Wind farm breaks ground

Dignitaries from around the Palouse gathered atop a windy Naff Ridge Tuesday to break ground on Palouse Wind’s wind power farm - the most expensive project in Whitman County history.

“Palouse Wind represents really a major investment in Whitman County,” said Ben Fairbanks, Northwest Development Manager. “Really, the largest in decades.”

At a value of $160 million, the 58-turbine wind farm will produce as much as 105 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 30,000 homes. Turbines will be placed on Naff Ridge, Steamshovel Hill and Granite Butte between Highway 195 and Oakesdale.

“I used to farm less than one mile from here,” Whitman County Commissioner Greg Partch said at Tuesday’s groundbreaking ceremony on Naff Ridge. “I was on a D6 Cat without a cab working in summer fallow. I remember thinking ‘there’s got to be a better use for this land than this.’”

Construction on the project began last October, after a four-year process that included revision of Whitman County’s zoning code, a lengthy study of the wind farm’s environmental impacts and legal challenges from citizens in opposition to the project.

“The landscape here will change,” said Paul Gaynor, CEO of Boston-based First Wind. “I understand some will not like it. But I hope that you’ll see we’re doing this project in a very, very responsible way and we want to be a good partner for the next 25 years.”

Those in attendance Tuesday were primarily supportive of the wind farm.

“This really is wind country,” said Susan Fagan, 9th District State Representative from Pullman.

State Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, noted the economic benefits the wind farm will provide for local communities and for landowners leasing ground for the wind farm. He praised the soil conservation measures being used in the project’s construction.

One of those landowners is the Frank Rider Memorial Trust.

Former county commissioner Hollis Jamison of Garfield manages the trust. He said payments the trust will receive from leasing ground to the wind farm will allow it to further its work of providing assistance to Masons in need.

“We have a number of beneficiaries who get help each month. This will put a little more money in our bank account to help out more people in need,” said Jamison.

He noted, though, the impact the project will have on those farming around the turbine sites. The trust leases out its farm ground to nearby farmer Larry Brown.

“Farmers are going to have to change their cultivation methods, definitely,” he said. “But I know we, as landlords, are going to make it right with Larry. He’ll benefit from this too.”

In addition to landowners, local governments from the area surrounding the wind farm stand to reap a windfall in increased tax revenue.

Assessor Joe Reynolds estimates $12 million in property taxes for the county over the next 20 years.

This year, Whitman County’s current expense fund will receive between $500,000 and $700,000 in net sales tax receipts. Under a state exemption, First Wind will be refunded 75 percent of the sales taxes paid on construction. Lothspeich’s figure is after the refund.

Fairbanks said the sales tax exemption allows them to build the project at a cheaper rate, which holds down the price at which power from the wind farm will be sold to Avista and its customers.

The wind farm will also require an estimated eight full-time technicians to monitor and maintain turbines when it’s up and running.

Oakesdale Mayor Dennis Palmer said that could be a big boon to his town.

“You get that many good-paying jobs, and you have that many more families in town,” said Palmer. “That’s going to benefit our businesses, our schools. It’s going to have a big impact.”

Fairbanks said more than 30 regional businesses are working with lead contractor RMT to build the wind farm. Nearly half of those companies are based in Whitman County. He added the wind farm’s substation will include 12 components made by Pullman-based Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories.

Bob Hill of the Rosalia City Council said businesses in his town are excited for the pending influx of construction workers.

“We’ve got that new restaurant, the coffee shop, the tavern, the store,” said Hill. “They might get awful busy once those guys start hitting town.”

Turbines will begin to come in to the site next month. The 1.8-megawatt turbines are being shipped to Pasco via train from the Vestas manufacturing plant in Colorado.

Construction is expected to be completed by November, and power from the turbines will be sold to Avista. Electricity will be delivered from the project to Avista’s 230-kilovolt Benewah-Shawnee transmission line which runs just a few miles west of the wind farm.

Avista CEO Scott Morris said his company is excited to add power from the wind farm to its portfolio. Morris said it will help Avista become one of the “cleanest, greenest utilities in the U.S.”

Gaynor noted the deal with Avista is the lowest rate First Wind receives for electricity of any of its wind farms across the nation.

Bob Lafferty, Avista’s power supply director, said the company will be easily able to blend the intermittent wind power into its steady stream of hydroelectric energy produced by the Bonneville Power Administration’s Snake River dams.

Lafferty said the company has been blending wind and hydro power off the State Line wind farm outside Walla Walla for the past eight years.

“As an Avista customer, I’m proud they’re going to be using power from this,” said Sen. Schoesler.