Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan Map (Nov 2015). Figure 3, DRECP LUPA Executive Summary.

On November 10^th, California took an essential step towards reaching its ambitious mandate for 50% clean energy by 2030: the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and partner organizations released the updated Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. The plan aims to facilitate sustainable and responsible renewable energy development on public lands in the California desert – an area spanning more than 22 million acres, some of which has already been set aside for conservation and recreation and is managed by the National Park Service. To be successful, the plan must balance conservation of fragile desert ecosystems with renewable energy installations.
In the age of global climate change, addressing the rampant use of fossil fuels is an urgent challenge facing the United States. The US has among the highest emissions of Carbon Dioxide in the world – a statistic that feels daunting for US residents living their day-to-day lives. California is showing the country that acting on challenging issues like global warming is do-able. And, surprisingly, the updated version of the plan the BLM just released is sparking less controversy than other renewable energy projects in remote sites have.

Historically, there’s been tension between land conservation and energy development. On one hand, there’s an urgent need for clean energy sites and public undeveloped land provides abundant space for wind and solar operations.

On the other, being wary of government driven development is justified. Even well intentioned developments like clean energy projects could threaten the resiliency of fragile ecosystems. What’s more, development projects in public lands often neglect the cultural interests and wellbeing of local residents. Previous solar installations in the Mojave Desert – an area that’s now included in the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan – have damaged desert land that’s sacred to the Colorado River Tribes.

The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan hasn’t entirely avoided these pitfalls. Indigenous land rights advocates and wildlife conservation groups like the Center for Biological Diversity are still concerned with degradation of unique and fragile ecosystems in the western Mojave region. Alternately, some renewable energy advocates are disappointed with limited space allocated to wind turbines. For the plan to be successful, the BLM and its partner organizations must address these concerns moving forward. But aside from the criticism in the western Mojave region, the updated plan has received mostly positive responses ranging from local governments all the way to national environmental organizations. This is a major accomplishment given the scale of the proposal, which begs the question: what has the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation plan done differently than similar (and less successful) land management proposals?

The answer lies in two primary distinctions: the project’s landscape level approach and the planning organizations’ responses to feedback. The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation plan maps out many different land use guidelines (development, recreation, conservation) over an extensive area. This approach to land management is uncommon, and initially caused substantial pushback at the municipality level since local interests weren’t being met. However, the BLM asked for feedback on the initial version of the plan that was released in early 2015 and the concerns raised were weighted heavily in the revisions. By bridging a rough landscape level approach with local input, the BLM has created a cohesive, long-term plan for the region that meets a range of stakeholder needs.

The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation plan provides an example of successful public land management that balances ecosystem and cultural preservation with renewable energy installation. The success the plan, of course, rests on the BLM’s continued willingness to accept and incorporate local feedback – like that of the western Mojave indigenous communities – while maintaining a landscape level management plan. To address climate change as a nation, other states need to follow California’s example and take more serious steps in the transition to clean energy. Fortunately, the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation plan provides an innovative roadmap to balancing preserving natural space and utilizing public resources for sustainable energy harvest.

Precision agriculture uses sensors to tell farmers which parts of a field really need attention, so they can use fertilizer more efficiently. These false-color maps were created using the Daedalus sensor. Photo credit: NASA (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daedelus_comparison,_remote_sensing_in_precision_farming.jpg#file)

In 2014, Lake Erie experienced an algae bloom so massive, and so toxic that for three days residents of Toledo were stuck using bottled water for everything from drinking to washing dishes. The toxins the algae produce are often fatal to pets and wildlife, and can cause human health problems, including skin rashes, gastrointestinal illness, liver damage, and even death. While scientists know exposure to high levels of algae pose health threats, little is known about what problems a lifetime of small doses could cause. A less toxic, but much larger bloom occurred in 2015, the largest Lake Erie has suffered since 2002, when scientists first started taking measurements. The proliferation of toxic algae was so bad, in fact, that it registered a 10.5 on the Lake Erie Severity Index. The scale used to only go from 0 to 10. A score of 5 on the scale, which measures the levels of algae, is already considered cause for concern.

These toxic algae, called cyanobacteria, are able to grow mainly because of influxes of fertilizer. Nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer runs off into streams, which then feed the algal blooms, especially in warm weather. The blooms not only make the water undrinkable but also deplete the water oxygen level and ruin the water’s aesthetic and recreational value.

Lake Erie is well publicized as an algae problem area, but it is hardly the only place suffering. The Willamette and Klamath Rivers in Oregon, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Chesapeake Bay all suffer from nutrient pollution. Toledo has a system for filtering out the algae and toxins, but the system works best if the algae bloom is caught early and using the filtration equipment costs thousands of dollars per day. To achieve real improvements, we need to think big picture and go back to the source.

Curtailing fertilizer use is hard, because modern agriculture is dependent on synthetic fertilizers. Fertilizers have dramatically increased the amount of food that can be produced on a given amount of land, and some people question whether agriculture that uses no synthetic fertilizer can feed the world. Considering the amount of food people waste in the US and Canada, it is worth questioning this logic. Also, since the phosphorus in artificial fertilizer has to be mined, we should reconsider our dependence on a non-renewable source of phosphorus when we could be using a renewable source like compost or manure. Still, the type of fertilizer is a minor concern as compared with the amounts.  Today, farmers use twice as phosphorus fertilizer and five times as much fertilizer as they did in the 1960s. And, as every bloom reminds us, much of that fertilizer washes away before it can feed a plant.

Fortunately, there are answers. Studies from a test farm at the Kellogg Biological station show that a “conventional” farm, one that uses only synthetic fertilizer, loses half of its fertilizer to runoff. The same farm only lost a third that amount of its nutrients when cultivated organically, but saw a 20% drop in crop yield. However, a third plot that was grown primarily organically and built up nutrients using cover crops, but which also received small inputs of fertilizer to make up for deficits had almost exactly the same yield as the conventional plot and also lost less fertilizer. A blended approach could be a real help to both productivity and environmental health. Another study showed that adding more diversity to crop rotations could preserve soil nutrients.

Another important strategy involves “precision agriculture.” Farmers sometimes overuse fertilizer because keeping track of how much each part of a farm needs is time consuming. People sometimes just add more, preferring to add too much than too little. Precision agriculture refers to a bundle of techniques that use sensors to monitor various factors in soil like pH, moisture, and nutrient levels. Software organizes the data collected into color-coded maps, which tell farmers which parts of a field need what resources. The data can even be fed directly into a fertilizer spreader machine, which will apply just the right amount of fertilizer in each place.

Let’s be clear here: the phosphorus that runs off the field isn’t feeding anyone but the algae. Not only are we over-using and depleting our stores of phosphorus, we’re letting that excess phosphorus destroy another resource: our fresh water lakes. These new tools can protect Lake Erie, the Chesapeake, and other places we love and depend on. Whatever fertilizer we end up using, we should at least make sure it’s going where it should go: into our crops, not our water.

In the scant three seasons since Leah Penniman and her partner, Jonah Vitale-Wolff, started Soul Fire Farm, their team of dedicated volunteers has delivered nearly 4,000 boxes of fresh produce directly to families throughout upstate New York. They have collaborated with Albany County to help justice-involved teens, often young men of color charged with minor nonviolent offenses, learn farm skills and earn money for restitution instead of spending time in jail. The free workshops they offer to youth groups about food justice, civil rights, and the environment? Consistently full for the entire year of 2015.

Participants in Soul Fire Farm’s Black and Latino Farmers’ Immersion program. Photo by Capers Rumph.

So when Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) would commit $34.4 million to revitalizing local food systems last month, Soul Fire Farm seemed a perfect candidate. As an organization with no major donors and no paid staff members, their team is approaching limits of capacity that even the fiercest conviction can’t overcome. Yet despite Soul Fire’s vital contributions to local food sovereignty and their growing need for support, the new USDA grants seemed out of reach.

“Dealing with these grants is a full-time job, and I already have a full-time job doing the work on the ground,” says Vitale-Wolff, who participated in one information session before realizing the USDA program was more than he and Penniman could take on.

Applying for federal support is a cumbersome process that requires fluency in bureaucratic language, assistance from experts, and most of all, time. Months of work can go into writing a grant, followed by months of waiting with no guaranteed return. With these odds, grant writing tends to favor well-staffed, financially secure organizations that can afford to take such a risk. For farmers, educators, and organizers, navigating the world of grant writing even once can be a significant drain on already scarce resources – and it’s not uncommon to go through this process between 3 and 8 times before seeing success.

But this uneven distribution of resources is not just about individual grants: it’s also about the inequalities of land and wealth woven into the fabric of our nation’s history. Between 1910 and 1998, the number of land-owning African-American farmers plummeted by 200,000. This decline, though clearly tied to the emergence of a Jim Crow economy, has been spurred by institutional biases that continue to shape our agricultural landscape today – including countless cases of racist lending practices filed against the USDA itself.

For Penniman and Vitale-Wolff, the role of their work in unraveling centuries of discrimination is clear. Though admittedly small-scale, their programs critically consider the root causes of unequal food access, and the duo explicitly offer Soul Fire Farm as a space where people of color and women can develop as leaders in deep relationship with the land.

Soul Fire Farm is just one drop in a rising tide of community-driven food sovereignty projects poised to make their mark on these legacies of injustice. But they should not have to do this work alone. While marginalized groups can implement internal solutions to close the resource gap – like community land trusts and reduced-price produce shares – it is time for American agriculture to reckon with its moral debts. It is time to cooperate with, compensate, and actively create opportunities for the disenfranchised in our food system, particularly farmers of color.

If the US government really wants to equalize access to healthy, affordable, and ecologically sustainable food, entities like the USDA need to offer genuine support to community-driven initiatives, while seriously considering how to redress historical and contemporary injustice. From small-scale grant programs Secretary Vilsack announced last month to the multi-billion dollar subsidies paid to industrial farms each year, the USDA needs to place racial justice at the center of its policies on land and food.

The future of thriving local food economies – and the strong communities they create – depends on it.

1st Massachusetts Monument at Sunset, Gettysburg National Military Park

If you’ve ever been to Gettysburg National Military Park, you’ve experienced the impact of one of the United States’ most effective and unique conservation programs. Any textbook can tell you what battles were fought here, and what speeches were given, but standing on a field staring out across the landscape where thousands of men died creates a unique bond to history, one that a textbook can’t even hope to replicate. It’s an educational and highly emotional experience, one that’s only possible because of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Fifty years ago, Congress created the fund to utilize royalties paid by energy companies for extracting fossil fuels in order to protect open land and heritage sites. Since that time, the fund has purchased and protected thousands of acres of land from development, including historic sites like Gettysburg. In theory, the fund can receive up to 900 million dollars each year; in recent years, legislators have allocated a fraction of this, sometimes less than $100 million. On September 30th, Congress allowed funding for the LWCF to expire completely. In squabbling over how we spend these dollars, not a dime of which comes from the taxpayer, Congress has placed our country’s heritage and unprotected open space in jeopardy.

Gettysburg is a famous name, but the Land and Water Conservation Fund has helped create public parks and preserve open spaces in every single county in the United States. The fund has provided over five and a half billion dollars to protect open space, endangered species, and cultural heritage since its creation in 1964. In New York, a child might learn to throw a baseball on a field preserved by the fund at the Gateway National Recreation Area while in Nevada, a researcher might make a breakthrough in fish ecology at Desert National Wildlife Refuge. These projects, both supported by the LWCF, are about more than just preserving open space; they’re about giving future generations the opportunity to experience and learn about the world around us.

They’re also a way to come to terms with a complicated history. Gateway National Recreation Area preserves sites like Fort Hancock and Fort Wadsworth, creating a recreation area from what might otherwise have been the crumbling ruins of the 18^th and 19^th-century forts that protected New York Harbor. These sites prevent us from creating an idealized past in which our predecessors got everything right, and instead force us to confront what we want our country to be. At Gateway National Recreation Area, the Revolutionary War isn’t a victory by plucky Americans over a faceless foe, it’s a place where George Washington scrambled to place troops, miscalculated, and nearly lost New York to British forces. In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the fund contributed ten million dollars to memorialize those who died on Flight 93 on September 11th, ensuring that site would remain protected for generations to come. These are heavy responsibilities, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund has upheld them. Until now.

The future of land acquisitions like these is in jeopardy. In 2016, the fund can support the purchase of another parcel of land at Gettysburg. It’s called McAllister’s Mill, and it’s the only Underground Railroad site in Gettysburg. Without the fund, this site might be bulldozed as part of the development springing up around the park. With the fund’s help, the United States has an important opportunity to further confront America’s racial history and connect it to the battles and speeches of the Civil War. By allowing the Land and Water Conservation Fund to expire, however, legislators have put American heritage and open space in grave danger of disappearing.

According to the National Park Service, McAllister’s Mill is just one of many sites on the backlogged Federal acquisitions list. To protect them all would take up to 30 billion dollars– or 34 years of a fully funded Land and Water Conservation Fund. We will not have this opportunity again, and we will not have these lands for long. The United States loses nearly six thousand acres of open space each day to construction and development. Right now, lawmakers have a chance to hold on to something incredible– the ability to protect these spaces before they disappear forever. Legislators on both sides of the aisle must act to renew and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and they must do so now.