Construction crane installing a wind turbine on a hill with mountains in the background, wind turbines, and a clear blue sky.

Energy generation facilities such as solar fields, natural gas power plants, geothermal plants, and wind farms are often large in scale, both in the actual acreage of the project footprint and in the breadth of regulatory compliance needed during construction and operation.

Utilities: Energy Generation Facilities

A solar farm with solar panels in the foreground and wind turbines on a mountain range in the background under a clear blue sky.

In the desert southwest, such facilities have often been sited on federally-owned land (NEPA, and associated federal laws, administered primarily by the Department of the Interior, often through the Bureau of Land Management).

More recently, new construction has increasingly been sited on private land, even in states dominated by federal land ownership. Private parcels then face overlapping layers of state and federal law, which can present additional challenges. Regardless of the underlying ownership and jurisdiction, energy companies often need subject matter experts to help navigate environmental compliance requirements while maintaining project timelines.

Large group of people wearing yellow safety vests walking in an outdoor parking lot at sunset.

This is especially true during the construction phases of a project, when the mobilization and coordination of hundreds of workers, with the associated equipment and materials, represents a significant commitment of time and resources.

Construction delays and unexpected plan changes can be extremely costly, and the complexity of overlapping permits, each with specific mitigation measures, can present a formidable array of potential biological resource choke points. It often takes teams of several environmental compliance specialists working together to manage a successful timeline.

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