BLM advisory council tours county sites

Members of an advisory committee to the Bureau of Land Management toured sites in Churchill County on Thursday to gain further understanding of how public lands and resources are managed in Nevada.

The 15-member Resource Advisory Council, comprised of academic, business and public representatives, drove from Carson City and visited the Stillwater Geothermal Plant and Sand Mountain Recreation Area.

At the Stillwater Geothermal Plant, the group first visited an injection well, which pumps cooled geothermal water back into the ground. Brad Pratt, representative from Enel North America, explained to the group the details of the production wells, the amount of power generated from them and the reasons behind the placement of injection wells.

The production well at Stillwater Geothermal, first drilled in 1988, cost about $1.3 million - a figure which is doubled these days, Pratt said. Two dozen landowners in the area receive royalties for having the geothermal plant resources snake on or below their properties.

The geothermal plant uses about 25 percent of the power it generates and sells the remainder to Sierra Pacific Power Company.

Enel North America, which purchased the geothermal plant from Ormat, plans to build new plants next year at Salt Wells and on 240 acres adjacent to the existing plant in Stillwater.

Following the geothermal plant tour, the advisory council traveled out to Sand Mountain to hear how the recently adopted conservation plan is being implemented.

As the group ate lunch, Desna Young, planning environmental coordinator and recreation planner for the BLM, briefed the council on current figures for the popular recreation site.

Since October 2006, Sand Mountain has had 28,000 visitors - with more than half the visitors from out of state, mainly California. Young said the area has seen an increase of visitors on "off" or non-holiday weekends and is taking in nearly $10,000 per weekend.

The Sand Mountain Conservation Plan was initially implemented March 15 with the closure of certain trails on the vegetated portion of the recreation area. Limiting travel around the Kearney buckwheat, the host habitat for the Sand Mountain Blue Butterfly, is hoped to mitigate further environmental impact and prevent the butterfly from being listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Richard Hilton, president of the Friends of Sand Mountain non-profit group, argued with Young that the final maps produced are wrong and that cattle on the surrounding range trample the buckwheat. The Friends of Sand Mountain participated in the three-year working group which produced the conservation plan.

The USFWS will publish the finding on the status of the butterfly in the Federal Register by April 26.

Young said the BLM hopes to complete erecting signs along approved routes by Thanksgiving.