Lake Tamarisk residents ask Riverside County to require a 1-mile buffer, citing threats from large Easley Solar project

Multiple residents of the Desert Center and Lake Tamarisk area urged Riverside County supervisors to impose stronger siting conditions on the proposed Easley Solar Project during public comment on April 2.

Theresa Pierce, representing the Active Communities of Desert Center, said the proposed Easley project by Intercept Power would occupy approximately 37,000 acres of federal and private land and come within 100 feet of Lake Tamarisk. She told the board the project as proposed would isolate Lake Tamarisk "into an industrial sea of solar panels" and said her community had petitioned for a five-mile buffer more than 18 months earlier without receiving a response. The group offered a compromise 'Respect Lake Tamarisk' alternative that calls for a 1-mile buffer, a stricter fugitive-dust plan and an aquifer conservation plan.

Mark Carrington, also representing the community group, told supervisors that Riverside County controls conditional and public-use permits for the project and therefore can require design changes. He argued that the Lake Tamarisk alternative would allow renewable energy goals to continue while protecting the unincorporated community’s health and welfare, and said other developers could meet the stronger conditions if Intercept Power would not.

Vicky Buckland added that the governor’s environmental leadership certification (an expedited CEQA-related process) does not remove the county’s permit authority and invited supervisors to visit Lake Tamarisk to see the visual and ecological differences between a one-mile and a half-mile buffer. She said a one-mile setback changes the project perspective and reduces impacts on wildlife and the community.

Supervisor Perez asked whether speakers knew the area had been included in a state expedited review process; the speaker said she opposed that state-level decision. Board members acknowledged the tension between statewide clean-energy goals and local impacts; no formal county permit decision on the Easley project was made at the meeting. Instead, the board heard the public comments and indicated staff would follow up as part of the permitting and CEQA processes.

What happens next: the county’s land-use and environmental review processes—potentially including CEQA and permit conditions imposed through conditional-use permits—will determine the project’s local requirements. Residents asked the board to require the 1-mile buffer and added mitigation measures as conditions of any county approvals.