The facility is located in Spring Valley, northwest of Great Basin National Park and approximately 30 miles (48 km) east of Ely, Nevada.

[1][2][3][4][5] The wind farm, in consideration since 2003, was officially proposed to the White Pine County Commission in February 2008, with plans to have the facility operational in two years.

[6] On February 13, 2008, Babcock & Brown proposed plans to the White Pine County Commission for a wind farm to be built in Spring Valley, located approximately 30 miles east of Ely,[7] and northwest of Great Basin National Park.

[11] By October 2009, Houston-based Pattern Energy had become involved with the proposed wind farm, and the BLM was finalizing the company's development plans for the project.

[16] By August 2010, biologists had become concerned about the safety of up to three million migrating Mexican free-tailed bats that annually inhabit the nearby Rose Cave, located approximately five miles away.

George Hardie, the project manager for the wind farm, said about the land: "From the standpoint of raptor migratory corridors, it looked like the most environmentally benign site in Nevada."

According to Hardie, studies of bat movements showed that most of the animals exiting the cave flew south, away from the site of the proposed wind farm.

[17] After the biologists conducted research, the company planned to install three ground radar stations on the wind farm's east side; this was described by Hardie as a "backstop mitigation measure to where we could shut down the turbines in less than a minute and that way prevent or eliminate bat fatalities."

The company also planned to install either infrared sensors or a motion detector at the cave's entrance, which would alert operators of the wind farm whenever a large plume of bats exiting.

"[18] Hardie further stated that Pattern Energy and the BLM worked "extremely hard to make the Spring Valley wind project as environmentally benign as possible," saying that it "has put in place the most extensive and forward looking mitigation and adaptive management plan ever devised for any wind energy project in the United States to minimize the impact to wildlife and the environment.

In fact, our mitigation and adaptive management plans for bats, sage grouse and other avian species were all designed with the full input and ultimate concurrence of both the Nevada Department of Wildlife and the U.S.

[14] Discussions about a settlement of the lawsuit began later in 2011, after a federal judge declined to have work at the site stopped to allow for further impact studies of the bats and sage grouse.

The eventual completion of a transmission line, under construction as of April 2012, would bring power from the wind farm to customers in the Las Vegas Valley.

However, the wind farm still faced the possibility of a $200,000 fine as it did not have an incidental take permit, which would allow for accidental deaths of golden and bald eagles.