HARMFUL SOLAR PROJECT ABANDONED

The company that had planned to build the ecologically destructive Calico solar project in the Mojave Desert has relinquished its right of way from the Bureau of Land Management and announced its decision not to proceed with the project. Last year, on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club, we sued in federal court in California over BLM’s authorization to construct the project on federal lands. We contended that the project would be highly detrimental to the federally threatened desert tortoise as well as to federally protected golden eagles. Following the filing of our case, BLM and the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that they were conducting further reviews under the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, and that any work on the project would be suspended in the meantime. In light of the company’s recent decision to abandon the harmful project, we have voluntarily dismissed our lawsuit.