Saving desert tortoises is a costly hurdle for solar projects

[ProgressiveProfessor]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-solar-tortoise-20120304,0,6457217,full.story

Article from the LAT lays out some of the issues. The other key issue that is being ignored is transmission lines.

[Yavapai]

1. Have read a couple of these tortoise articles in the LA Times.

Have also been around tortoises most of my life.

First thing I noticed was the line, "Its only defenses are the shell on its back and the scent of its unspeakably foul urine." To me, this by itself, shows the ignorance of the writer. I have had tortoise urine on my hands numerous times and I could dtect no smell at all.

In the first article (about a year ago) it said that the tortoise population averaged about 1700 per acre. That is utter bullshit, or at least a bad typo.

In this article, they talk about how off road vehicles crush the dens of tortoises. The tortoises tend to dig in the soft sides of washes where you wouldn't normally be traveling in a vehicle. They also like to make their dins in and around large boulders, also where you wouldn't be traveling in a vehicle.

I have seen some of the fencing that was installed by the BLM to stop ATVs from going up washes. I have also seen these fences after monsoon thunderstorms, that contained the bodies of dead tortoises drowned by being caught and unable to escape the water that usually spreads out after entering the flat land below.

Yes, the desert tortoise is in trouble and it does need to be protected. But the BLM needs to think trough some of their less than stellar solutions to the problems. And the L.A. Times, needs to be a bit more critical in their reporting.

[izquierdista]

2. You just have to read selectively

If you stop after the first three words, there is little wrong with the article.

[ellisonz]

3. +1000

[ellisonz]

4. It's beginning to look like...

...many of these projects should have never have been permitted in the first place. The key to our energy future is reducing demand, not increasing supply at all costs.