Environmental issues dominated the December meeting of the Morongo Basin MAC last night. Reporter Dan Stork highlights the featured presentation on a solar project in Joshua Tree, and reveals more council vacancies…
In an added informational presentation before the Morongo Basin Municipal Advisory Council, Hi-Desert Memorial Healthcare District CEO Bob Tyk described the proposed affiliation of the District with Tenet Healthcare. He described the benefits of affiliation, chief among them being that the District would otherwise be out of business within two years.
The main event for the evening was a presentation by Jess Melin of Next Era Energy, about a 115-acre solar field planned at the location of the Joshua Tree Airport. Melin emphasized that the land in question is disturbed land, said that Next Era will be around and responsible for the long run, and sketched a timeline that would result in construction of the project in the spring of 2016. Questioners and commenters raised concerns about dust from a nearby concrete plant, disturbance of migratory birds by the “lake effect” of solar farms, impact on real estate values, glare, detriment to tourism, water usage, lack of local benefit from electricity generation, duration and scale of local jobs, water usage, local tax revenues, and distrust of the promises made by solar developers in general.
Public comment included an account by an unhappy Marina West of the County’s Planning Commission granting a permit to a solar project in Landers; likely strengthening of the Bobcat Protection Act; update on the Dollar General suit; Representative Paul Cook’s apparent reversal on the Cadiz water project; and over-grading of dirt roads in Wonder Valley.
The scheduled resolution on the Altamira residential project in Joshua Tree was deferred to next month. MAC Chairman Mike Lipsitz announced the resignation of members Jack Dugan of Pioneertown and Max Rossi of Wonder Valley, bringing to three the number of vacancies on the eight-member Council.
MORONGO BASIN MAC HEARS JOSHUA TREE AIRPORT SOLAR PLAN
