RENO, Nev. (AP) — Add Burning Man to the list of plaintiffs difficult one in all the growing variety of “green energy” projects within the works in Nevada.
Lithium mines aimed toward boosting production of electrical vehicle batteries and geothermal power plants that tap underground water to provide renewable energy are at various stages of planning and development within the nation’s top gold mining state.
Environmental groups, Native American tribes and ranchers are amongst those that’ve filed lawsuits over the past two years searching for to dam individual projects.
They are saying that while they support reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to assist combat climate change, the industrial developments on public land in Nevada were approved illegally and could have their very own environmental and cultural consequences.
Now, the group that stages perhaps essentially the most famous counterculture event on the earth is amongst those facing off against the U.S. government over geothermal exploration within the Nevada desert where 70,000 free spirits often called “Burners” gather every summer.
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The San Francisco-based Burning Man Project and 4 co-plaintiffs filed the brand new lawsuit in federal court in Reno this week accusing the Bureau of Land Management of breaking environmental laws in approving Ormat Nevada Inc.’s exploratory drilling within the Black Rock Desert 120 miles (193 kilometers) north of Reno.
Friends of Nevada Wilderness, Friends of Black Rock/High Rock Inc. and two local residents of Gerlach joined the suit that claims the agency’s environmental review of the exploration project ignored potential harms that might come from a large-scale geothermal project.
“Ormat’s exploration project will lay the muse for turning a novel, virtually pristine ecosystem of environmental, historical and cultural significance into an industrial zone, and permanently alter the landscape,” the lawsuit says.
Ormat Vice President Paul Thomsen said the lawsuit has no merit.
The Bureau of Land Management has no comment on the lawsuit, agency spokesman Brian Hires said in an email to The Associated Press.
The drilling is planned inside the Black Rock National Conservation Area, home to the festival where themed tent villages and avant-garde art exhibits sprout from a barren desert basin that was once the ground of an ancient lake.
Clothing is optional, but participation is required on the psychedelic celebration of art, music and sometimes anarchy itself as aging hippies, Silicon Valley executives and other curiosity seekers gather around drum circles and pagan fire rituals.
Or, because the lawsuit says, where attendees “over the course of eight days, camp and take part in a novel experimental community.”
“The ethos and culture of the event are rooted within the Ten Principles of Burning Man,” including “radical inclusion,” gifting, self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility and “Leaving No Trace,” the lawsuit explains.
The lawsuit said Ormat has attempted to evade evaluation of the geothermal power plants’ potential negative effects on the environment by segmenting the project, which limits BLM’s review to only the primary stage of its plans: exploration.
“Nevertheless, this primary stage merely confirms where the resources are positioned to tell future industrial scale geothermal energy development,” the suit said. “Once the exploration project begins, it can be not possible to stop the results of your entire geothermal production project.”
The exploration project calls for 19 test wells and pads, associated facilities and a couple of.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) of improved and recent access roads.
The proposed wells can be adjoining to various unique hot springs which can be relied upon by the local people for tourism. The springs are also ecologically significant because they’re “interconnected with one another, the ecosystem and the pristine landscape of the region,” the suit said.
“After participating in the general public process and seeing no movement on our concerns, we filed this lawsuit to assist make sure the impacts from the proposed project are minimized, and that Ormat is an excellent corporate citizen on this environmentally sensitive, economically vulnerable area of northern Nevada,” said Adam Belsky, Burning Man Project’s general counsel.
Thomsen said in an email that Ormat “looks forward to prevailing within the lawsuit and continuing its contribution to Nevada’s green energy, zero emissions future, which is able to offset a few of the copious amounts of fossil fuels the Burning Man Project annually emits within the Black Rock Desert.”
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