RECAP: Morongo Basin Conservation Association Annual Meeting 2025
Rooftop solar, storage batteries, and wildlife advocacy among the topics discussed
The Morongo Basin Conservation Association’s (MBCA)1 Annual Meeting was held at the Yucca Valley Community Center on January 25, 2025. Highlights of the meeting included an extended lecture on private utility pressure on rooftop solar, public land and wildlife advocacy, and the potential for wildlife crossings on Highway 62.
Against the backdrop of refreshments and information tables, President Steve Bardwell warmed up the crowd with short videos highlighting the Desert-Wise Living Landscape Tour, which will be held this year on Sunday, April 27. Tour sites focus on low water use, native plants, and innovative approaches to outdoor living in the Mojave.
Following land acknowledgments and introductions, President Bardwell delivered status updates on MBCA’s current advocacy, including:
Cadiz Water Project and WEMO (West Mojave Route Network), a reminder that these two issues are still ongoing.
Development pressures: San Bernardino County Land Use Services subcontracts much of its work, leading to confusion such as discrepancies between zoning and land use maps. Currently there is no acting director of planning at San Bernardino County.
Dark Sky event: lighting workshop at Copper Mountain Mesa Community Center February 7, 6 pm.
Ongoing work on affordable housing including short-term rental (STR) impacts and homeless issues.
Board member Janet Johnston facilitating a field trip for La Contenta Middle School students to experience desert ecosystems and local job opportunities.
Three scholarships of $1,000 issued to high school students pursuing college degrees in conservation-related studies
President Bardwell urged the reinstatement of the defunct MAC (Municipal Advisory Council). Historically, the MAC held public meetings once a month and provided a forum for Joshua Tree, Wonder Valley, Landers, Flamingo Heights, Morongo Valley, and Pioneertown. As unincorporated areas, the MAC served as a conduit to San Bernardino County for these communities.
Debunking Myths about Rooftop Solar
In a data-jammed presentation, Bernadette Del Chiaro, Executive Director, California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA), debunked myths surrounding rooftop solar and privately held “public” utilities like Southern California Edison (SCE). Battery storage, demographics, and rates were also unpacked. She traced a direct line between recent legislative actions that have largely rolled back advancements made under Governors Schwarzenegger and Brown, and the concerted efforts being made by energy providers to create consumer dependance on industrial-scale energy sources.
Her presentation included pages from an industry guide for taking down rooftop solar, created by a trade organization/lobbying body that represents large U.S. investor-owned utilities. In this “call to action,” stakeholders were alerted of an urgent need to “proactively” address the threat of newly affordable solar, and rooftop solar is cited as “disruptive” to “investment returns”. A key strategy was denigrating rooftop solar and elevating the status of utility-scale solar. Also shared was a 2021 Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE partners with SCE in California) letter to the public encouraging higher energy use2 and a video aimed at California legislators, that among other things, painted solar as economically damaging to people of color.
Ms. Del Chiaro went on to explain oversights in regulatory language that make constructing new infrastructure far more profitable than the selling of energy itself. This incentivizes massive developments and long transmission lines, which lose power and exacerbate wildfire risk exponentially as distances increase.
Under new rule making adopted by California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), impractical conditions have been imposed on meter aggregation, which is a system whereby a single array can service multiple meters. Notably, aggregation has been a useful cost-reduction tool for facilities such as schools, hospitals, and farms. Furthermore, new solar consumers no longer enjoy the same benefits of crediting unused power back to the grid.
But in spite of gutted incentives, Ms. Del Chiaro concluded that rooftop solar will always be a winning investment for consumers simply because it gives everyone a piece of the sun’s free, continuous energy. Rooftop solar mitigates brown-outs by reducing grid pressure, and she illustrated how the highest tier hours of peak summer demand coincide with hours of maximum solar output. The uncertainties of increased power interruptions due to wildfire caution or hotter summers, and fluctuating grid energy costs coupled with lack of regulatory oversight, all make solar collection and storage a resilient idea. In the assessment of CALSSA, our energy mandates simply cannot be met without incorporating at least 30% in smaller scale applications. To achieve speed, cost, and minimized land disturbance, she closed by telling attendees, “To get where we need to go, we have to get California back on track with solar energy.”
Documents from the CALSSA “Solar is Essential” presentation can be viewed here.
Emergency Battery Backups
The meeting continued with MBCA Board Member Allan Songer offering practical advice about portable solar-powered generators for back-up power. The options he researched ranged from units capable of keeping phones and laptops charged, to larger capacity models that can operate appliances or water well pumps for limited periods. His presentation served as a reminder that there’s never a bad time for emergency preparedness, especially for the many Basin residents who live on dirt roads. Mr. Songer’s presentation underscored the previous speaker’s comments regarding new battery technology and breakthroughs in energy storage.
Common Ground Advocacy under a New Administration
Following Mr. Songer was Steve Blackledge, Senior Director, Environment America (EA). Environment America advocates for wildlife and public lands in both the state and federal arenas. Recently, Environment America provided regional advocates with organizational support for the designation of the Chuckwalla National Monument. He stated that one of the functions of Environment America is seeking out causes with pre-existing grassroots advocacy, then “leaning in” with EA’s familiarity of agency and legislative processes.
He then referred to the challenges to be faced with a new administration. Mr. Blackledge speculated that the first protections to come under scrutiny are likely to be the most recently designated, either as outright reversals, attached as conditions within spending bills, or as new provisions that render designations ineffectual. He anticipates a re-examination of “bedrock” principles, but sees many impactful, winnable issues on the road ahead. Highlighting past non-partisan successes with wildlife crossings and corridors, and citing as a model the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020, he reminded attendees to express their desires to lawmakers, particularly as constituents. Two bipartisan bills were tagged on his watch list of hopefuls: the Recovering America Wildlife Act and the Wildlife Movement through Partnership Act.
Mr. Blackledge circled back to solar energy, noting that “Rooftop does not change existing land use or fragile ecosystems,” making its use consistent with California’s 30 x 30 goals (conserving 30% of land and water by 2030). He added that by using solar in already built environments, the need for industrial scale facilities diminishes, and that point of use transmission greatly reduces the risk of sparks. To assist Environment America in their campaign to persuade corporations with large warehouses such as FedEx and Walmart to employ solar, he suggested visiting their website and chiming in.
Slides from his Challenges and Opportunities presentation can be seen here.
Potential Highway 62 Wildlife Crossings
Geary Hund, former Executive Director and current Board Member of the Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT), was the final speaker, with news of a potential opportunity to support wildlife in the Basin. Stressing that his announcement was very “early days,” he reported that MDLT was working toward realizing a 2021 Caltrans study recommending two wildlife overcrossings on Highway 62 at the Yucca and Morongo grades. Mr. Hund cautioned attendees that the path forward included a long arc of planning and approvals, but that he and Deputy Executive Director Cody Hanford are actively working with Caltrans on obtaining a planning grant from the state.
Mr. Hund pointed to the recent designation of Chuckwalla National Monument as a huge leap forward in establishing an interconnected system of protected lands stretching from Mexico to Canada, via our desert. Highway 62 bisects part of that system, the San Bernardino and Little San Bernardino Mountains, creating a significant impediment to wildlife movement. The crossings would be “incredibly important” in minimizing habitat fragmentation and assisting wildlife movement. In particular, it would ensure that two populations of mountain lions would remain connected, both part of an “evolutionarily significant unit” and currently proposed for protection.
The recorded meeting will be posted on the MBCA website and available in the first week of February.
Miriam Seger has been volunteering for MBCA’s Desert-Wise Living Landscape tours since 2012 and creates native plant content for their website.
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The Morongo Basin Conservation Association was established in 1969 and holds monthly meetings to discuss issues affecting the Morongo Basin. Every January, an annual meeting is held to review projects and achievements, and to hear invited speakers who are experts in their fields. The public is welcome at all meetings in person or by Zoom. The stated mission of MBCA is “to advocate and educate for a healthy desert environment which nurtures wildlands and supports our communities’ rural character, economic well-being, and culture.”
I didn't realize PG&E is in the Morongo Basin.