Energy Facilities on BLM-Administered Lands.”7https://www.blm.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/Library_BMP_Reducing_Visual_Impacts_Renewable_Energy.pdf Specifically, Section 6.2.1, p. 141, recommends: “Site facilities and ROWs outside of sensitive viewsheds or as far as possible from sensitive viewing locations.”
- Guidance 8https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261559543_Utility-Scale_Solar_Energy_Facility_Visual_Impact_Characterization_and_Mitigation_Study_Project_Reportissued by Argonne National Laboratory in 2012 indicates that PV solar energy facilities might be visible from greater than 20 mi (32 km) distance, though not necessarily recognizable as a solar energy facility at that distance (Sullivan et al. 2012). This suggests that a 20-mile exclusion buffer may be necessary to avoid visual impacts to the landscapes as seen from special protected areas such as historic properties. See section 5.19 Visual Resources.
Despite similar comments from a variety of conservation groups and other stakeholders, in the Final Plan, BLM declined to establish basic exclusion zones (“setbacks”) precluding solar energy development adjacent to and surrounding NRHP-eligible properties; but instead BLM stayed with its “footprint approach” to exclusions. In effect, the Plan will allow to BLM to continue to entertain, consider, and possibly approve solar energy projects in close proximity to protected resources, including NRHP-eligible properties, putting thousands of historic properties at risk of adverse impacts within the 11-state planning area. As a result, it is utterly misleading for the BLM letter to state that the Plan “would not affect any historic properties” when it is obvious that future actions allowed under the Plan can and will likely cause significant adverse effects.
In closing, we urge ACHP to issue a finding that the Plan, if implemented as proposed, will likely result in adverse effects to NHRP-eligible properties, even if specific affects to specific properties cannot be determined until specific projects are proposed and evaluated. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to comment on this important issue.
Sincerely,
Philip A. Francis, Jr.
Chair of the Executive Council
Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks
Email: Ed****@pr********.org
Mail: 2 Massachusetts Ave NE, Unit 77436, Washington, DC 20013
Web: www.protectnps.org
Phone: (202) 819-8622
cc: Tracy Stone-Manning, Director, Bureau of Land Management