Draft plan amendment & draft environmental impact statement, environmental impact report for the Alta East Wind Project

Granite Wind LLC, the Applicant, is proposing to develop an up to 84-megawatt wind energy plant and associated facilities on about 100 acres within a larger 2,756-acre area that includes 2,086 acres of public lands administered by the BLM Barstow Field Office and 670 acres of privately-owned land under the County of San Bernardino land-use jurisdiction. The site of the Proposed Action is located on unincorporated land in the Mojave Desert, approximately six miles east of the Town of Apple Valley and five miles northwest of the unincorporated community of Lucerne Valley, on the central ridge of the Granite Mountains. Also included in the proposal are a new access road to the project site, a new transmission line from the project site to an existing 220kV Southern California Edison (SCE) transmission line located in a utility corridor east of the site, and a new approximately 10-acre electrical substation (Jasper Substation) at the site of the SCE interconnection. In addition, the proposal includes an amendment to the CDCA Plan that would designate the proposed site as suitable for wind energy generation and allow for Siting of approximately 1 mile of the new 3.2-to 4.7-mile transmission line from the project site to be located outside of a utility corridor.