Environmental Engineering Reference
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historically been the county's predominant industries. County residents that
had long relied primarily on these industries for income were finding it more
and more difficult to make ends meet. Peck viewed wind energy as one of
the most promising ways to revitalize the county's economy and improve its
shrinking municipal budgets.
Despite the diligent efforts of Dana Peck and others, Kenetech's wind
farm plans never took off the ground. Poor timing was unquestionably
part of Kenetech's problem: the market demand for wind-generated energy
was still too tepid to make a new wind farm project commercially viable
in the region. Congress also had not yet enacted generous federal tax
credit programs to promote renewables, and most of the other government
programs that have spurred wind energy's growth in the past decade had
not yet been put into place. The project's economics were simply not good
enough to justify pursuing wind farm development at that time.
However, Dana Peck believed that market conditions and federal policies
were not the only reasons that wind farms had not yet sprouted in Klickitat
County. While working for Kenetech, Peck had experienced first hand the
frustrations of trying to obtain approvals for wind energy development
through the county's outmoded and burdensome system of conditional use
environmental review requirements mandated under the Washington State
Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), involved so much expense and risk that
few wind farm developers would ever want to pursue projects in the county.
Rather than leave Klickitat County in light of these problems, Dana
Peck chose to stay and lead an effort to remove some of the obstacles that
had prevented his company's wind farm project from taking shape. Peck
worked his way into local government administration, eventually accepting
a position as Klickitat County's Director of Economic Development. He
then rolled up his sleeves and went to work, spearheading revisions to the
county's ordinances so that the county would be better positioned to attract
wind energy development dollars when market conditions improved.
A welcome mat for wind farms: the energy overlay zone
Dana Peck's years of experience as a wind energy developer with Kenetech
gave him a good sense of what it would take to woo wind energy devel-
opers into Klickitat County. His policy strategy was simple: streamline
the county's wind farm permitting process, eliminating as many unnec-
essary regulatory risks as possible. Peck was not advocating a laissez-faire,
anything-goes approach to wind farm approvals. However, he did want
to introduce more developer-friendly policies in the county—policies that
would lay down a figurative welcome mat for responsible wind energy
development.
Peck and other Klickitat County officials ultimately crafted an innovative
“energy overlay zone” (EOZ) ordinance to promote wind energy in certain
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