Blue oak (Quercus douglasii) woodlands in Coyote Creek: Image courtesy of CNPS
Sacramento — On Dec. 19, two environmental organizations, the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) and the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS), filed a lawsuit against the County of Sacramento for its recent approval of the Coyote Creek Agrivoltaic Ranch (CCAR) project in the rolling hills and grazing land of eastern Sacramento County between Prairie City SVRA and the Deer Creek Hills Preserve.
The groups cited “numerous deficiencies” in the project’s Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR), including failure to sufficiently address the potential impacts to two streams flowing into Deer Creek, a tributary of the Cosumnes River, the last Sierra Nevada watershed river without a major storage dam on it. They also pointed to the loss of 3,493 trees in the project incurred by “industrial-level repurposing” of the land.
DESRI, the owner of CCAR, describes the Coyote Creek Agrivoltaic Ranch as a “renewable energy project” that will “deliver significant economic and environmental benefits to Sacramento County and the greater region.” DESRI is an investor and operator of renewable energy projects across the United States.
In a statement, DESRI claims that “independent economic modeling” by Economic & Planning Systems (EPS) projects that construction activities and related purchases of local goods and services will inject more than $365 million into the Sacramento economy.
“A major share of these benefits will come from the project’s commitment to employ highly trained union labor. Construction of the solar and battery energy storage system (BESS) is expected to create up to 350 good-paying jobs during the buildout period,” the company stated.
“This project represents a significant investment in Sacramento County’s economy,” said William Risse, Director of Development at DESRI. “It will support new job creation and a resilient, skilled workforce while generating cost-effective and reliable power for the community.”
The Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce is backing the project, with Robert Heidt, President and CEO of the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce, claiming that projects like Coyote Creek “deliver lasting value for Sacramento County by generating millions in local investment and supporting hundreds of good-paying jobs.”
However, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit warned county officials ahead of the Nov. 18 Sacramento County Board of Supervisors vote that the report “is so deeply flawed that it is insufficient to support informed decision-making,” according to a press release from the two groups.
“The project site comprises 2,704 acres of the historic Barton Ranch, a property characterized by rolling hills, oak woodlands, grasslands, vernal pools, and seasonal wetlands,” the groups wrote. “Plans include a solar development area covering 1,412 acres, which would require permanent changes to the landscape, including the blasting and excavation of 1,461,000 cubic yards of earth and rock. The industrial-level repurposing of the land would result in the loss of 3,493 trees, many of which are mature blue oaks and heritage trees. The largest oak proposed for removal has a chest-height diameter of 67 inches and is estimated to be approximately 850 years old.”
“We’re talking about trees dating back to the time of Ghengis Khan and the Middle Ages—destroyed without appropriate due diligence and in conflict with the county’s own plans,” said CNPS Conservation Program Director Nick Jensen, referencing the multiple ways the project is out of compliance with the Sacramento County General Plan. Points of potential conflict include county plan elements concerning the placement of energy production and large-scale renewable energy facilities and replanting requirements for mitigation.
Echoing Jensen’s concerns about the project, ECOS Policy Analyst Luz Lim, stated, “But make no mistake, this is not a choice between clean energy or irreplaceable habitat. We all want and need appropriately planned clean energy for our county, but thanks to other projects underway, SMUD is already on track to fulfill its 2030 Zero Net Carbon Plan. Instead, and ironically, we’re potentially destroying thousands of oaks, which are one of nature’s most powerful tools to trap and sequester carbon.”
She said a single oak can sequester vast amounts of carbon each year and support as many as 300 different types of wildlife, making these native trees a “nature-based solution” to the impacts of climate change. Some ecologists also use the term “keystone species” to describe oaks, because of their disproportionately large impact on ecosystems.
In just one example of the FEIR’s deficiencies, the plan accounts for a 1:1 replacement of oak saplings for each mature oak removed, the advocates observed. In contrast, the Sacramento County General Plan calls for one tree seedling for each inch of trunk diameter removed—a total 79,126.40 inches, according to the Arborist’s report for the project.
In a November Sacramento Bee article, U.C. Berkeley integrative biology professor Todd Dawson, said the mitigation is “severely misaligned with the timescale to reestablish ‘mature’ trees and the woodlands they would compose,” and explained that blue oak acorns are hard to grow successfully, and that young trees often die from heat, drought or being eaten by wildlife.
“The project also represents potential and significant ecological impacts to two perennial streams feeding into Deer Creek and ultimately the Cosumnes River; multiple sensitive or endangered species, such as tricolored blackbird (Agelaius tricolor), burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia hypugaea), and American badger (Taxidea taxus); and 25% of the entire known occurrences of the rare western spiked rosinweed (Calycadenia spicata),” the groups pointed out.
The removal of trees required by the project could also possibly have an impact upon the struggling Chinook salmon populations on the Cosumnes watershed. The Cosumnes joins the Mokelumne River, a tributary of the San Joaquin River flows, after flowing through the Cosumnes River Preserve, home to more than 250 species of birds, over 40 fish species and more than 230 plant species. The preserve protects one of California’s last remaining un-dammed rivers and its associated ecosystems: wetlands, riparian oak forest, grasslands, and sloughs: https://www.cosumnes.org
The advocates noted that concern over the Coyote Creek project has “generated an outpouring” of local activism: “Hundreds of people showed up for the November Board of Supervisors vote to provide testimony. More than 150 people spoke at the meeting, and more than 900 provided written comments, with 95% opposed to the project.”
And it’s no wonder that so many people turned out for the meeting, said Carol Witham, an ecologist and representative of the local CNPS Sacramento Valley Chapter.
“Destroying high quality intact habitat that is home to some of the highest biodiversity and highest capacity for carbon sequestration in the county is unacceptable and sets a dangerous precedent for future development. One of the largest threats to biodiversity is climate change, the approval of projects like this makes efforts to reduce this threat a threat of its own,” Witham concluded.
Local Indian Tribes have also opposed the project. At the County Board meeting, Malissa Tayaba, vice chairperson of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, who has been a relentless opponent of the environmentally destructive Delta Tunnel project, voiced her opposition to that project before the Board of Supervisors.
“My tribe, along with other tribes in the region with ancestral connections to this location, voiced our concerns a multitude of times, to no avail,” Tayaba said. Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article312972193.html
In addition to the two environmental groups suing the County, the Wilton Rancheria Tribe has filed a lawsuit against the Coyote Creek project. The Tribe claims that the Board of Supervisors ignored cultural concerns in approving 1,412-acre solar farm, according to the Sacramento Business Journal: www.bizjournals.com/...
The lawsuit was filed at a time when the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that the tributaries to Deer Creek and the Cosumnes River feed into is in biggest-ever ecological crisis. While the salmon returns to the Sacramento River and its tributaries have been better this year than during the previous two years, the improved returns come after unprecedented three year closure of the commercial salmon fishery off the California coast and the third year of a complete closure of the main stem Sacramento to recreational fishing, due to the collapse of the Sacramento fall-run Chinook salmon population.
The Delta smelt, an indicator species that was once the most abundant fish in the estuary, has become functionally extinct in the wild. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has found not a single Delta smelt in its Fall Midwater Trawl survey throughout the Delta in 7 years: apps.wildlife.ca.gov/
Of course, other factors have contributed to the ecosystem crash, including toxics, pollution, upstream diversions, and the proliferation of invasive species, most recently the golden mussel infestation in Delta waters. But none figure more prominently in the crash than the water export regime that has reengineered the hydrology of the Delta to serve corporate agribusiness operators like the Resnicks, the largest orchard fruit growers in the world, who own hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Kern County and elsewhere.
Between 1967 and 2020, the state’s Fall Midwater Trawl abundance indices for striped bass, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, American shad, splittail and threadfin shad have declined by 99.7, 100, 99.96, 67.9, 100, and 95%, respectively, according to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
The charts in this May 2025 CDFW memo illustrate how dramatic the declines in Delta pelagic (open water) fish populations have been over the years: nrm.dfg.ca.gov/...
