By Melody Petersen / San Diego Union-Tribune TNS / Sept. 24, 2024
When Roy Richards spotted workers cutting down and shredding Joshua trees for a sprawling solar energy project near his Mojave Desert home last week, he started taking photos.
“Once the trees go through the shredders, they vanish,” he said, showing a reporter an image of a small pile of brown dust left by the crews.
The developer of the Aratina Solar Center has government approval to fell all of the thousands of trees on the site. The solar energy farm won a controversial exemption from rules protecting Joshua trees four years ago after closed-door meetings between industry executives and state wildlife officials.
Residents of nearby Boron and Desert Lake, as well as other opponents of the project, held a rally earlier this month to demand a halt to the project.
A 2020 survey counted 4,700 trees on the project site. Since then, however, the size of the project has been reduced.
Hundreds of Joshua trees appeared to have been destroyed recently, but on some portions of the site the trees still stand, residents said. Neither the company nor government agencies would say how many trees have been cut down. Avantus, the developer, said fewer trees will be destroyed than the government approved.
Residents fear the earth-moving work will increase the threat of valley fever — a fungal respiratory infection that is transmitted in dust. A local group found the fungus that causes valley fever in samples of topsoil from the five parcels surrounding the towns where the solar panels will be built.
For the balance of this article, please go here.
