Conservation groups partially prevailed in a protest against the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) final environmental impact statement for the Greenlink North Transmission Project.
BLM denied in part the proposed 525-kilovolt transmission line running from Ely, NV, to near Yerington, NV. Greenlink North was the third phase of a statewide transmission system planned by NV Energy, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.
Protesters argued the project violated 2015 greater sage-grouse land-use plans by cutting through priority and general habitat areas outside designated utility corridors. Western Watersheds Project and others also cited failures to evaluate visual resource impacts across 21,000 acres.
“Instead of conforming to the existing resource management plans across central Nevada, BLM is pushing to amend plans and ram this huge transmission project through important sage-grouse areas,” said Laura Cunningham, California director of Western Watersheds Project.
