The BLM announced today the beginning of a public scoping period for the Pinyon Solar Project west of Maricopa, AZ.
The news release was the only document copied to the project folder.
The map at ePlanning puts the project area, which consists of 1,730 acres of public land, at the edge of the Sonoran Desert National Monument.
The National Data Viewer puts it inside the Conley Allotment.
The allotment offers 4,158 active AUMs on 90,946 public acres, or 45.7 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, according to the Allotment Master Report.
Therefore, the facility will take an estimated 45.7 × 1,730 ÷ 1,000 = 79 AUMs per year out of action for the life of the project, assuming the resource is evenly distributed across the allotment.
That’s like turning six to seven wild horses loose in the allotment to rob forage from the poor rancher!
Livestock grazing inside the NM was authorized by the BLM in a 2020 decision.
Western Horse Watchers Association 