BREAKING: Avi Kwa Ame National Monument reportedly a go
Biden is expected to protect 450,000 acres in southern Nevada
The Washington Post’s Dan Michalski is reporting that the Biden administration plans to establish the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument on 450,000 acres of Mojave Desert in southern Nevada.
The land flows out from Avi Kwa Ame, or Spirit Mountain, and is held sacred by Yuman-speaking tribes as well as the Hopi and Chemehuevi Paiute. It has been targeted for utility-scale wind and solar power development in the past, as well as for mining.
The national monument designation will put the federal land off-limits to new mining claims and energy leases.
In satellite imagery the place looks barren and bleak, a vast desert made all the more hostile by rocky, treeless mountain ranges. In reality it is vital and vibrant, home to desert bighorns and gila monsters and desert tortoises and brilliant wildflowers and, of course, thousands of big, anthropoid Joshua trees gesturing to the wide-open sky. The mountains are layered with greens and reds, purples and oranges, their nooks and crannies hiding springs and offering sanctuary from the summer sun.
I drove across the area in January and was stunned by the ecological diversity, the vistas, and the beauty. Unfortunately, I was in a hurry to make it to Hoover Dam before dark so didn’t stop to take nearly as many photos as I would have liked. But here are a few from within the proposed national monument and surrounding lands.
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Several years ago while enroute from Grand Junction to CA I turned off I-15 just west of the CA/NV border and that gigantic solar farm and east of Barstow, looking for a place to set up camp. It was pitch black night. I drove down a dirt road and then up a spur road a bit and pitched camp in the dark unknown. I woke up in the morning on a bit of a hillside and looked out over the gorgeous site of millions of Joshua Trees. I was in the Mojave National Preserve. I've been back again and again.
Ok...do I win anything this time - finally - for correctly identifying the location of the solar farm?
Where are the Blythe Giants in relation to the Ivanpah complex ? I believe they were threatened by an industrial scale solar farm.