In Washington’s Douglas County a proposed 6,000-acre solar facility is drawing criticism from residents and environmentalists
Pick ’em? Most people support solar energy and sage grouse. Can they co-exist in rural Washington? Photos: Vera Kratochvil (panels); Bob Wick/BLM (grouse)
By Jordan Rane, October 12, 2021. Who wants a 6,000-acre solar factory in their backyard? Apparently, not residents of Badger Mountain in Douglas County, Wash.
Locals there expressed displeasure after being approached last spring by representatives of Spain-based energy developer EDP Renewables with property lease offers in hand—and reportedly few details about what exactly they were for.
As more light has been shed on the company’s proposal for a massive solar panel project in Badger Mountain’s surrounding shrub-steppe—home to state-endangered sage grouse and other hard hit species—Douglas County environmentalists have begun voicing objections.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“If I have to chain myself to a dozer I will.” —Douglas County resident[/perfectpullquote]
“Conservation Northwest stands with the landowners on Badger Mountain in Douglas County who do not want to see a solar farm development where they live,” wrote Jay Kehne, lead of the nonprofit’s Sagelands Heritage Program, in an open letter to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s office last week. “While we understand the need for solar development as a renewable energy resource, we cannot have industrial-sized solar farms replace shrub-steppe habitat critical for wildlife and Native American traditional food gathering lands.”
Putting a 6,000-acre solar farm near Badger Mountain “would wipe out one of the last habitat and breeding areas [sage grouse] have left in all of Washington,” the letter states. “There are plenty of other suitable locations for solar development considering all the hard-surfaced areas within our state.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with it
Most environmentalists, if not most people, support solar power and sage grouse. That’s what makes the collision of interests in Douglas County so thorny.
It’s a conflict that’s playing out more and more in the Columbia River Basin as the drawbacks of industrial-scale solar power—encroachment on wildlife habit being just one complaint—are brought into relief with the proliferation of mega-projects.
MORE: What’s wrong with solar power? More than you know
Homeowners aren’t fond of staring out their back windows at several football fields-worth of solar panels.
For wildlife it can be a matter of survival.
Central and eastern Washington’s shrub-steppe is home to numerous species of threatened wildlife. One of the most critically hit, the greater sage grouse depends upon large landscapes of sagebrush (which they consume) to survive.
That vital habitat continues to be fragmented, degraded and lost.
According to a Seattle Times report, last year’s Pearl Hill Fire in Douglas County may have decimated over half the area’s population of sage grouse, a keystone species in the region.
Rural communities bear urban burdens
Dropping 6,000 acres of solar panels in prime bird habitat won’t help sage grouse recovery.
Birdland: Many birds and mammals depend on sagebrush ecosystems for survival. Photo by BLM
But the state needs power, and renewable energy has massive political support.
The Badger Mountain proposal is currently one of three area solar projects in early stages of possible development, according to The Wenatchee World. These include plans for a 200-megawatt, 5,000-acre site near East Wenatchee that would include upward of 700,000 neatly rowed solar panels; and another 2,500-acre plot near Trinidad in neighboring Grant County.
In July, Douglas County commissioners instituted new regulations for the approval of large alternative-energy projects, including requiring sites to “be located at least seven miles from habitat associated with sensitive, threatened or endangered plants or wildlife as identified on state and federal lists.”
Facilities must also be situated no less than seven miles from an urban growth area boundary.
These county siting restrictions speak to another red-hot issue festering around solar plants—the placement of unsightly installations that largely benefit city dwellers in the heart of rural landscapes.
MORE: Oregon rural solar project faces local opposition
How all this shakes out between energy developers, Badger Mountain locals and county officials remains as uncertain as the future of the area’s emblematic bird.
“If I have to chain myself to a dozer I will,” one resident told The Wenatchee World. “We’re not happy at all.”
Columbia Insight contributing editor Jordan Rane is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in CNN.com, Outside, Men’s Journal and the Los Angeles Times.
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