Land-use plans amended for analysis of wind power

WASHINGTON — The Interior Department amended eight land management plans on federal land in Utah Thursday as it finalized a wind power analysis.

Through the amendments, by 2025 about 12,700 acres of Bureau of Land Management land could produce 256 megawatts of electricity on top of the 485 megawatts estimated to come from wind farms not on BLM land.

The department completed the "Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on Wind Energy Development on BLM-Administered Lands in the Western United States" in July, but issued a Record of Decision Thursday completing the process. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a biological opinion saying wind power development would not jeopardize threatened or endangered species.

Projects that a company would propose for a specific area would still need their own environmental assessments, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Thursday, but finalizing the overarching environmental impact will help speed the process along.

"We now have an inventory of sites suitable for development," Norton said. "Companies can see the best locations to propose sites."

Don Banks of Utah's BLM office said there are several wind projects in "test phases" right now in Utah and others pending.

Thursday's decision altered the following land-use plans, controlled by different state offices of the BLM:

• Utah Cedar-Beaver-Garfield-Antimony Resource Management Plan, Cedar City Field Office.

• Escalante Management Framework Plan, Kanab Field Office.

• Paria Management Framework Plan, Kanab Field Office.

• Pinyon Management Framework Plan, Cedar City Field Office.

• Randolph Management Framework Plan, Salt Lake Field Office.

• St. George Resource Management Plan, St. George Field Office.

• Vermillion Management Framework Plan, Kanab Field Office.

• Zion Management Framework Plan, Kanab Field Office

---

E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com