Site Certificate Approved For Creston

Washington Gov. Mike Lowry has approved the site certificate for a 838-megawatt turbine at Creston.

But Glenn Smith, director of the project for Northwest Power Enterprises Inc., said construction must await financing and arrangements for marketing the power and supplying the gas.

Those pieces won’t be in place until early 1998, he said.

Smith said Lowry’s endorsement of recommendations from the state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council was a milestone for the plant, which will be built on land Washington Water Power Co. once considered for a coal-fired facility.

“The project is positioned to benefit from the rapid deregulation of the Northwest power market,” he said.

Creston is 60 miles west of Spokane. , DataTimes