A rare tiny butterfly found only in a remote stretch of northern Nevada is getting closer to receiving federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday that the endangered or threatened listing of the whitish butterfly, which typically measures less than two inches, “may be warranted.”
The agency will now have 12 months to determine whether to include the species on the federally protected species list, a listing that could cause regulatory problems for a geothermal power plant project that plans to tap underground hot springs near the species’ only known habitat. , Baltazor Hot Springs, near the Nevada-Oregon border.
Ormat Technologies’ proposed power plant would be located outside those wetlands, but the Center for Biological Diversity argued in its petition for the species’ federal protection list, filed last year, that exploitation of underground hot springs to produce geothermal energy could affect the flows of the springs that feed the plants on which the butterflies depend to lay eggs or feed on nectar.
Patrick Donnelly, director of the Great Basin at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement: “I am pleased that the whitish butterfly has passed this important milestone to gain vital protection under the Endangered Species Act. “The window of opportunity to save this butterfly is closing and this decision is not coming too soon.”
Ormat did not respond to emails seeking comment on Wednesday.
Nevada currently has two endangered species of butterflies: the Mount Charleston blue butterfly, found in the Spring Mountains, and the Carson’s wandering manakin, whose habitat extends from the valleys south of Carson City to Susanville, California.
