MARK WAITE / PVT Amargosa Valley Town Board Chairman Jan Cameron, at right, clutches a map outlining the types of land uses permitted in the area plan. RELATED STORIES Amargosa Valley businesses open fire 30-day comment period begins for Solar Millenium Advertisement

AMARGOSA VALLEY -- Ryan Corrigan, a resident on Sandy Lane, said he isn't against solar energy.

He just doesn't want rows of reflective mirrors 23 feet in diameter heating oil to 750 degrees right down the street from his house, which are what Solar Millenium plans to build to power two 250-megawatt solar power plants in the valley.

"That's the diameter. Then they sit on top of a rack so they'll extend 30 feet in the air," Corrigan said. "That's twice the size of the mirrors in Boulder (City). Imagine 4,350 acres of those mirrors."

Corrigan said Solar Millenium plans to heat the oil hotter, though he couldn't find out specifics from the company. "They'll have miles of heated pipe across which the wind is going to blow, and I'm not an engineer, I'm an accountant. But common sense tells me that's like a convection oven."

Companies should think about locating solar projects, like the solar energy zone announced by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada last week, on Highway 95, he said.

A line in the sand is being drawn to provide some distance between residences in Amargosa Valley and the numerous solar plants proposed.

Corrigan already persuaded Amargosa Valley town officials to draw in a half-mile buffer between his residential area on Sandy Lane and an area designated in the northern part of the proposed Amargosa Valley area plan as a special development zone.

Companies locating in that zone would be required to sign development agreements with the town of Amargosa Valley and the Nye County Commission before building solar power plants.

The Amargosa Valley Planning Committee and the town board, meeting jointly last Wednesday night, decided to establish a quarter-mile buffer zone between the rest of the town and the possible industrial area to the north.

The buffer area will be zoned open space, parks and trails.

"You want to be part of the process. You want them to come, but you want them to come in a way that won't impact the community," Amargosa Town Board Chairman Jan Cameron said.

Area Plan Committee Chairman Dave Hall was the first to suggest a quarter-mile (1,320-foot) buffer from the special development area. Shelia Rau said that would be a good compromise.

Rau said it would be helpful if the town saw the plans for Solar Millenium. The company could locate office space closer to residences and mirrors in the back.

Rau emphasized adopting a plan that would achieve a consensus. The Amargosa Valley area plan will soon be up for adoption by the Nye County Commission.

"I think a half-mile is way too much because we could kill another industry such as IMV Nevada, such as Funeral Mountain Ranch," Rau said.

Town board member Curt Stengel said a quarter mile is something Las Vegas might impose to separate a bar from a school. But Amargosa Valley has to have some measurement for a buffer, he said.

Stengel said it could depend on what type of industry might locate in the zone.

Town board member Aaron Lynn suggested buffer zones could be negotiated in development agreements with individual companies before they build.

But Cameron said the adoption of an area plan would be something the U.S. Bureau of Land Management would be required to look at before authorizing projects on public land, which includes parts of Amargosa Valley where solar projects are planned.

"If we have no plan, they can do whatever they want with no input from the community whatsoever," Cameron said.

Amargosa Valley has an estimated 1,390 residents. Corrigan had his own predictions for the future if some of the solar power projects planned come to fruition.

"My prediction is within five years there will be 6,000 to 10,000 people in Amargosa Valley and a lot more in Pahrump. Solar Millenium is going to have 2,000 workers on just their plant," he said. "This is going to be, I think, a 10- to 20-year buildout. They'll have construction workers in here forever.

"Then people say they don't want to plan what they want to do with their city? And they were going to put this thing extending right down into our main east-west corridor."