Construction Photos
June 16, 2023 - Pahrump, NV - Various photos of the Yellow Pine Solar Project under construction. We took these photos in late 2022 and into 2023. What was once rich, intact, old-growth Mojave Desert scrub on ancient desert soils, with fields of phacelias and other wildflowers during rainy springs, this is now a highly impacted and fragmented, disturbed landscape. Dust rises from the disturbed soils and water trucks are used to try to suppress the dust.
^Water truck spraying a new dirt construction perimeter road in the Right of Way, for dust suppression.
^Water truck.
^Construction of the solar field piers.
^Piers to hold the photovoltaic panels are drilled into the delicate desert soil, creosote bushes are crushed and driven over, and Mojave yuccas kocked down and flattened by construction machinery.
^The Drive and Crush method was used during construction, where piers are drilled into the desert over thousands of acres. This breaks natural desert pavement rock surfaces and destroys biological soil crusts, resulting in dust release and particuate air quality impacts during windy days.
^The project site before consruction duritng a rainy spring, with intact desert pavement soil surface and lilac sunbonnets in bloom. This has been destroyed.
^Crushed desert vegetation and yuccas pushed down in the solar field with piers.
^Bulldozer.
^Drone view outside of the Right of Way looking down on the solar field under construction. Photovoltaic panels are being mounted onto the piers.
^New substation under construction at the Yellow Pine Solar Project site, with a large gen-tie line connecting to the Gridliance line.
^New substation at the Yellow Pine Solar Project.
^Only a few islands of creosote and bursage remain in the solar field under construction.
^Drive and crush solar project construction methods leave little intact ecosystems behind.
^This is no longer an intact landscape.
^Photovoltaic panels are placed onto the piers.
^Photovoltaic panels placed on the peirs. All photos were taken outside of the solar project Right of Way, through the chainlink fence with telephoto cameras.
^Water truck at Yellow Pine Solar Project during construction.
