Harper Lake

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Harper Lake is a dry lakebed in the Mojave Desert near the small town of Lockhart, California. The lake can be reached from Harper Lake Road, which runs north off State Route 58 about midway between Boron and Barstow. The lake contained a large marsh in the early 20th century, but agricultural development has depleted the groundwater that sustained it. Now, only the southwest corner of the lake is marshland. It is sustained by a small amount of runoff from nearby farms. Up to the early 1990s, it attracted large numbers of migrating birds in addition to the resident wildlife. However, the lake went dry in the late 1990s after the alfalfa farm next to the lake shut down. When the 160 megawatt solar power plant located just to the west of the lake was built, there was a project requirement to pump groundwater to the lake. However, this did not occur because the company that owned the plant when bankrupt. After the bankruptcy was resolved, Edwards Air Force Base's concerns of bird strikes and bureaucratic issues halted progress. In the meantime, Luz Solar Partners, the owner of the power plant, delivered water to the lake when requested by the Bureau of Land Management through an informal agreement. In 2005, a new petition was filed by Friends of Harper Lake with the BLM and California Energy Commission, which approved the amendments to the project. Up to 75 acre feet (93,000 m³) of water per year will be managed by the BLM and transferred to the lake as part of the mitigation ageement concerning solar field expansion.

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