By Bill Helmer
A 500 MW solar project called the Bonanza Peak Solar Project is being proposed to go in the Charleston View Solar Energy Development Area (SEDA), an area generally approved for solar development in the 2015 Renewable Energy General Plan Amendment (REGPA) for Inyo County. Instead of an EIR, Inyo County has chosen to prepare an Addendum to the Programmatic EIR for the 11 year old REGPA, even though Addendums are only to be used for minor changes to an EIR. Addendums require no scoping, public hearings, draft documents, or public notices. There will only be a ten day period for the public to review the final Addendum before the Planning Commission makes a decision on whether to approve the Project.
From Inyo County Board of Supervisors November 4, 2025 agenda packet.
Whether one is for or against this Project, it is only appropriate to advocate for a full public review of a major industrial undertaking with significant new impacts in an area of national historic and cultural significance. CEQA Guidelines Section 15162(a)(3)(A)(B) state that a Subsequent EIR rather than an Addendum to a previously certified EIR must be used when:
(1) New information of substantial importance, which was not known and could not have been known with the exercise of reasonable diligence at the time the previous EIR was certified as complete or the Negative Declaration was adopted, shows any of the following:
(A) The project will have one or more significant effects not discussed in the previous EIR or negative declaration;
(B) Significant effects previously examined will be substantially more severe than shown in the previous EIR;
The Programmatic EIR for the REGPA did not specifically analyze visual impacts, historic integrity, and cumulative significant impacts for the Old Spanish National Historic Trail (OSNHT). Significant adverse effects of the OSNHT were either ignored or very generally analyzed, glossing over the severity of the impacts to this unique historic resource. The Project site overlaps the location of the former, proposed Hidden Hills Solar Electric Generating System (HHSEGS), which was withdrawn by the developer in 2015 in part due to its significant and unavoidable impacts to environmental, cultural, and historic resources, including impacts to the Old Spanish National Historic Trail. Most of the significant impacts of the Hidden Hills concentrated solar power project are still present with the photovoltaic Bonanza Peak Solar Project.
The issue now is not whether the Project should be approved, but whether Inyo County needs to adhere to the appropriate provisions of CEQA so that the public can provide meaningful input for a Project with significant impacts. Even though the application for the Project was submitted nearly two years ago in July 2024, there still is no mention of the Bonanza Peak Solar Project on the Inyo County Planning Department website.
Policy Gov-2.3 as adopted by the Board of Supervisors with the Final REGPA must be followed: Public Involvement: The County shall provide the opportunity for the public to engage in the planning process at the onset of any renewable energy solar facility project and for all other large or potentially controversial projects applied for in the County (3-24-2015).
The solar developers gave a presentation about the Project at the Inyo County Board of Supervisors meeting in Tecopa on November 4, 2025. This meeting, and two previous meetings before the Board of Supervisors in late 2024, were informal presentations by developer representatives that were not very well publicized and also were not scoping meetings which solicited formal comments from the public as part of the CEQA Environmental Impact Report process. Full “engagement in the planning process” for major projects is conducted through an Environmental Impact Report, not an Addendum.
Please contact the Inyo County Planning Department, the Planning Commission, and the Board of Supervisors to express your opinion.