Overcoming obstacles in wind energy development - Solar, Wind and Land: Conflicts in Renewable Energy Development - page 174

from the Pacific Ocean to spawn. Coincidentally, steady wind currents
often follow the same general path as the salmon, coursing more than 100
miles up the Gorge due to major differences between ocean and inland air
temperatures. In Klickitat County, these “Chinook winds” tend to be the
strongest on ridge tops within roughly three miles of the Gorge's north rim.
Without question, they comprise some of the richest wind resources in the
northwest United States. 1
Many of the approximately 20,000 residents of Klickitat County have
long been accustomed to the frequent windiness in the area. For most of
the county's history, these winds had never amounted to much more than
an annoyance—just another element of rough-and-tough ranching life. A
cattle rancher in the county once recounted how he routinely battled strong
headwinds as a child while pedaling his bicycle to school. 2 He and his friends
eventually learned that these gusty conditions were more manageable if they
zigzagged back and forth across the road on their bikes as they traveled.
They lived in a windy place, and there was nothing they could do to make
the wind stop. All they could do was find ways to deal with it.
By the 1990s, the growing market for wind-generated energy in the
western United States had convinced some developers that the near-constant
breeze blowing in southern Klickitat County was more than merely a
source of irritation—it was potentially an asset of great commercial value.
Developers increasingly began contemplating the possibility of capitalizing
on the windiness of the lower Columbia Gorge region. From a developer's
perspective, Klickitat County and the surrounding area had more to offer than
just strong wind resources. Because the Bonneville Power Administration had
constructed multiple hydroelectric dams along the Columbia River decades
earlier, there was an unusually plentiful amount of high-voltage transmission
capacity available in the area. This ready transmission infrastructure had the
potential to connect new wind farms into California's lucrative electricity
markets, where wind-generated power was beginning to command significant
price premiums. The Columbia Gorge region's hydroelectric systems could
also serve as a good complement to wind farms, allowing grid operators to
better manage wind energy's intermittency challenges by adjusting nearby
hydropower production. The rare combination of these transmission-related
advantages and above-average wind resources made southern Klickitat
County a particularly attractive potential wind farm site.
A developer named Dana Peck was among the first individuals to appre-
ciate the wind energy potential in Klickitat County. He moved to the county
in the 1990s to attempt to develop a wind farm in the county's Columbia
Hills area for the company Kenetech. Peck was a pioneer of sorts for wind
energy in Klickitat County—an outsider who moved into to the region and
quickly recognized that wind energy seemed a natural fit for this struggling
rural area.
When Peck arrived in Klickitat County, the local economy was stagnant
and its fiscal challenges were growing. Farming and cattle ranching had