The state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, in recommending approval of the application for Skamania County's first wind power project, handed the applicant, Whistling Ridge Energy, LLC what the legal profession terms a Hobson's choice: Freedom to make a choice where no meaningful choice exists, such as an option between being hanged or going before a firing squad.
A serious problem with the Site Evaluation Council's first-ever ruling on a wind energy project -- a ruling that eliminated 30 percent of the proposed 50 turbines from the plan because of visual impacts to the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area -- is that it extends National Scenic Area regulation of scenic resources to a project that is consistent with Skamania County's land use ordinance, and which lies wholly outside the NSA boundary. But because 15 of those turbines would break the skyline and be visible from various locations in and outside the NSA -- to the point where no mitigation is possible -- the seven-member council did what many deliberative bodies might do when confronted with its own Hobson's choice: It reached a compromise, one that members said balanced a public interest in protecting valuable scenic resources against a public interest in bringing new energy facilities on line. In doing so, the council, as per council precedent, did not consider the economic benefits of the project to Skamania County or the economic viability of the project as proposed or as modified.
Whether you agree there's a need for more wind-generated power or green-energy projects in the Gorge or not, or whether you agree Whistling Ridge is a good project or think it's just in a bad location, you have to agree that the Site Evaluation Council -- though its intentions were good -- over-reached in applying NSA standards to parts of a permissible project that falls outside the NSA boundary. Though council members, in their only public statements on their decision, tried to put a positive spin on their compromise, all of them overlooked that it sets a bad precedent, one that could be used to foil future projects, simply because they can be seen from somewhere in the NSA.
For now we wait to see if any parties to the Site Evaluation Council's Whistling Ridge proceedings file a request for reconsideration of the recommendation of approval to Gov. Christine Gregoire, who has final say in the matter. If such a request is made, the setting of a potentially harmful land-use precedent will undoubtedly be among the issues raised.
If the decision, as modified by the council, is affirmed by Gregoire, though, the partners of Whistling Ridge Energy will be presented with their own Hobson's choice: To accept the precedent and go ahead with the scaled-down version of the project, or to abandon the project altogether because the council's modifications have made it economically unviable. It's a choice we're glad we don't have to make.
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