Striking a Balance
In the summer of 1965, Johanna Wald stood next to her husband at the foot of a 2,100-year-old giant sequoia, holding their infant daughter. They were visiting Yosemite National Park in California for the first time and were among the tourists gathered around the Wawona Tree, famous for the tunnel cut out of its trunk that allowed cars to pass through. Wald remembers overhearing an elderly woman standing nearby, telling a story to her own family about how, as a young child, she passed through that very tree in a horse-drawn wagon.
"That was when I fully understood the kind of bond people could have with a place," recalls Wald, who is now a senior attorney with NRDC's land program in San Francisco.
Wald began her long career in 1972, joining NRDC in its first West Coast office in Palo Alto, California, soon after completing Yale Law School. As an advocate for protecting federal public lands in the American West, she has prevented oil and gas drilling off California's coast and successfully sued the second Bush administration for its proposed lease-sale of more than 100,000 acres of Utah's Redrock wilderness for oil and gas extraction. But a few years ago, the focus of her work took a distinct turn, challenging her environmental values in ways she never imagined.
She discovered that hundreds of applications for large-scale renewable energy projects, like solar farms, had been filed with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) by developers. These projects would cover thousands of acres and require the construction of new transmission lines, many in areas untouched by development. It was also becoming increasingly apparent that climate change could dramatically transform the wild lands she had spent her life protecting.
"Everything I had been working for was at risk from one of those things: climate change or this relatively new threat, poorly sited energy projects," Wald says. Soon she began working full-time on establishing methods for identifying the best places to develop large-scale renewable energy projects in the West, knowing that these were necessary to "make a significant dent in our greenhouse gas emissions."
Wald now works with other environmental groups, government agencies, and developers to identify areas where the least environmental impact would occur. "In the beginning, I lost sleep," Wald admits. "I was trying to go from someone who thought of herself as a protector to someone advocating for utility-scale projects. It's been very challenging."
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the BLM have designated areas where development is restricted, such as critical habitat for endangered species. But different agencies manage different territory with varying levels of protection, making siting complicated.
Last year, the Obama administration issued permits for six large solar energy projects in California. While each project will take several years to complete, Wald and others continue to work with the BLM to develop criteria and designate specific zones appropriate for development. NRDC has also created an online GIS mapping tool that clearly identifies restricted areas and highlights sensitive land that should be off-limits.
In the midst of her job's new challenges and complexities, Wald's love of western landscapes sustains her. She recalls a moment in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park when she spotted a moose standing in a river, its antlers strung with vegetation and dripping with water. "I can still close my eyes and see that place today," she says. Her job is to make sure others will have the chance to witness similar wonders.
