BLM Solar Siting Area Screener — Western Solar Plan DLA / Exclusion Check

Classifies coordinates on BLM-administered public land under the BLM 2024 Western Solar Plan (Approved Resource Management Plan Amendments and Record of Decision, December 2024; 43 CFR part 2800). For each point it tells you whether utility-scale solar is a priority use, barred, or possible: inside a Designated Leasing Area (DLA / Solar Energy Zone), inside an exclusion area, inside a legacy DRECP variance area or California Development Focus Area, or on analyzed BLM land that is available for a right-of-way application. Built for solar developers and land teams working federal ground in the 11 western states.

How it works

Each site you pass (lat/lon, WGS84) is run as a server-side point-in-polygon query against four keyless BLM ArcGIS feature layers on the National Renewable Energy Coordination Office org (services1.arcgis.com/KbxwQRRfWyEYLgp4). No API key, no login, no scraping. A single point can fall in several fragmented polygons, so the actor reads all intersecting features and aggregates them into one verdict.

Layer queried	What it answers
BLM_National_Final_Solar_PEIS_Proposed_Plan_Analysis/8 (11-state exclusion analysis)	Is the point excluded, and why (ACEC, ESA critical habitat, wilderness, greater sage-grouse habitat, ROW exclusion / No Surface Occupancy, Visual Resource Management I/II, National Conservation Lands, and more)? Within 15 mi of transmission? Slope ≥ 10%?
Energy_Designations/10 (Solar Energy Zone = DLA)	Is the point in a Designated Leasing Area, and is it a developable or non-developable sub-area?
Energy_Designations/13 (DRECP Variance Land)	Is the point in legacy 2012 variance-process lands (which the 2024 plan phases out)?
Energy_Designations/12 (DRECP Development Focus Area)	Is the point in a California developable focus area?

The plan governs BLM land only, across AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NV, NM, OR, UT, WA, and WY. A point on private, state, tribal, or other-federal land — or outside those 11 states — returns a clean "not within" row, not an error. The within_15mi_transmission and slope_ge_10pct flags come from BLM's own analysis fields, not from a live transmission dataset.

Example input

{
  "assets": [
    { "lat": 37.0168, "lon": -105.9491, "label": "Antonito Southeast SEZ (CO)" },
    { "lat": 36.56,   "lon": -114.92,   "label": "Dry Lake area (NV)" },
    { "lat": 39.7392, "lon": -104.9903, "label": "Downtown Denver (CO)" }
  ],
  "maxAssets": 500
}

Key output fields (one row per site)

• solar_developability_verdict — the plain-language conclusion (developable DLA, exclusion, variance, DFA, available, or off-plan land).
• in_designated_leasing_area, dla_name, dla_state, dla_status — DLA / Solar Energy Zone membership and whether the sub-area is developable.
• in_exclusion_area, exclusion_reason_codes, exclusion_reasons — whether solar is barred and the decoded BLM exclusion categories driving it.
• in_variance_area, variance_acres, in_development_focus_area, dfa_acres, dfa_technology — the two California DRECP categories.
• within_15mi_transmission, slope_ge_10pct — BLM availability-analysis flags (null when the point is not in the analyzed exclusion layer).
• on_blm_planning_area_land, state, administrative_unit (BLM field office), area_acres.
• plan_ref, citation, disclaimer, source_urls, layer_errors, checked_at, error.

Who uses it

• Utility-scale solar developers and land teams siting projects on federal public land.
• Site-selection and GIS analysts pre-screening candidate portfolios before ordering title work or field surveys.
• Right-of-way consultants and project-finance diligence teams confirming whether a parcel sits in a priority leasing area or a hard exclusion.
• AI agents answering "can solar be built on BLM land at this coordinate?"

Use as an MCP tool

Callable by AI agents through mcp.apify.com as a Pay-Per-Result API. An agent can chain it after a geocoder and feed the verdict into a siting or diligence workflow.

FAQ

Does it cover the whole west? The exclusion analysis covers all 11 Western Solar Plan states. The DLA/SEZ layer covers Solar Energy Zones nationally, and the variance/DFA layers cover the California DRECP.

Why is my site excluded? exclusion_reasons lists the specific BLM categories — Area of Critical Environmental Concern, ESA critical habitat, wilderness / WSA, sage-grouse priority habitat, ROW exclusion / No Surface Occupancy, VRM Class I/II, National Conservation Lands, and others.

Is this an official determination? No. It is an informational point-in-polygon screen against BLM's published spatial data — not a land survey or a legal eligibility determination. Boundaries are approximate and may lag the Record of Decision; confirm with the administering BLM field/state office and a title/survey professional before any siting, leasing, or ROW decision.