Highway 97 bridge and march all the way from the Maryhill Museum to the hamlet of Roosevelt, 32 miles to the east. When commissioners adopted the fast-track zoning, they hoped to attract enough wind farms to generate 1, megawatts of power over a year period.
They reached their goal in three years. Not only will that money pay for new schools and ambulances; it will also give taxpayers a break. Wind development has brought hundreds of jobs to a sparsely populated county once economically dependent on timber and agriculture. Programs in The Dalles, Ore. Students are taught math and engineering skills, as well as how to safely climb the turbine towers to perform maintenance tasks. County residents also have benefited from a network of new and improved roads built by the energy companies to haul their turbines to remote sites.
A hearing was held earlier this year to take public comment on the impacts of the fast-track zoning. Friends has called for a new environmental review of the wind energy zoning. Canon disagrees that the zoning ordinance is out of date. He said it has been amended after each major wind project, and that its analysis of impacts — on birds, bats, wildlife and Native American cultural sites — looks not only at Klickitat County but at the entire Columbia Plateau. The astonishing concentration of wind turbines in eastern Klickitat has raised eyebrows locally, as well.
Most of the companies are not from around here. Farmers appreciate the lease revenue, she said, though installing underground transmission lines can mean tearing up established cropland. And the new roads are nice. The visitors center offers a degree view of three mountains Wild Horse was created in , the year before state Initiative passed, requiring large utilities to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by Related Content.
By: Seattle magazine staff. Convenient trips are becoming increasingly popular. Travel , road trips , getaways , Washington Travel.
By: Lisette Wolter-McKinley. Take a flight, rent a van, learn a survival skill. Experience , Holiday Gift Guide , Travel. Kauai When it Drizzles. The wind farm along I near Ellensburg is owned by a different company. Jay Inslee is running for president on a clean energy platform, but our state has always been ahead of the curve on alternative power sources.
Voters passed Initiative in It requires public and private utilities in the state to provide 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by , and PSE says it is on track to meet that goal. Three turbines near Goldendale in the early s. Decades of trial and error have gone into the quieter, cheaper technology of today. The strongest opposition to the construction of Wild Horse came from a local branch of the Audubon Society, which voiced concern over the impact on raptors, bats and sage grouse.
They modified the layout to avoid bird nesting sites in a grove of pine trees, and some turbines were placed farther apart to avoid the flight paths of birds of prey. Some of the power generated at Wild Horse goes directly to customers in Kittitas County and the rest to Wanapum Dam, where it joins the regional grid. PSE has 1. PSE forecasters predict how much power their customers will use on any given day, then their load office looks at the wind forecast to come up with a plan.
Close Menu. Email Signup. Submit Search. Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility. The Observer. By the students, for the students of Central Washington University.
Share on Facebook. Share on Twitter. Share via Email. Search Submit Search.
0コメント