Utility districts drop coastal wind farm plan

Four public utility districts in southwest Washington have pulled the plug on a proposal to build Washington’s first coastal wind farm in the heart of the state’s most valuable nesting habitat for the threatened marbled murrelet.

The Radar Ridge Wind Project was first proposed in 2007 by Energy Northwest, a Tri-Cities energy consortium, for state forest trust land near Willapa Bay in Pacific County.

The utility proposed erecting up to 45 wind turbines on a promontory once used as a radar installation. Four participating utilities from Grays Harbor, Pacific, Mason and Clallam counties provided most of the original financing for the proposed 80-megawatt project.

Radar Ridge was controversial from the beginning.

The murrelet was listed as a threatened species in 1992 because of loss of its old-growth habitat to logging.

The only significant patch of murrelet habitat remaining in southwest Washington is a 13,748-acre swath of old forest on state trust land known as the Nemah block. That’s where Energy Northwest proposed to built the wind farm.

Energy Northwest proceeded to conduct its own murrelet studies in preparation for submitting an environmental impact statement.

Then, last year, Grays Harbor Public Utility District voted to not invest any additional funds in Radar Ridge, citing opposition from environmental groups and uncertainty over whether the project would receive the necessary permits.

Last week, all four participating utilities decided unanimously to terminate the project. Energy Northwest posted an update on its website this week noting the vote “to terminate immediately.”