A proposed power-line project that would span the length of Nevada and allow more than a dozen commercial-scale solar projects from Las Vegas to Reno to deliver green energy across the West, has moved a step closer toward final approval.
The Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday announced it has completed a more than two-year-long review of the 470-mile Greenlink West project, which has been planned to run parallel to the state’s border with California. But the draft evaluation released last year called for crossing a 1.5-mile-long section of the Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument near Las Vegas. The monument, managed by the National Park Service, was established by Congress to protect the fossils of long-extinct species like the Columbian mammoth and the sabertooth cat.
Several conservation groups have raised concerns about damaging the fossils at the Tule Springs site. Among them is Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, which was part of a group last month that released documents showing the bureau had decided to alter a 3-mile section of the power line to avoid interfering with lands where a mining company wants to explore for gold, but would not alter the path through the national monument.
