Area residents say "no" to turbines

PALOUSE - Several Whitman County residents are speaking out against a proposed Harvest Hills Wind Project near Kamiak Butte.

Opposition is also building to wind turbine construction plans for nearby Spangle, Fairfield, Reardan, Edwall and Davenport areas.

At press time, local residents were planning an organizational meeting for March 13 at Colfax Golf Course. The newspaper went to press before the meeting.

Colfax-area resident Dan Lenssen said the meeting was organized to provide information to residents and others wanting to know more about plans for wind turbines in the county.

"It's to see if there's a ground game that we can forward with to either increase setbacks or stop the project all together," he said.

But the opposition here isn't new.

About six months ago, Lenssen started the social media group "Stop Kamiak Butte Industrial Wind Project."

"There are a bunch of farmers that are totally against wind turbines in the area," Dan Lenssen said on social media. "They have not signed up and will not. They are actually pissed off at their neighbors for signing up."

The group had about approximately 200 people when it started, and has attracted 950 new members in the last week.

Diamond-area farmer Bill Myers is among them.

Myers said that he recently learned about the project after seeing a test tower near the butte. Then he found the social media group online.

Myers said he was approached 10 years ago by a wind company wanting to put five turbines on his farm.

"I don't like them," he said. "I never have."

For Myers, the biggest issue he had with the turbine offer was how much control of his land he'd have to give over to the wind company.

"I think it's a rather permanent solution to a temporary problem," he said of the currently proposed project. "I just don't see why there is any need to deface some of the most beautiful, and not to mention, most useful farmland in the world.

Myers noted that landowners considering a wind turbine lease have an obligation to their neighbors. "It's going to last forever, and it's going to have your name on it," he said. "Don't do it."

Unhappy neighbors

"I have worked for and with a lot of the farmers in the area and their neighbors aren't very happy," Lenssen added.

Wind turbines not only bring massive construction crews, but also effect crop dusters, he said. That affects the livelihoods of neighbors and residents, and could decrease property value for those looking to move here.

"One test tower is right above a home on Parvin," Lenssen said, noting that someone could see that tower and decide that they don't want to live near it. "If that's proof of what can happen to the rest of our properties, of course we're going to be in opposition."

His group is also concerned about the impact on Kamiak Butte, a national natural landmark that rises 3,461 feet above sea level, the second highest point in Whitman County.

The project, called Harvest Hills Wind, is being scouted by Steelhead Wind, which is contacting landowners south of state Highway 272 and along Clear Creek Road.

Despite the company's outreach, Whitman County Planner Alan Thompson said there aren't currently any applications or permits for the proposed Harvest Hills Wind project.

But test towers are already installed on farmland north of Enos Road, and on land east of James Road, county records show.

Thompson said applications and permit aren't forthcoming in the near future.

"Maybe sometime this fall," he said.

Rural residents of Whitman are not the only ones in Eastern Washington pushing back against wind turbine permitting and construction.

Residents of Benton County have openly opposed a large industrial wind turbine development atop Horse Heaven.

Scout Clean Energy of Boulder, Colo., is the developer behind that project, Horse Heaven Hills Windfarm, which has drawn opposition from residents, local officials and even the Yakama Nation, whose reservation is miles away.

The tribe filed for a protection order to prevent the development because it would harm the ferruginous hawk population.

Residents of Kennewick, Richland, Pasco and other Tri-City area communities are opposing the project because it would destroy the aesthetic beauty of the Horse Heaven Hills skyline.

For its part, Scout is appealing to the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council for approval to proceed.

The council was formed when Gov. Jay Inslee signed House Bill 1216 into law on May 3, 2023.

The governor requested the bill as an end run around local opposition to such developments, as local opposition stood in the way of his push to require all energy production in the state to come from renewable sources by 2050.

Other pushback

Beside Scout Energy, a number of businesses are pushing wind turbine developments in Lincoln and Spokane Counties.

Some of those companies are Vestas (doing business as Steelhead America) and Triple Oak Power, both of Portland, Ore .; Tenaska of Omaha, Neb .; and Cordelio Power of Toronto, Canada. Triple Oak is a subsidiary of Energy Capital Partners of Summit, N.J.

And there are others, with more subsidiaries targeting Eastern Washington.

And the push for the rural skyscrapers, which can rise to a height of more than 500 feet above the ground - the blades can reach to nearly 700 feet - has residents, farmers and leaders in those areas concerned the winds are blowing the wrong kind of change into their communities.

Those supporting wind turbine agreements see lucrative leases that would help farmers remain in business amid ever-increasing costs. Some farmers in negotiations with one or more of the companies have told Free Press reporters that they've been offered upwards of $30,000 annually per wind turbine lease.

Opponents of the turbines accuse potential lessors of selling out, or at the very least selling off the region's aesthetic beauty.

While companies' representatives are meeting with area farmers, communities are coming together to oppose the turbines.

Like Colfax, community meetings have been called in Davenport, Reardan, Spangle, Fairfield and Harrington, too.

Despite meetings taking place in Fairfield and Spangle, Spokane County planning officials deny turbines are coming to those areas. Currently, there are no imminent plans for erecting wind turbines, officials said.

Neither Avista nor Inland Power have any plans in the works, either.

"There aren't any current plans for development of a wind project in Spokane County with Avista," Avista spokesman Jared Webley said Tuesday, March 5.

"At Inland Power, we aren't planning to generate power ourselves, we simply procure it," Inland spokesman Andy Barth said.

In addition, "There's significant opposition from residents who are concerned about the visual impact," he said.