(The Center Square) – The Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or EFSEC, has unanimously voted to significantly scale back the Horse Heaven wind, solar and battery project from its original proposal, in order to protect ferruginous hawks, which are endangered in Washington.
The Washington Supreme Court could end up ultimately deciding the size of the Horse Heaven wind farm by potentially hearing lawsuits that challenge its approval.
The Horse Heaven energy project – located some four miles southwest of the city of Kennewick and the larger Tri-Cities urban area – is set to cut dozens of turbines to protect the birds, based on last week’s EFSEC decision. The exact number of turbines to be cut depends on which of two project configurations the project developer, Scout Clean Energy, chooses.
Former Gov. Jay Inslee originally gave Scout Clean Energy the green light to construct what would be the largest wind and solar project in the state – up to 222 turbines, as well as solar panel arrays and battery storage facilities.
EFSEC then approved a smaller project with protection for the hawks and consideration for culturally sensitive tribal lands.
Lawmakers and community groups also raised concerns about the destruction of ridgeline views and declining property values with the landscape obstructed by giant turbines and solar panels.
Inslee pushed back on EFSEC, urging them to approve the original project to prioritize Washington’s climate goals and EFSEC agreed to reconsider.
The board ended up approving most of the original project, nixing only about three dozen proposed turbines.
Last December, a citizen group called Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S., Benton County and the Yakama Nation filed separate lawsuits against the project, and those groups – now combined legally – are waiting to find out if the state’s highest court will take the case, as recommended by a Thurston County Superior Court judge.
EFSEC established a pre-operational technical advisory group, or PTAG, to consider concerns about the hawks and other environmental issues raised by locals.
PTAG found more than 40 hawk nests near the proposed site and said a buffer of more than a half mile was justified to protect the birds. They said a few additional nests needed a wider 2-mile buffer.
This past spring, a breeding pair and fledglings were found in a nest.
“It was the first time in a number of years. We’ll take any signs we can get,” said Dave Sharp, vice president of Tri Cities C.A.R.E.S, during a Monday interview with The Center Square.
Scout Clean Energy did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication on Monday.
The developer previously emailed a statement to The Center Square while EFSEC was still considering scaling back the project.
“While ferruginous hawks are listed as endangered in Washington, they are fairly common across their range, which encompasses the western U.S. and Canada. Their rarity in Washington is a function of geography as much as anything, as they are only in the state during the breeding season, and migrate to other parts of their range during the non-breeding season,” Scout Energy spokesperson Chad Thompson said.
Ahead of last week’s vote to approve the resolution scaling back the project, EFSEC members heard a discussion about some of the legal concerns raised by Benton County, including a complaint that a county representative legally required by statute to have a voice on the board was told he was no longer needed last year.
Jon Thompson, Ecology Division assistant attorney general, explained that EFSEC rules only require that the county representative remain on the board until the project has been approved or rejected.
“When that occurs is when the governor makes a decision either accepting or rejecting, in this case accepting the application for site certification,” he said.
Thompon explained that when Inslee signed off on the project a year ago, it was no longer a requirement that a Benton County representative be on the board.
“There’s really no basis in my opinion to the county’s assertion that the county representative should still be sitting on the council,” Thompson said.
Benton County also argued that PTAG meetings that provided technical and scientific advice to the board about mitigating concerns regarding the hawks and other environmental issues should have been subject to the Open Public Meetings Act, instead of meeting behind closed doors.
“These meetings were not required to be conducted under the OPMA,” Thompson noted. “The OPMA applies to the meetings of governing bodies of government agencies, and it does not apply to committees thereof when the committee acts on behalf of a governing body.”
Sharp said his organization is also dissatisfied with EFSEC’s most recent decision.
“Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S. is not happy either because although they agreed on some of the nests and they put exclusion zones in for some nests, there was no consensus on it,” he explained. “I think EFSEC leaned more towards what the wildlife biologists people recommended.”
Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S. claims the wind farm will obstruct the views of more than 100,000 Benton County residents who would live within six miles of a turbine, and bring down property values by as much 20% or more.
At this point, it is unclear what the scaled back project will consist of, or if the developer will wait until a potential court ruling before breaking any ground.
