BrightSource wants to trade land for fees (San Francisco)

BrightSource Energy may be allowed to pay a fee instead of buying more than 10,000 acres of land to move forward with a renewable energy project on environmentally sensitive desert in San Bernardino County.

Because BrightSource’s project will be built on territory inhabited by the desert tortoise, it is required to buy three times as much land as its project is on to offset its impact. For the 3,600-acre project, that would mean purchasing 10,800 acres of private land.

There are three other large, pending projects that also could be subject to the same rules. And that would mean no land left in the county for future development, said San Bernardino Couny Administrator Greg Devereaux — unless the land purchase is replaced by a fee.

“Not only does it take developable land out of productivity, it could be a detriment to the creation of renewables if they’re required to mitigate at that rate,” Devereaux said.

The County and Oakland-based BrightSource support an in-lieu fee that would allow the company to pay into a fund used for species protection, like fencing to keep endangered turtles in and predators out. The state just passed a law allowing the fee to replace the land purchases.

Read the full story in the San Francisco Business Times.