Editorial | Inslee put politics ahead of science, undermining fair Eastern WA compromise

By putting wind turbines ahead of people, cultural heritage and natural habitat that will suffer next to a gargantuan wind farm on Horse Heaven Hills, Gov. Jay Inslee put politics ahead of science and undermined a fair compromise.

Scout Clean Energy, the Colorado-based company behind the Horse Heaven Hills Wind Farm, proposed building more than 200 turbines about 500 feet tall or 141 turbines about 670 feet tall on 24 miles of ridgeline south of the Tri-Cities.

The company spent years going through the approval process with the Washington state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC).

Washington certainly needs clean energy projects like this. Inslee estimates that this one will provide only 5% of the state’s electricity needs over the next decade. If the Biden administration, with Inslee’s vague consent, tears down hydroelectric dams, the hole will be even deeper.

But confronting climate change and transitioning away from dirty fuel sources must be done with intentionality. There are good sites and bad sites, and Horse Heaven Hills is the latter, at least at the scale Scout originally proposed.

The turbines would mar local vistas from the Tri-Cities, disrupt Native American cultural resources and harm natural habitat for many species, including the endangered ferruginous hawk.

EFSEC spent years studying the proposal and listening to all sides. It recommended to the governor that the project be scaled back to about half of the original number of turbines. That was a reasonable compromise. Washington would get clean energy, and the worst harms would be mitigated.

That wasn’t enough for Inslee. He sent the project back to EFSEC with clear directions that the council reverse course and approve nearly all of the turbines. He’s less interested in rational analysis and science than his green legacy as he prepares to leave office.

“Based on my review of the record and the potential impacts, mitigation measures that substantially reduce the generation capacity of the proposed project should not be required,” Inslee wrote.

Let that sink in. In the governor’s estimation, generating clean electricity trumps everything else. That sort of strident, inflexible view serves Washington poorly.

Inslee had been laying the groundwork for this sort of decision for years. In 2022, he vetoed parts of a bill that would have given Eastern Washington residents more input into where wind and solar projects go. He also vetoed provisions in the bill that would have required the state to reckon with the fact that rural communities suffer the imposition of large-scale projects not for their own benefit but to satisfy power-hungry urban areas west of the mountains.

Not coincidentally, those urban areas are home to the Democratic majority that controls state politics and often doesn’t think much of the rest of the state.

In his letter to the EFSEC, Inslee claims, “Wind turbines are a fairly common occurrence across the state.” That’s true on the eastern side of the state anyway. The Horse Heaven Hills project would be so expansive that it would cover all of Seattle from Shoreline to Kent, but Seattleites don’t see turbines.

Critics from Seattle and Olympia like to lob rhetorical grenades at the Tri-Cities, calling anyone who questions the appropriateness of the Horse Heaven Hills Wind Farm a NIMBY (not in my backyard).

It’s hard to take them seriously, though, when they aren’t also calling for turbines in Puget Sound or on the hills nearby. If they would engage with this region, knowledgeable local residents could help identify plenty of appropriate places for wind farms that wouldn’t harm view sheds, cultural resources and natural habitat.

EFSEC exists to remove some of the NIMBYism from the siting process, but if it conducts a thorough review, engages with the community and listens to the experts only to have the governor flat out reject its recommendations, what’s the point?

EFSEC has 90 days to send a revised recommendation back to the governor.

Rather than bow to his demands, it should send a strong message that says, in so many words, “No, we got it right the first time. Local communities, cultural heritage and wildlife still matter in Washington.”