The Bureau of Land Management’s efforts to approve a major wind power project in southern Idaho has suffered a setback, and its fate is now up in the air.
The federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation notified BLM on Friday it is terminating efforts to work out a programmatic agreement on the Lava Ridge Wind Project, saying it cannot ensure the project won’t cause damage to the nearby Minidoka National Historic Site.
The ACHP’s decision, outlined in a letter to BLM’s acting Idaho Director Peter Ditton, is a black eye for BLM, which in June advanced the project in a final analysis that dramatically scaled back the proposal specifically to avoid impacts to the site where thousands of Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.
Despite the setback, the bureau can still approve the project in a record of decision that was set to be issued in the coming weeks.
But BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning will now have to first address in writing ACHP’s concerns and outline a plan to ensure that the project — which would rank among the largest wind farms in North America — can be built and operated in a way that protects the National Park Service-managed Minidoka site.
An Interior Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement that BLM plans to continue working with the advisory council on Lava Ridge, “and looks forward to receiving additional comments from ACHP” on the issue.
“The BLM is working closely with the company, stakeholders and the community to ensure a final decision minimizes impacts and protects sensitive resources,” the spokesperson said, “including through consideration of additional, broader compensatory mitigation measures.”
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation advises the president and members of Congress on historic compliance with the requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. That law requires federal agencies work with the council to evaluate the impacts of projects they oversee on historic resources, such as the national historic site.
The advisory council’s decision to end consultation with BLM comes just days after Idaho’s Republican-led congressional delegation sent a letter Wednesday to ACHP Chair Sara Bronin asking the council to “terminate its consultation” with the bureau, noting the numerous public concerns with the project.
Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), who led the letter-writing campaign to Bronin, hailed the decision, calling it “a win for Idahoans.” In a statement, he said the decision “underscores that this project is obstructive and entirely unwanted.” He added, “This battle is not over, and I am committed to fighting until the Biden-Harris administration understand the people of Idaho unequivocally do not want Lava Ridge.”
Fierce opposition
Reid Nelson, ACHP’s executive director, explained in the Friday letter sent to Ditton that the council made the decision to terminate formal consultation with BLM after the Idaho State Historic Preservation Office declined to sign a formal programmatic agreement outlining stipulations to ensure the Lava Ridge project did not damage the region’s historic resources.
Nelson, in essence, wrote that the State Historic Preservation Office is best positioned to analyze the public concerns about the project. The state office’s refusal to sign the programmatic agreement, which had been in the works since formal consultation began in April 2021, led the ACHP to conclude that the numerous objections to the project from the Idaho Legislature, congressional delegation, Native American tribes and the Japanese American community likely could not be successfully resolved.
“Absent the [state office’s] local expertise and resources to assist the BLM in implementing” stipulations in the programmatic agreement, including developing a Historic Property Management Plan, “it would not be possible for the ACHP to provide the sort of expertise and assistance the BLM would need” to successfully implement the terms of the agreement, Nelson wrote.
Moving forward without the State Historic Preservation Office would result in a programmatic agreement “that does not reflect” the “scale and scope” of the Lava Ridge project, “and that would likely lack sufficient mitigation measures to resolve the undertaking’s adverse effects on historic properties. Accordingly, the ACHP believes that further consultation in this case would be unproductive and therefore, we are hereby terminating consultation.”
The advisory council’s decision is the latest development in a yearslong effort by BLM to review the Lava Ridge Wind Project over sometimes fierce opposition. Examples include a stipulation in the final fiscal 2024 Interior-Environment spending package that forbids federal funds from being used to issue a right-of-way grant for the project until BLM consulted with “local elected officials” and others in the region on “action alternatives designed to reduce impacts” from the project.
While Interior Secretary Deb Haaland acknowledged during a Senate hearing in May that the stipulation slowed review of the project, the bureau in June advanced a plan for final approval of the wind farm.
Concessions fail to reassure
The backers of the project proposed by a subsidiary of New York-based LS Power have made concessions to scale back the project, including reducing the number and height of the wind turbines to reduce visibility from the Minidoka National Historic Site.
A company spokesperson declined to comment on the ACHP’s latest decision.
The scaled-down version of the project, outlined in a final environmental impact statement in June, has drawn the support of the Idaho Conservation League, which notes the project’s importance to expand green energy in the name of fighting climate change.
The wind project would have the capacity to produce up to 1,200 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power roughly 500,000 homes.
But opposition to the project remains strong.
The NPS-run Minidoka National Historic Site commemorates the 13,000 people who were forcibly removed from their homes in the 1940s to a remote stretch of high desert land in southern Idaho.
Critics of the Lava Ridge project say the wind turbines and access roads would ruin the remoteness of the area that underscores how the U.S. government wanted to shuttle Japanese Americans away from the rest of society during the war. The landscape preservation is also important, supporters say, because those incarcerated at the original Minidoka War Relocation Center were forced to work on the land, including building an irrigation system.
A coalition of volunteer groups composed of survivors and descendants of those who were incarcerated at the site sent a letter in July to President Joe Biden asking him to honor his long-standing commitment to “advance racial and environmental justice” issues and reject the Lava Ridge Wind Project.
“The sanctity of Minidoka National Historic Site will forever be harmed by Lava Ridge — we know you understand the importance of preserving sites of trauma, where people need to heal and reflect,” the letter says.
Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, who chairs the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, successfully included a provision in the House version of the fiscal 2025 spending bill for the Interior Department that would block the Lava Ridge project “from moving forward” in the federal permitting process. Congress has yet to approve a final spending package.
