Benton County to sue WA after Inslee agrees to one of state’s largest wind farms

KENNEWICK – Benton County will appeal Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s approval of a wind farm stretching 24 miles along the Horse Heaven Hills after a unanimous vote Tuesday by county commissioners.

The vote followed a discussion in a session closed to the public to consider a possible lawsuit.

The county joins Tri-Cities CARES, a nonprofit, which has been raising money with the goal of overturning the decision allowing the wind farm just south of the Tri-Cities or reducing the number of turbines allowed.

Yakama Nation also has standing to sue, but has not made a public announcement about any plans.

Lawsuits must be filed by Dec. 2 in Thurston County Superior Court before being heard by the Washington Supreme Court.

Scout Clean Energy had initially said it would seek a permit from Benton County for its clean energy project, but changed course in late 2020, saying it would use the alternate method of applying through the Washington state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC).

It said then that as the project scope and complexity expanded, including adding solar panels and battery energy storage, the environmental review required would be more complex.

Months later, the Benton County Commission held a town hall meeting on the project with 80% of the speakers opposed to the project. More than 40 people signed up to comment at the meeting, with additional people phoning in with comments during the COVID pandemic.

Some called the proposed project a potential “atrocity,” an “eyesore” and “grotesque.”

While the industrialization of the skyline to the south of the Tri-Cities would endure for decades, the local community would see little benefit, several people said.

Those supporting the project were mostly union officials and members who wanted to see an estimated 1,000 construction jobs at the Tri-Cities. Others pointed out the benefits for the owners of nearly 70 farms leasing their land for the 112-square-mile project.

When EFSEC followed up with a virtual meeting in April 2021, about 200 people attended and 300 comments were submitted, both pro and con.

“People in Benton County and the Tri-City region care deeply about preserving their ridges and skylines for future generations,” Benton County Commissioner Will McKay said at the meeting.

The commission voted in late 2021 to protect farmland by restricting new wind and solar project to industrial zones. The regulation was not retroactive to the Horse Heaven wind farm application and may be overridden by the state on any project.

Benton County, which was allowed a representative on EFSEC for its study and recommendation on the Horse Heaven Clean Energy Center, voted twice this year not to recommend that Inslee approve the project.

Three-year study of Horse Heaven

The Washington state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) spent three years studying the project, proposed with up to 222 turbines about 500 feet tall before recommending to the governor that the project be approved with about half the number of proposed turbines.

At that size, it still would have been the largest wind farm in the state.

Inslee sent that recommendation back to the council, saying the council needed to prioritize the need for clean energy and make a less restrictive recommendation for his approval of the project.

The council relented and its final recommendation, which Inslee approved Oct. 18, would reduce the proposed number of turbines by about 23%, unless Scout Clean Energy could find space for them elsewhere on the project.

The initial recommendation to Inslee provided mitigation measures for endangered ferruginous hawks, Yakama Nation traditional cultural properties, the impacts of turbines on fighting wildfires and the visual impacts of the turbines to the greater Tri-Cities area.

But the revised recommendation approved by Inslee no longer directly addresses the visual impacts of wind turbines along the southern skyline of the Tri-Cities and reduces other mitigation measures.

It also reduced measures originally recommended by EFSEC to protect ferruginous hawks and Yakama Nation traditional cultural properties.

Inslee signed a site certification agreement for the project, which Canadian company Scout Clean Energy also must sign for the project to move forward.

As of Tuesday, there was no word that Scout had signed the agreement.