Challenges to Constructing a Solar Farm and Crushing Dust and Restoring Rancho Seco in the Western Mojave Desert

摘要

The arid desert of the southwestern United States (US) experiences frequent dust problems that can lead to PM_(10) violations. Blowing dust is one of the major air quality problems of the arid desert. From 1992 through the present, a group of research scientists, the Dustbuster Research Group (DRG or Dustbusters), have been investigating techniques and developing methods for mitigating the windblown dust in the Mojave Desert and more specifically the Antelope Valley near Palmdale and Lancaster, California. Wind blown dust had worsened since the most recent drought began in 2012. Instead of an annual average seven inches of precipitation, less than two inches of annual precipitation has fallen beginning in 2012. This minimizes weedy annual vegetation in the spring windy season. Compounding this problem is the recent solar farm developments in the deserts. Thousands of acres have been disturbed and have led to more areas of blowing sand in a saltating domino effect. However, in the winter of 2016-2017 precipitation approached normal. But once again, in the winter of 2017-2018, winter rains were nearly nonexistent. Finally, in the winter of 2018-2019, for the first time since 2011, winter rains have been above normal in the western Mojave Desert. Honda closed their track in 2010. However, they reopened it in April 2016, spending $30 million to renovate the Honda Proving Center (HPC). This paper updates the status of the USDA NRCS EWP program to stabilize and restore Rancho Seco. We also discuss the construction challenges associated with the newly created 900-acre solar farm immediately west of Rancho Seco. These plans focus on the latest plans to address approximately 300,000 cubic yards of unwanted "beach" sand plaguing the northern Fremont Valley. This area is home to HPC, the towns of Rancho Seco and Cantil and recently several utility scale photovoltaic solar farms. To aid solar farm construction companies and others, three user-friendly guidebooks addressing how-to dust mitigation solutions for a variety of problem areas were published in June 2011. These publications are geared for homeowners, farmers and large area land managers. Already, dust mitigation measures resulting from this 25+ year Dustbuster program are being successfully implemented in the western Mojave Desert and elsewhere.