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2. Importance placed on the
resource in the land use plan.
Development within the SEZ
will likely not conform to the
current Las Vegas RMP VRM
Class III objective and will need
amending to allow for a greater
degree of visual change. The
SEZ will likely become the
dominant unnatural visual
feature within the Dry Lake
Valley as new solar energy
facilities are constructed over
the life of the SEZ. This degree
of visual change was not
anticipated in the Las Vegas
RMP (BLM 1998) and will
necessitate a rebalancing of the
management of visual resource
values.
3. Scarcity of the visual values
at the regional scale. The
SEZ is located within an area
inventoried as Scenic Quality C
and represents 43% percent of
the Mojave Desert ecoregion,
which would be considered
a regionally common visual
value. However, it is paired with
high public sensitivity and is
within the visually exposed
Foreground/Middle-Ground
distance zone.
4. Resilience in the face of
change. The landscape
character where the SEZ is
located is not conducive to
visually absorbing the proposed
scale of solar development
from where people commonly
view the landscape, leading
to the conclusion that there
would be no resiliency while
the SEZ is fully operational. The
landscape the SEZ is located
within is also very difficult to
successfully revegetate. A longterm
visual footprint will likely
be left behind and remain over
a significant period of time after
the SEZ is decommissioned,
indicating a low visual
resilience.
It is recommended that the
values lost be recovered elsewhere
through regional mitigation, in
consideration of (1) the present and
future change to the landscape’s
natural character; (2) the SEZ being
located in the foreground of a
visually sensitive landscape; (3)
the visual change anticipated to
occur within the SEZ being more
visually dominant than what was
foreseen within the Las Vegas RMP;
and (4) the low resilience of the
landscape during SEZ operation
and post-decommissioning.
When factoring the commonality
of Scenic Quality C and an
indicator of low scenic quality, the
recommendation for achieving the
goal for restoring and/or protecting
the visual resource values altered
by development of the SEZ should
be pursued through a combined
approach, incorporating the stated
visual objective into the planning
and implementation of the regional
mitigation goals and objectives for
ecosystem restoration.
This strategy identifies
the Gold Butte Area of Critical
Environmental Concern (ACEC)
as the recommended location for
regional mitigation of ecological
resource impacts. The visual values
within the Gold Butte ACEC are
higher than those of the Dry Lake
SEZ, which provides opportunity for
enhancement or preservation of an
area regarded as having high visual
resource value in combination with
high ecological resource value.
2.6.2 Recommended Mitigation Location
- Gold Butte Area Visual Resource Values
The visual resource regional
mitigation objective calls to “restore
and/or protect visual resource
values proportionate to expected
impacts.” Offsetting expected
impacts that are proportionate
implies an opportunity for making
acreage adjustments if the resource
value lost is replaced with resources
of higher value (see SRMS Tech
Reference, Appendix F).
If ecological restoration and
preservation activities were to
occur at the Gold Butte ACEC,
examination of the visual resource
values inventoried within the ACEC
will provide insight on locations
and will also lead to a combined
opportunity for recovering visual
values that are equal to or greater
in value to those reduced at the Dry
Lake SEZ. These locations would
also likely have an increase in public
benefit.
2.6.2.1 Visual Resource
Inventory Classes.
There is a mix of VRI Class I,
II, and III within the Gold Butte
ACEC, with VRI Class II representing
approximately 70 percent of the
area (Figure 7). The Dry Lake SEZ
is located within a VRI Class III
and IV area. The majority of the
Gold Butte ACEC has higher visual
resource values indicating that any
resource restoration that visually
complements the landscape will
likely have a higher public benefit in
exchange for the reduction in visual
values at the Dry Lake SEZ.
70 • REGIONAL MITIGATION STRATEGY FOR THE DRY LAKE SOLAR ENERGY ZONE • TECHNICAL NOTE 444