by Nick Pope
According to the Associated Press, the Biden administration is moving to scale down and relocate a proposed onshore wind project in Idaho after receiving significant opposition from local residents.
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently published a final environmental assessment of the Lava Ridge wind project in Idaho, which expressed the intention to scale the project down by almost 50 percent and move it several miles away from the World War II memorial dedicated to Japanese Americans interned in the area. According to to AP. The project has been met with fierce opposition from residents, largely out of concern that its presence will diminish the experience of visitors to the memorial, known as the Minidoka National Historic Site.
According to the AP, the BLM’s preferred alternative would be to reduce the number of wind turbines in the project from 400 to 241 and limit the maximum height of the turbines to 600 feet. Under the BLM’s preferred alternative, the closest turbine to the memorial would be nine miles away, while the original 2020 project proposal called for the turbines to be placed within about two miles of the monument’s visitor center.
Luke Papez, senior director of project development at New York-based LS Power, characterized the agency’s preferred alternative of balancing environmental concerns and improving domestic energy production, according to the AP. Magic Valley Energy – the company implementing the Lava Ridge project – is a subsidiary of LS Power.
Friends of Mindonka – a group that opposed the project because of the impact it could have on the monument – is not ecstatic with the BLM’s environmental review. Other interests, such as local governments and farmers, also spoke out against the initiative design.
“At the request of the Bureau of Land Management, we conducted detailed historical research of the Biden administration to enable it to better protect lands where Japanese Americans have been unjustly imprisoned and exploited for land clearing and infrastructure construction labor,” Robyn Achilles, executive director of Friends of Minidoka, he said in the environmental review statement. “Most of this research was left out of this decision. They choose to disregard the policies of the National Park Service that protect the historic landscape in favor of a highly harmful and obstructive project. The Biden administration must do a better job and truly commit to protecting Minidoka and our heritage, or we will forever have to deal with Lava Ridge and other projects.”
Republican senator from Idaho Jim Rish According to the AP, both Rep. Mike Simpson and Rep. Mike Simpson expressed opposition to Lava Ridge as recently as last week.
Neither the BLM nor Magic Valley Energy immediately responded to requests for comment.
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Nick Pope is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
