It's Not a News Desert Out There

Traditional news outlets play a critical role in expanding awareness of the need for Mojave Desert protection

(SOLANA BEACH, Calif.) - In an age when internet sensationalism seems to command an ever increasing share of our mental acreage, traditional news outlets and media have begun to impact environmental policy through thoughtful reporting on a difficult issue. The Los Angeles Times recently released an editorial titled "Mojave Desert: Balance the needs of solar power and tortoises." http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-ed-tortoise-20110416,0,7655010.story. The editorial establishes the position of the LA Times Editorial Board and the newspaper itself, a member of the Tribune Company, weighing in that energy development in the Mojave Desert should not take place at the expense of Native American sacred sites and pristine desert ecosystems.

On December 27, 2010, La Cuna de Aztlan Sacred Sites Protection Circle and CARE, Californians for Renewable Energy and 6 traditional Native American individuals filed suit in United States Federal Court against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), related to the issuance of Records of Decision approving the siting and permitting of 6 solar energy projects with significant cultural and environmental impacts.

The PR company (Freshwater Bay Pictures, LLC) of which I proudly disclose I am an owner, requested LA Times Environmental Reporter Margot Roosevelt to look at the issue. As a result, reporter Tiffany Hsu visited Blythe, CA where she witnessed endangered geo-glyphs. There, Ms. Hsu was well briefed and well connected with the plaintiffs in the case.

Following our initial provocatively titled press release, "Six Desert Solar Projects Get Holiday Surprise, " Ms Hsu released the LA Times Article, "Lawsuit alleges solar projects would harm sacred Native American sites: Native American group and its allies sue to stop six solar facilities from being built in the Southern California desert, "noting that they would affect treasured geoglyphs, burial sites and relics." http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/24/local/la-me-solar-suit-20110224. This article was one of the first to shine a critical light on the conventional wisdom that the projects had so much "juice" from the Obama administration and multi-national companies, that they were a "done deal." In fact members of the investor press and analysts asked me point blank, how six indians could defeat 9.5 billion dollars in international investment and taxpayer subsidies. I answered that it wasn't the first time.

Several of the plaintiffs are known as "Ward Valley veterans," having stood up against the construction of a nuclear dump site which would have been located in the Ward Valley, near the Colorado River. Construction plans were stopped following a land occupation which lasted 113 days, according to Bradley Angel of the supporting environmental group Green Action. I told the investors if this group had to do it again, they likely would. It was a message that met with skepticism in the cubicles of Wall Street. But following the initial article by Ms. Hsu, the cause was beginning to be taken more seriously. La Cuna and CARE have since expressed gratitude to Ms. Roosevelt and Ms. Hsu for their efforts in understanding what is at stake, and why it is important to recognize the intrinsic values of the Mojave Desert, at a time when massive taxpayer subsidies grease the skids for remotely sited and inherently uneconomical central station solar plants.

In general, once the press had time to become better informed on the issues, following our release going to the AP Newswire, and subsequent articles appearing in the Riverside Press Enterprise, the San Diego Union Tribune, The New York Times and over 150 national and international press and broadcast outlets following a second AP release, they have now heard the call out from many sources across Southern California. Project costs and estimates of the number of jobs to be created by remotely located plants and Enron-type energy transmission, vs. local solar built by a local workforce on rooftops, have been challenged. There is now more momentum (Big Mo) behind desert preservation, and the LA Times editorial noting that pristine desert and Native American cultural resources should not be sacrificed for energy development, reflects growing public "buy in" to what has been the La Cuna de Aztlan Sacred Sites Protection Circle/CARE message all along. La Cuna Founder Alfredo Figueroa, a Yaqui indian, is an expert spokesman for Native traditions and deserves much credit for this.

From the PR standpoint, what we have seen is that the press has come to its own conclusions. As a major U.S. corporate entity, the Tribune Company, is not prone to either senseless endorsements of wild eyed environmentalism, or romanticism for Native culture in a difficult modern world. But the editorial board, in realizing that balances must be better struck, has offered a well reasoned approach for our grand children's sake. Count me in among those who would like to see desert ecosystems and Native cultures thrive, and provide relief and understanding for humanity during the remainder of this century and far beyond.

In the end, my personal hope would be societal and policy change resulting in a push at the state and national levels for distributed solar implementation, on distressed lands and rooftops, close to load. This could take the form of a revised feed-in-tariff structure to appropriately value solar energy production vis a vis the real cost of oil, gas and coal. That way, small solar farmers and homeowners could yield returns reflecting real investments.