State council wrestles with Inslee’s recommendations on wind farm project

A state council tasked with planning large energy facility projects is struggling with recommendations made by Gov. Jay Inslee last month on the Horse Heaven Clean Energy Center to expand its scope despite environmental concerns.

While Inslee in his May 25 letter emphasized the need for the project to be larger to generate more electricity through wind turbines and solar panels, some members of the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council are skeptical that it can be accomplished without threatening local historic hawk nest sites. Under the proposed site certification agreement, buffer zones would have been set up prohibiting wind turbines within a certain distance of these sites.

However, Inslee asked that the council instead find other mitigation options that would allow those turbines closer to the hawk nest sites.

At its Thursday meeting, the council voted to have its staff examine specific mitigations for it to consider at a future meeting.

One of the reasons cited in Inslee’s letter for a larger project is to generate more electricity that will be needed as the state transitions away from fossil fuel-based sources. Under the Clean Energy Transformation Act, utilities in the state will need to gradually reduce their use of carbon-emitting energy sources until they are eventually carbon free.

Yet, EFSC member Elizabeth Osborne representing the state Department of Commerce told colleagues at Thursday's meeting that “I’m not convinced the size of this particular project will be the only way to achieve it. I keep going back to the very difficult balance that we struck in our recommendation to the governor, and that’s where my hesitance comes.”

“I think we have in front of us a set of impacts that are real and they’re there,” she added. “If they’re there, I don’t think we actually have the ability to approve things that would worsen those impacts. I also am concerned about growing the amount of clean energy that we need to serve Washington customers, but I’m not sure that needs to come at the cost of some of the impacts that we saw in the record.”

Benton County representative Ed Brost warned that, unlike hydropower and nuclear plants, the electricity generated under the proposed site would be only possible when there is sufficient wind and sunlight. Brost was one of two members to vote against approving the project before it was sent to Inslee.

“These renewable projects…have a drastic impact on the reliability of the system,” he said. “It seems to me that is a major issue that we should deal with before we say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this project. I don’t want my power going out in the middle of January.”