The Amargosa Valley is a Nevada landform east of the Amargosa Range

Amargosa Range

The Amargosa Range is a mountain range in Inyo County, California and Nye County, Nevada. The range runs along most of the eastern side of California's Death Valley, separating it from Nevada's Amargosa Desert...

 that is the eponym

Eponym

An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

 for the town of Amargosa Valley, Nevada

Amargosa Valley, Nevada

Amargosa Valley is an unincorporated community in Nye County, in the U.S. state of Nevada.-Description:The community is named for the Amargosa River which flows through the valley from its origination in Nevada to its terminus in Death Valley, California...

. The Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad

Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad

The Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad, the T&T, was a class II railroad extending through remote reaches of the Mojave Desert from the Santa Fe Railway railhead at Ludlow, California, through Death Valley and Amargosa Valley, terminating at the Mining towns of Tonopah and Goldfield in the Great Basin...

 ran through the valley from 1906 to 1940.

Solar thermal plant

Controversy over water right

Water right

Water right in water law refers to the right of a user to use water from a water source, e.g., a river, stream, pond or source of groundwater. In areas with plentiful water and few users, such systems are generally not complicated or contentious...

s resulted in 2009 when Solar Millennium

Solar Millennium

Solar Millennium is a German globally active company in the renewable energy sector founded in 1998 in Erlangen, Germany, which is specialized in the designing and implementation of solar thermal power plants...

, a German company, announced plans to build a solar thermal plant

Solar thermal energy

Solar thermal energy is a technology for harnessing solar energy for thermal energy . Solar thermal collectors are classified by the United States Energy Information Administration as low-, medium-, or high-temperature collectors. Low-temperature collectors are flat plates generally used to heat...

in the Amargosa Valley of Nevada which would require 20% of the water available in the area.