PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Wednesday announced legislation that would maintain Oregon’s water and air quality rules at the same level or higher than they were the day before President Donald Trump took office.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that one of the goals of the legislation is to protect public health welfare from the adverse effects of pollution and climate change.

With the new legislation, called the Oregon Environmental Protection Act, Brown said she is looking to inspire a national movement of states to oppose what she called the “unprecedented and aggressive attack” on clean air and water.

The Trump administration has undertaken several actions to overturn or delay environmental laws from taking effect, ranging from carbon-emissions goals in the Obama-era Clean Power Plan designed to help the United States meet international climate goals to protections for wildlife — and from regulations of pesticides, ozone and mercury to expanding fossil fuel development on public lands.

With the new legislation, called the Oregon Environmental Protection Act, Brown said she is looking to inspire a national movement of states to oppose what she called the “unprecedented and aggressive attack” on clean air and water.

Brown’s proposed legislation focuses on the federal Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act. Both are regulated and enforced at the state level by Oregon agencies such as the Department of Environmental Quality, the Oregon Health Authority and the Water Resources Department. In most instances, the federal laws allow states to establish more stringent environmental protections than required nationally.

The governor’s office said, if passed by the Legislature, the legislation would maintain Obama-era ozone emission standards, regulate methane and other pollutants from landfills, as well as mercury emissions from the state’s one remaining coal power plant and extend water quality protections to some to the state’s rivers and streams.

The state Legislature, which is controlled Brown’s fellow Democrats, has balked at some new environmental legislation in recent years.

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The developers of a proposed $185 million waterfront project in Oregon City are working with environmentalists to advance their plans to build hundreds of condominiums and apartments.

The city’s urban renewal commission on Wednesday night voted unanimously to push the developers’ land-use applications through to be processed by Oregon City staffers. But that step comes after several delays for the Cove proposal, and developers Ed Darrow and Randy Tyler pleaded with the commissioners to keep the project moving.

“We’re really running out of time,” Darrow said at the meeting, noting that potential project partners were starting to ask why a deal wasn’t being made. “At this point we really need to move the project forward.”

On Oct. 5, the commission slowed the land-use application process by requesting Darrow and Tyler of Pacific Properties Search LLC to present a revised plan for tree removal and grading on the 92-acre Cove site.

On Wednesday night, the developers unveiled their plan. They had invited several interested parties – commissioners, a habitat biologist from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and members of the Heritage Waters Habitat Task Force – to tour the site. ODFW biologist Elizabeth Ruther wrote a report that included some recommendations.

“The report was very positive,” Tyler said. “She wasn’t wearing a big regulatory hat and acknowledges that development will go forward.”

At the meeting, Jerry Herrmann and Bryon Boyce, co-chairmen of the Heritage Waters Habitat Task Force, implored the commission to move the project forward. Since April, the task force has consulted with Tyler about environmental concerns about different iterations of the site plan.

“They’ve been willing to listen and consider other alternatives, and we are really appreciative of that fact,” Herrmann said. “We don’t want to see (the project) held up because of us; we want it to move forward.”

Tyler framed the project’s inclusion of environmentalists as the “new paradigm” for development. Environmental stakeholders are now welcomed into the planning process – and those with expertise are invited to contribute.

“The developers have shown interest and good faith in amending the landscaping plans to meet the needs of the community and restore the habitat around the cove,” city manager David Frasher said.

Commissioner Jim Nicita expressed concern that some tree removal would decrease shading important to the cove’s habitat, and requested additional review of that issue. The commission decided to incorporate specific concerns into the motion to approve the tree removal and grading plans so as not to delay the application any further.

The approval will allow legal staffers to begin work necessary for a development agreement to be negotiated with the commission.

Tyler and Darrow hope to begin construction in April 2012 for the first phase, which includes 204 condos instead of 210 apartments scheduled previously. Tyler cited economic reasons for the switch.

“There’s just no money available for condo construction right now, but there is money to do an apartment project,” he said.

The team plans to build to condo standards, lease the units as apartments for a couple of years, and then flip them to condos when the market turns around.

The developers are focusing mainly on starting residential construction, although the fate of the rest of the site continues to draw speculation. Tyler said Concordia University has expressed interest in occupying as much as 100,000 square feet of the site, but university spokeswoman Madeline Turnock said no advanced plans exist.

Wisconsin-based , a company that helps businesses strategize plans for growth, also has expressed interest in the site. The company asked to be placed on the city commission’s upcoming agenda, according to Frasher.

“We have multiple interests in the site, but we also have a long-standing partnership with PPS on the Cove,” he said. “I imagine the city will have to see a pretty compelling set of circumstances to change course – although all options are still on the table.”

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A move by the U.S. Green Building Council may lead more architects to consult the Audubon Society of Portland, a group dedicated to improving bird safety.

The USGBC is adding a bird-safety credit to its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, and some observers contend this will influence architects’ building designs.

According to some estimates, millions of bird deaths each year are caused by collisions with buildings. The Audubon Society’s Portland chapter has worked to make buildings safer for the 209 bird species that fly through the city as part of the Pacific Flyway north-south migration route, and the research has aided many local architects already.

Erik Matthews, executive director of Portland-based , recently was called upon to draw up his first intentionally bird-friendly design for a new Turtle Island Foods facility in Hood River. To accommodate his client, who is an Audubon Society member, Matthews worked with Mary Coolidge, assistant conservation director of the Portland chapter, to discuss design possibilities.

The Audubon Society of Portland in 2009 began an effort to understand the magnitude of the region’s window-strike problem by conducting surveys of certain downtown sites. Twenty-two buildings now participate in the voluntary “” program, which asks tenants and building users to report dead bird sightings and window strikes.

“If you’re not looking (for window-struck birds), then you won’t see the evidence,” Coolidge said. “They’ll get stuck in planters or picked up by crows and house cats, swept up by maintenance crews, and just go missing.”

Audubon Society members routinely check the BirdSafe sites, collecting between 50 and 70 dead birds each season. Local residents each year bring an additional 200-300 injured or dead birds to the Audubon Wildlife Care Center because of window strikes, according to Coolidge, who is working with the city of Portland to draft bird-friendly building guidelines for architects and developers.

Overnight lighting on city buildings is one threat to a safe migration season. Lights lure birds into urban areas after dark, and risk hitting buildings during daytime.

Fox Tower was the first to participate in Portland’s “Lights Out” program, a national Audubon Society campaign that encourages building operators to shut off night-lighting during migration season. The Congress Center, the Portland Building, and a few others also are in the process of enrolling, according to Coolidge.

The major design trend that threatens bird safety is an increased use of glass. Modern, glass-walled buildings are dangerous for birds, but so are elements such as windows that meet at the corner of a building, windowed sky-bridges and glass courtyards.

“They think they can continue flying because they see the reflection of tree and sky, or the reflection of an ‘urban canyon,’ which is the passageway between two adjacent buildings,” Coolidge said.

The main safety strategy is to use window glass that has been treated with opaque or translucent films, glazes or decals.

Some green building advocates are already aware of bird-safety issues, including the architects of the high-profile Oregon Sustainability Center. The design team consulted with the Audubon Society of Portland and is considering adding frit or screening that will reduce glass transparency on the ground floor as well as on corners, according to Kyle Andersen, a principal at

Coolidge gave bird-safety presentations to the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment a few weeks ago, and will soon do the same for in Portland.

Working on the Turtle Island Foods project inspired Matthews, whose work at Surround Architecture often focuses on sustainability, to think about ways to offset the disruptions that buildings cause for not only birds, but other animals as well.

“When we were working on the design (for the Hood River facility), we thought it would be great if the building had a green roof that allowed deer to come up to nibble on the roof,” Matthews said. “But it’s a romantic notion. All designers should be cognizant of their work’s impact, but that level of things will take some time to work its way into urban settings.”

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A Portland-based environmental group is seeking to stop exploratory drilling on forest lands near Mount St. Helens as a Canadian company prepares to probe for copper, gold, and other minerals.

Ascot Resources of Vancouver, British Columbia, plans to drill on Gifford Pinchot National Forest lands in Southwest Washington beginning in early August. Ascot acquired mineral rights on the land in 2010.

Ascot would drill 30 holes from 12 drilling pads for about 40,000 feet. The company has also applied to the Bureau of Land Management for a prospecting permit on adjacent lands. John Toffan, president of Ascot, said that third-party environmental assessments are being conducted on the site by URS Corporation out of Spokane, Wash.

“If the resource is as big as we think, it will provide a tremendous amount of jobs if our project goes forward,” Toffan said. “We’ll probably start with capital expenses of about one billion dollars, and we will probably hire 1,000 workers directly, which will create another 3,000 jobs as things go.”

The environmental group Gifford Pinchot Task Force sued in federal court in Tacoma, Wash., last week to get the U.S. Forest Service to conduct environmental reviews and allow time for public comment.

Toffan said that Ascot has been in full compliance with the U.S. Forest Service and has not violated any environmental standards that would substantiate the lawsuit. “We think it’s frivolous, really,” Toffan said. “There’s no basis in fact.”

The task force, however, claimed the project could pollute drinking water and endanger wildlife habitats, as well as cause interferences with hunting, fishing and other recreational activities that draw people to Skamania County every year.

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A state Senate bill that would protect regionally significant industrial lands from being converted to other uses, and accelerate the permitting process on those lands, is one step closer to becoming law.

The Oregon Senate on Thursday passed – which was sponsored by Sen. Lee Beyer, D-Springfield – by a 27-3 margin. The bill will now go to a vote in front of the state House of Representatives.

Gov. John Kitzhaber has championed the bill since he entered office earlier this year.

“I commend the Senate for its passage of Senate Bill 766,” Kitzhaber said in a statement last week. “This bill will provide a strong competitive advantage for Oregon and a high level of predictability for investment by the business community while maintaining our great quality of life and it’s an important part of Oregon’s economic recovery strategy.”

The bill would allow local governments to designate certain lands as industrially significant, and prevent their uses from being changed. The bill stipulates that there must be at least five industrial significant lands and no more than 15. A state panel would then oversee an expedited state permitting process when a project is pitched for those lands deemed regionally significant.

The commercial real estate and industrial business communities support the bill, as does land-use advocacy group 1000 Friends of Oregon.

Opposition has come from the Audubon Society of Portland, an environmental advocacy group. It believes public opinion would be eliminated from major decisions. The organization is particularly concerned about potential development of West Hayden Island.

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After a two-year fight that included an appeal to the state land-use board, a Eugene advocacy group is finally getting what it wants: a say in what will happen with a 67-acre undeveloped waterfront parcel near the University of Oregon.

UO President Richard Lariviere has asked developer Trammell Crow Co. to consider a second site for the four-story, 79,800-square-foot office building that was pegged for 4.7 acres of the waterfront parcel. Lariviere also called for a new master plan for the entire property.

The announcement encouraged Connecting Eugene – a group of citizens and UO students, faculty and alumni that has asked for the property to be used as a public amenity since plans for the building surfaced in 2008.

The university teamed up with Trammell Crow in 2008 to start development of a new office building for the Oregon Research Institute, an independent behavioral research center based in Eugene, at 855 Riverfront Parkway.

The building would have been only the third built on the property since 1989, when a master plan called for construction of 10 buildings – totaling 1.2 million square feet – for private research. The two existing buildings total 110,000 square feet.

When plans were unveiled for the ORI project, Connecting Eugene – while working with the University Senate and the Associated Students of the University of Oregon – immediately responded with concern because the property occupies a prime location along the Willamette River and near campus.

“I’m cautiously optimistic (about the decision),” said UO graduate student and Connecting Eugene member Paul Cziko. “Yet (I’m) delighted that President Lariviere is responding to the concerns of the students, faculty and community members who want to see the Oregon Research Institute project built while protecting the riverfront from inappropriate development.”

Cziko has long called for the property to be developed for a public use. The $17 million ORI project would benefit only the developer, he said, and would be a loss for the university and taxpayers.

While the announcement doesn’t guarantee realization of Cziko’s dream of a public waterfront, it does leave the door open for such development.

“Connecting Eugene welcomes any move that would expedite construction of the ORI building in a location away from the riverfront,” said Allen Hancock, a member of the group.

Lariviere asked Trammell Crow to consider another university-owned parcel nearly a quarter-mile away at 1700 Millrace Drive. He asked the development firm to simultaneously examine the feasibility of the Millrace Drive site while continuing to plan for the existing site.

“The decision to postpone development of another new building within the research park allows us to re-examine the best location for the (ORI) building,” Lariviere said. “By exploring the feasibility of the 1700 Millrace site, I am confident that we will arrive at the best possible outcome for everyone involved.”

One of the major issues, according to university officials, is whether the Millrace Drive site, which is only 2.5 acres, could accommodate the same building planned for the waterfront site.

According to Steve Wells, senior managing director of Trammell Crow’s Portland office, the company wants to construct a high-quality, energy-efficient building that adds to the Eugene built environment. He said the company is fully committed to developing the waterfront site, but officials are willing to simultaneously explore the other site.

In addition to exploring the alternative site, the university will develop a new master plan before moving forward with any other projects in the research park, according to UO Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies Rich Linton. The existing master plan is set to expire in 2012.

“Beyond the project, the university will launch a master planning process to help address future facilities needs for UO’s expanding role in catalyzing innovation and its ties to economic development,” Linton said.

According to Cziko, choosing to leave the riverfront site undeveloped under the existing master plan would allow for renewed citizen involvement. The Associated Students of the University of Oregon already has pledged $56,000 for educational events and opportunities for public involvement related to the riverfront.

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A coal export facility proposed for construction near Longview, Wash., was appealed Monday by environmental groups. They claim Cowlitz County officials acted outside the best interest of the community by failing to consider impacts the facility would have beyond the state.

Washington state guidelines inform local jurisdictions which environmental impacts must be considered when determining whether a construction project needs a full environmental analysis. But while the guidelines encourage officials to look beyond their areas when considering these impacts, they don’t require them to do so, according to Washington’s Department of Ecology.

The appeal was filed Monday by Earthjustice, Climate Solutions, Columbia Riverkeeper, Sierra Club and the Washington Environmental Council. They want to invalidate the project’s shoreline development permit approved by Cowlitz County and require the county to complete a full Environmental Impact Statement. The project, proposed by Millennium Bulk Logistics, calls for constructing a facility along the Columbia River where 5.7 million tons of Wyoming and Montana coal could be exported to Asia annually.

Cowlitz County, according to Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman, did not take into account increased coal use in Asia, increased coal mining activity in Wyoming and Montana, increased transportation of coal via ship to Asia and other impacts outside state lines when it determined the facility to have a non-significant environmental impact. The process used to weigh environmental criteria, the , allows local officials to forgo a full environmental impact statement if a project is environmentally non-significant.

“We feel Cowlitz County’s conclusion is wrong,” Hasselman said. “SEPA requires consideration of all impacts without regard to where they occur and explicitly calls for consideration of the global nature of environmental problems. The issue here is whether more mining and more coal burning are effects of the project. And if they are, they have to be considered.”

The county, however, received no guidance at a state level to include anything related to the consequences of the project in other countries or other states in their SEPA analysis, according to Mike Wojtowicz, director of the Cowlitz County Department of Building and Planning. He said surface treatments applied to the coal at the project site and on the train cars that would bring the coal through the Columbia Gorge from Wyoming, were sufficient enough for the county to render its decision.

“I feel the county did proper due diligence,” Wojtowicz said. “The guidance I have from the state Department of Ecology is that we can’t consider those impacts related to consequences of burning coal in Asia.”

But Washington state law does allow local officials to examine a project’s impacts outside city lines, according to Annie Szvetecz, a SEPA policy lead with the state Department of Ecology. A requirement in the SEPA rules says that officials should not limit examination of a project’s impacts to the area within their local jurisdiction. Enforcement of that requirement, however, is nearly impossible, Szvetecz said.

“SEPA is a very hard tool to enforce because it relies on citizens to appeal,” Szvetecz said. “There is one provision in SEPA that says not to limit your analysis to impacts within your jurisdiction, but it doesn’t say how far you have to go or where to draw those boundaries.”

This will be the first case examining the SEPA process and how it should consider out-of-state impacts, but the National Environmental Policy Act has been the subject of several cases where communities have appealed because of the environmental issues that projects would cause in other places, according to Steve Jones, an attorney with Martin Law in Seattle.

In Border Power Working Group v. Department of Energy, for example, the U.S. district court for Southern California ruled that the Department of Energy failed to assess greenhouse gas emissions associated with a project to connect the California grid with two coal-fired plants in Mexico. The DOE then had to evaluate how the project would increase emissions globally, not just locally, Jones said.

Washington state has failed to adopt rules or provide guidance for local officials to consider environmental impacts that projects could have in other places, Hasselman said. As a result, issues often end up in court. The state, however, is presently examining how to add provisions to SEPA that would consider climate change.

Hasselman hopes this case will bring attention to the matter, and result in more concrete direction from the state Department of Ecology on how to consider out-of-state environmental impacts. The appeal process is expected to last through summer 2011.

“It can be tricky assessing energy and climate, but that doesn’t mean agencies don’t have a duty,” Hasselman said. “It means the state has not helped define how to carry it out.”

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» Video: Hideous or graceful? Union County split over look of wind turbines

» Photos: More images from Union County

A storm is brewing in the Grande Ronde Valley, and it’s about to get windier.

After the success of its project near the tiny community of Telocaset, developer is looking to add as many as 164 turbines to the foothills of this windy valley. But the 475-foot-tall turbines have divided the sparsely populated county.

The is unique because it is one of only a few Oregon valleys surrounded by mountains. It’s also one of the state’s windiest areas, according to Valerie Franklin, project manager with Horizon Wind. The rolling mountains nestled between the Grande Ronde and Baker valleys also mean strong winds during winter – when turbines lining the Columbia River Gorge aren’t turning.

But despite its rich natural resource, Union County is suffering. Its 10.5 percent unemployment rate is comparable to the state average, but its 15 percent poverty rate is higher. With more farms and timber mills closing each year, some residents feel a few jobs and more tax revenue justify the addition of turbines on the county’s mountains.

Others, like Dennis Wilkinson, president of anti-wind group , say wind farms are ruining the valley by introducing roads, noise and red, blinking lights, while bringing in little money and few jobs. Wilkinson and 200 group members have launched an aggressive campaign complete with flyers, county fair booths and ample anti-wind signage to try and sway residents away from wind.

Anti-wind, anti-tax

Vintage tractors cover Wilkinson’s property, tucked into a hillside that could soon see more turbines. A retiree, he spends his time tinkering with heavy machinery, but lately he’s taken up a new hobby: fighting development of wind turbines in Union County.

While some members of his group decry the turbines for scaring away wildlife and scarring the landscape, Wilkinson was driven to start the group for another reason: money.

“These wind companies are using federal and state subsidies to build these things,” Wilkinson said. “Guess what? It’s being paid (for) with your tax dollars.”

Horizon received $11 million in state to build Elkhorn Valley, an amount Wilkinson said is significant when compared to the number of jobs created and the amount of tax revenue the county has received in return. According to the Oregon Department of Revenue, Elkhorn Valley accounted for 9.3 percent of Union County’s total property tax revenue between 2008 and 2009. Currently, Elkhorn Valley employs 12 employees to maintain the turbines and three Horizon employees to operate the wind farm. With changes to the BETC, Franklin said she isn’t sure if Horizon will receive any state subsidies for Horizon Wind’s proposed new wind farm, .

Plus, Wilkinson said, his county now has visual pollution of turbines generating electricity that goes to other states.

That’s only half true, Franklin said. Though Horizon has a power purchase agreement with Idaho Power, that utility has customers in Oregon. Union County’s largest town, La Grande, is about a two-hour drive from the Idaho border. The problem, according to Mike Hulse, Elkhorn Valley operations manager with Horizon Wind, is that people don’t understand how power is generated and transmitted back to homes.

“There’s no passing lane on a power line,” Hulse said. “The power goes where the demand is, whether it’s in Idaho or right here in Union. But people only know what they hear, which is that the power we generate here goes somewhere else.”

The final sticking point for Wilkinson is the ratio of power generated to acreage used. Elkhorn Valley covers 10,000 acres, and Antelope Ridge would cover 47,000 more. Wilkinson’s group claims in its promotional materials that the turbines operate at 10 to 20 percent efficiency. Elkhorn Valley could produce 101 megawatts of electricity annually, but only if the wind blew all day, every day. A wind farm’s efficiency is determined by how often winds blow.

Though Franklin said Elkhorn Valley’s energy output is confidential, she said it was close to 30 percent on average, or 30.3 megawatts. If Antelope Ridge were to perform equally well, it would produce 90 megawatts on average.

“I’d rather see another 10-acre natural gas plant than 47,000 acres of wind turbines,” Wilkinson said. “A gas plant being built in Idaho right now only costs $400 million. This new wind farm will cost $600 million and will still need a coal or gas plant to back it up.”

Local farmer and wind advocate Doug Lewis says Wilkinson is wrong about the need to build a new coal or gas plant for every wind farm in the state. The only new gas plant being considered is one to replace Portland General Electric’s Boardman facility when it is shut down in the next 20 years.

“The opposition is anti-tax, anti-government and anti-growth,” Lewis said. “I think it comes down to viewsheds and property values for most of them. There are red, blinking lights on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, too, but that doesn’t stop people from buying houses there.”

Wilkinson’s group notched a small victory last month after the Union County Board of Commissioners voted to allow residents to weigh in on Antelope Ridge on the November ballot. The results of that vote will be considered public testimony by , according to Oregon Department of Energy spokeswoman Diana Enright. The council, which is the governmental body that decides where energy facilities should be developed in Oregon, will have the final say on whether Antelope Ridge moves forward.

At the August hearing to decide whether the community should vote on the proposed wind farm, 106 people showed up to testify: 53 spoke in favor of the farms and 53 spoke against them.

Growing a new crop in Union County

Fifteen new jobs and income for struggling landowners in Union County aren’t small potatoes for Lewis, a North Powder farmer and member of the pro-wind group . To him, turbines are no more harmful to property than his potato farm.

“I can grow any crop I want, yet these people are being called out for siting turbines on (their property),” Lewis said. “That’s like someone telling me they don’t like the color of flower crops I’m growing. These developers and landowners should have the opportunity to grow these projects here.”

According to Lewis, some of his neighbors who have allowed turbines to be sited on their land are earning upwards of $1.5 million per year from Horizon. What the anti-wind farm group doesn’t recognize, Lewis said, is the trickledown effect of landowners having more disposable income. More money will be spent locally on new cars, home improvements and other services, Lewis said.

Frustrated by what he said is misinformation distributed by wind farm objectors, Lewis recently joined For Our Rural Oregon. One of the largest pieces of misinformation, Lewis said, is that Elkhorn Valley did not create local jobs. Fourteen of the wind farm’s employees are local residents. Only Hulse, who relocated from California, came from outside the area.

Nine years ago, Shane Kirkland, who grew up near North Powder, had no college degree and was working in a trailer factory. Today, he is a Vestas employee and part of Elkhorn Valley’s senior management. With local timber production down 4 percent from 2009 and 225 people out of work after the trailer factory closed, Kirkland says even the few jobs these wind projects provide are necessary for the county’s economic health. Entry-level Vestas workers make between $16 and $28 per hour, depending on experience. Horizon said it plans to hire 20 full-time employees at Antelope Ridge.

“We’re talking family-income jobs here,” Kirkland said. “Resumes are pulled from local resources. We find a guy with hydraulic, electrical or crane experience and train him to work on turbines. Mill workers have great experience for these jobs. It’s nice to see something take the place of the timber industry as more mills close.”

Many nearby colleges, including community colleges in Walla Walla, Wash., The Dalles and Vancouver, Wash., have begun to offer training programs for wind turbine technicians, Hulse said. Horizon also hires road maintenance workers, custodians to clean the rugs at Elkhorn Valley’s headquarters and electricians to help with transmission line maintenance.

The hardest part of his job, Hulse said, is handling misinformation. Some residents complain that the turbines are loud and cause health problems. But the most vocal opponents have never seen the wind turbines up close, Hulse said.

By offering tours of Elkhorn Valley, and bringing schoolchildren and others to the site, he hopes that one day his work will be seen as positive rather than detrimental to the county.

“I work out here every day and I’m healthy,” Hulse said. “After a while, you don’t hear them anymore. When I have conversations with people, I can usually minimize the misinformation. We ask people to come out and listen to the turbines and get them involved so they see both sides of the equation.”

Energy is always a trade-off

Though wind farms are bringing in tax revenue and jobs, some residents, as well as federal and state agencies, are concerned about the effect that increased energy development will have on wildlife.

At his home in Union, resident Jed Farmer has become accustomed to seeing elk raise their young in the foothills. Soon, however, those foothills could be covered in turbines, driving elk into the valley floor’s farms, where they will most likely be shot by property owners, Farmer said. Farmer, a member of the Union County Planning Commission, regrets voting yes to Elkhorn Valley. He recently joined Wilkinson’s group Friends of the Grande Ronde Valley.

“I’m not against wind, but I’m against wind in this area,” Farmer said. “The local wildlife’s existence depends on coming down the foothills to breed. Maps I’ve received from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife show the wildlife have already moved out of the areas with turbines at Elkhorn. Three golden eagles have been killed. The area we live in will change dramatically as more wind is added.”

Both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife also have concerns about how Antelope Ridge turbines would affect wildlife. Horizon is working with both agencies to see what can be done to mitigate any harmful effects to wildlife.

Of course, any industrial-scale energy development is going to change the land and the way wildlife live in it, Lewis said. He calls those protesting the wind farms for environmental reasons “romantic greens.” At this point, Lewis said, any alternative is preferable to more coal, and any alternative is going to impact something, whether it’s elk, people or a state’s landscape.

“Milk doesn’t come out of a carton and power doesn’t come out of the socket,” Lewis said. “When you don’t allow a project like this to (proceed), that’s that much more coal we’re going to use. Wind isn’t the solution, but it’s part of the solution.”

The post Wind war in Union County appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

When Pacific Wind Power, a Central Oregon company, decided to build a wind farm 30 miles east of Bend, the father-daughter team developing the project knew it would face opposition from local environmental groups eager to preserve the desert landscape.

But rather than wait for petitions and letters to come rolling in, Sarah Rankin Stahl and her father, John Stahl, decided to take a proactive approach. Even before they started filing permits for the West Butte Wind Power project, they contacted the Oregon Natural Desert Association to find out what compromises could be reached.

“I’ve lived in Bend for 14 and a half years,” Rankin Stahl said. “I knew the local politics and that the Oregon Natural Desert Association had a vested interest in any big development going on in the area. Instead of starting out with an adversarial relationship, why not go in and talk to them?”

As more renewable energy developers take advantage of windy expanses of land in Oregon’s eastern deserts, battles increasingly are being waged between developers and conservation groups. Developers want the land with the best wind and sun exposure. For the most part, that land is located near habitats of sage grouse, golden eagles and other wildlife, and environmentalists worry development could harm such areas.

The 104-megawatt West Butte Wind Power project is on the edge of a sage grouse habitat, Stahl said. A century ago, approximately 16 million sage grouse lived in the U.S. Now there are about 200,000.

To lessen the potential impact the wind farm could have on sage grouse, the desert association recommended starting a fund for clearing juniper bushes, another species encroaching on sagebrush.

“When I asked a guy from (the Oregon Department of) Fish and Wildlife what we could do, he said, ‘Kill all those juniper trees,’ ” Stahl said. “We’ve been cutting down thousands of acres on our own site and we’re putting $1 million into a fund to maintain the public lands.”

Though sage grouse are unlikely to come into contact with wind turbines, the tall structures have been blamed for killing other bird species, including golden eagles. And there is virtually no research on how many birds per year are killed by turbines in the U.S., Stahl said. So, once the wind farm is up and running, Pacific Wind Power will commission a bird fatality study, and also donate to an education and rehabilitation program for eagles.

“There are (few) eagles on our site because of the topography,” Stahl said. “But if we do injure one, there’s a bird rehabilitation center near Pendleton.”

Overall, the project will employ 50 environmental mitigation tactics, adding several million dollars to the total cost. But Rankin Stahl also said groups have accepted her team’s project more readily than others proposed in the area.

“I think our work with the desert association has (deterred) some other watchdog groups from spending as much time watching us as they would,” Rankin Stahl said. “If you can be as direct and up-front as possible, you’ll gain more respect. I went in and said, ‘This is my backyard, too.’ I want to see green power done responsibly.”

As the state has worked to reduce its dependence on oil, developers and environmental groups have found they have a common goal, according to Liz Nysson, climate change coordinator for the Oregon Natural Desert Association.

“There is a movement in conservation to support renewable energy development to reduce our carbon footprint and create a new economy,” Nysson said. “Projects like West Butte illustrate that there will always be impacts, but working together there are ways to develop a project with a smaller impact on its surroundings.”

The Oregon Natural Desert Association is always interested in working with developers in the early stages of energy projects, Executive Director Brent Fenty said. Like Nysson, he doesn’t want to see the reputation of renewables tarnished by outcry over habitat destruction, bird fatalities and other issues. Fenty said his group has been criticized by other environmentalists for being too soft on energy development, but added that compromise may be required in some instances to ensure a clean energy future.

“There is no such thing as a project without impacts,” Fenty said. “There are still projects proposed in areas that are unacceptable to us. But we want to see this stuff on the grid, so at some level, we have to accept certain impacts.”

The final environmental impact statement for the West Butte Wind Power project is due in a couple weeks, Stahl said. After right of way is granted by the Bureau of Land Management, geological and engineering studies will be performed. The project is expected to employ 200 people. Construction is scheduled to start later this year.

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Visitors come from all over to see Harney County’s untouched and expansive desert. But the Eastern Oregon area’s beauty and unique wildlife population has led to conflict over development of a new industry in the struggling area, according to Randy Fulton, economic development director for Harney County.

Fulton, a Harney County native, has been working with Columbia Energy Partners, a Vancouver, Wash.-based wind developer, to bring four new wind farms to a site near the county’s Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area. But environmental groups, including the Oregon Natural Desert Association, say the project will have unacceptable consequences to nearby wildlife. The Audubon Society of Portland and the Oregon chapter of the Sierra Club also oppose the project.

Fulton said he understands the desire to preserve the county’s beauty, but he doesn’t want to see environmental concerns outweigh a project’s economic potential.

“Everyone says they love Harney County because it’s beautiful,” Fulton said. “But we have 20 percent unemployment. There are a lot of good things these groups do, but we’re going to save ourselves to death.”

Fulton says this project would inject nearly $1 billion into his county, which has lost all income and employment associated with the timber industry that once helped the area thrive. Construction of the project’s four wind farms could create 60 to 70 jobs, and the four farms would each need eight full-time employees to maintain the turbines, Fulton said.

“If all of these projects are put in, it will be the beginning of an industry,” Fulton said. “It comes down to what species are important. Wind turbines may knock down a bird or two, but we can save people here.”

The Oregon Natural Desert Association is not opposed to renewable energy development, according to Liz Nysson, the group’s climate change coordinator. But locating wind farms within the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area, she said, is in direct conflict with legislation created to protect the desert. The bars new development on federal lands.

“Lands in Harney County are vast and varied,” Nysson said. “There are many appropriate places for wind development. But when we put these projects in places with severe environmental impacts, we aren’t getting the benefit of truly green energy.”

Those environmental impacts, Nysson said, include potential collisions of raptors with wind turbines, disruption of endangered sage grouse habitat and alteration of the natural character of Steens Mountain.

Chris Crowley, president of Columbia Energy Partners, says the desert association doesn’t have a case because the Steens act preserved private property rights. All of the turbines would be constructed on private property, Crowley said.

Also, although Oregon’s Energy Facility Siting Council cannot approve new energy projects in protected areas, the council does not consider Steens Mountain a protected area, Crowley said. The desert association in June asked the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council to add Steens Mountain to the list of protected areas, but that request was rejected, Crowley said.

“There are people who cherish this wilderness just as we do,” Crowley said. “But private property is private.”

Harney County, Crowley said, is extremely desirable for wind development because of its 20-mph winds year-round, including in winter months when wind in the Columbia Gorge dies down.

The developer spent $1.5 million over three years on the project’s draft , which was released Monday. Crowley hopes the 1,000-page study will put to rest some concerns from environmental groups. The next step will be the final environmental impact statement, due to be released later this year. Crowley hopes construction will start early next year on the first of the Greater Echanis wind farms.

Nysson declined to comment on whether her group would pursue legal action to stop development of the wind farms, but said it would be monitoring the project in coming months. She said she had only briefly looked at the draft environmental impact statement; however, she did see a list of bird species that could be affected by the project.

“The number of species seen by surveyors is quite remarkable,” Nysson said. “I feel like that alone is something that really stands out as a reason to preserve the area.”

Fulton, meanwhile, hopes to preserve the livelihood of Harney County’s residents.

“There’s nothing here for us without jobs,” Fulton said. “We are the most endangered species in Harney County today.”

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