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“Rather than being an environmental issue, the policy is a classic case of anti-competitive and discriminatory behavior by a utility with a conflict of interest,” said Rob Gramlich, senior vice president of public policy at the American Wind Energy Association.

Ouch.

Wind energy industry folks have been sniping at the Bonneville Power Administration for weeks over the BPA’s creation, and practice of a policy to shut down wind farms because of an 鈥渙versupply鈥� of energy.

Because there’s so much rain and water melting off of snow pack, or the official term 鈥渦nusually high seasonal river flows,鈥� BPA’s dams are producing too much power for the grid to handle–unless it asks wind producers to shut off their turbines and let the water do all the producing, BPA says.

In “good water years” in the past, prolific hydroelectric production has meant shutting down other sources of energy–nuclear plants and so on鈥攂ut it hasn’t been a big problem because those energy sources can shut down their apparatus without losing money. The problem with doing this to wind producers is that those plants make money from production tax credits鈥攚hich they only get when the turbines are running. AWEA says the policy could cost wind producers tens of millions of dollars.

So the wind industry is not happy with BPA鈥攑robably the understatement of the year. Here’s another choice quote in response to BPA’s policy, which was released in a document called an 鈥淓nvironmental Redispatch.鈥�

“BPA really ought to call this the ‘Anti-Environmental Redispatch,’ since it makes no sense environmentally and flies in the face of the agency’s obligation under the Northwest Power Act to promote renewable electricity in the region,” commented AWEA CEO Denise Bode in a statement last week. “Yet the agency chose to ignore its statutory duties and Obama administration policies, and instead to illegally promote its own narrow economic interest over meeting its contractual obligations with private renewable energy companies.”

BPA has asked wind producers to stop producing for a period every day since May 19, sometimes multiple times a day (you can see BPA’s updates ). BPA says there’s no other option; they say pouring water over dams instead of sending it through turbines would harm salmon. The wind industry wants BPA to find another solution and is prolifically quoting a salmon protection organization that says BPA’s concern about danger to salmon is misplaced.

There’s no real resolution in sight for this conflict: both sides claim to have the greener answer, and while wind has recruited some big names like and Sen. Jeff Merkley to its side, BPA ultimately holds the switch.