New, unusual court bid in fight over endangered Nevada toad

RENO, Nev. (AP) — In a highly unusual move in a legal battle over a Nevada geothermal power plant and an endangered toad, the project’s developer is now asking a judge to allow it to scale back by 80% the original plan U.S. land managers approved last November.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Ormat Technologies both filed requests to put the case on hold, citing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's listing of the Dixie Valley toad in April as endangered on a temporary, emergency basis.

“Significant factual developments have fundamentally changed the nature of this litigation," government lawyers wrote Oct. 27 in a formal motion to stay the case in federal court in Reno.

Ormat joined the request in a filing on Monday, agreeing the “legal landscape” had changed with the temporary listing of the toad — something the agency has done on an emergency basis only twice in the past 20 years.

The toad lives in wetlands adjacent to the project about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Reno. Environmentalists and a tribe fighting the project say pumping hot water from beneath the earth's surface to generate carbon-free power would adversely affect levels and temperatures of surface water critical to the toad's survival and sacred to the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe.

The company said it wants to revise its original plans for two power plants capable of producing 60MW of electricity and instead build a single 12MW facility.

The Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned for the listing and sued to block the project, intends to oppose the request. Its formal response is due Nov. 9.

“What BLM is proposing would be extremely unusual,” Patrick Donnelly, the center's Great Basin director, told The Associated Press. “Projects are usually evaluated on their own merits as...