A Washington commission will send a recommendation to Gov. Jay Inslee this week on the proposed Horse Heaven Hills wind turbine farm that would leave intact more than three-quarters of the originally requested number of turbines.

The proposed turbine farm has drawn scrutiny for its possible impact on Native cultural sites and on wildlife in the area, as well as its visibility from the Tri-Cities.

With scant discussion, the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council approved the recommendation 4-3 Friday.

Scout Clean Energy of Boulder, Colorado, originally made plans for two scenarios, calling for a maximum of 147 670-foot-tall wind turbines or 222 500-foot turbines along a 24-mile east/west stretch of the Horse Heaven Hills just south of Kennewick. However, the Evaluation Council decided in February to implement two-mile buffer zones around 60 to 70 ferruginous hawk nests in that area and remove turbines along the north slopes of the hills.

The company says those buffer zones cut Scout Clean Energy’s number of turbines by roughly half. At that time, the company said those changes would trim the projected 1,150 megawatts of wind power to 236 megawatts.

Inslee sent the February recommendations back to the Council, wanting to increase the number of turbines back to the original estimates. In recent months, the Council has discussed trimming some ferruginous hawk buffer zones to 0.6 mile around the nests. In 2021, the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission changed the status of ferruginous hawks from threatened to endangered.

The recommendations approved Friday call for a 0.6 mile buffer around the nests, plus a 0.25-mile buffer around historic Native American fire sites, plus a one-mile buffer alongside Webber Canyon, another culturally sensitive spot for Indigenous nations.

If 500-foot turbines are installed, that would trim the number of turbines by approximately 50, from 222 to roughly 172. If 670-foot turbines are installed, that would cut the number of turbines by approximately 34, from 147 to roughly 113. More precise figures will be calculated later.

Scout Clean Energy’s original proposal also included two 500-megawatt solar panel farms on the east and west sides of the 24-mile stretch. The Council ordered that the eastern solar farm be removed because of its proximity to sensitive Native cultural sites. 

The wind farm has drawn strong opposition from numerous Tri-Citians because the original plan for the turbines would also disrupt a currently pristine view of the hills from the urban area. This Horse Heaven Hills matter has become the most contentious disagreement among several in Washington between wind and solar farms on one side and wildlife preservation on the other.

Washington’s latest carbon auction raised $237.2 million, bringing 2024’s cap-and-invest revenue up to $561.7 million with one more quarterly auction to go.

Carbon-emitting corporations, including oil companies, bid every three months on state allowances for their pollution emissions. In 2023, the first year of the new program, quarterly auctions brought in about $2 billion. 

During 2023, quarterly auction prices ranged from $48.50 for roughly one metric ton of carbon in the first quarter to $63.03 in the third. Those prices were significantly higher than had been expected when the program was designed, and were blamed for adding 21 to 50 cents per gallon to Washington’s traditionally high gas prices.

But both auction prices and related fuel prices have gone down in 2024. 

The 2024 first-quarter auction price was $25.76 per allowance, which raised $135.5 million for the state budget. The second-quarter price was $29.92 per allowance, raising roughly $189 million. The third-quarter auction, conducted Sept. 4, ended up with a $29.88 price per allowance with 7,939,271 allowances sold, the Washington Department of Ecology announced Wednesday.

Reasons for the lower 2024 auction prices are unknown, but one theory is that bidders are unwilling to spend money on a program that could disappear at the end of 2024, after voters decide on a state initiative to repeal the cap-and-invest program. Others believe Washington’s carbon market is stabilizing and that bidders are becoming more savvy about the way they approach the quarterly auctions.

While larger auction prices have been linked to higher gasoline prices, too many extra factors cloud any precise correlations. Numerous economic, geographic and other factors affect the rise and fall of Washington’s prices at the pump. For decades, Washington’s gasoline prices have been among the highest in the nation.

On Wednesday, Washington’s average price for regular gas was $4.16 per gallon compared to a national average of $3.25, according to AAA. Oregon has economic and geographic factors somewhat similar to Washington’s, except for a cap-and-invest program. Its gasoline sold at an average of $3.76 per gallon this week. 

“Despite efforts to repeal this landmark climate law, the [cap-and-invest program] continues to bring real, tangible relief to our communities as we respond to the impacts of climate change. ... While the repeal effort may have placed slight downward pressure on the price of pollution permits during the auction bidding process, more notably, prices have remained consistent with California and Quebec’s price trajectories,” said a joint press release from Climate Solutions, Washington Conservation and The Nature Conservancy.

Washington is talking with California and Quebec to become a three-party alliance, which is expected to decrease and stabilize auction prices.

The state has fined The Home Depot $1.6 million for selling illegal hydrofluorocarbon products after two years of trying to get the corporation to comply with the law, the state Ecology Department announced Thursday.

The Legislature passed laws in 2019 and 2021 to phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbon products or HFCs. They are used mostly for refrigeration and air conditioning and can leak into the air if the equipment is damaged. According to Ecology, HFCs have hundreds of times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide.

One of the new state restrictions banned the sale of R-134a canisters at retail stores beginning in July 2021. R-134a is an HFC refrigerant used in automotive air conditioning systems with a global warming potential 1,430 times that of carbon dioxide, the news release said. Vehicle manufacturers had already begun phasing out the use of R-134a.

However, the Home Depot’s website continued to sell equipment with R-134a refrigerants through at least September 2023, according to Ecology. The Home Depot informed Ecology that it sold 1,058 units of the prohibited products in Washington between April 12, 2022, and Sept. 5, 2023, the state news release said.

“Restricting HFC products and equipment is key to achieving the state’s statutory greenhouse gas emission limits and ultimately getting to net zero by 2050,” said Joel Creswell, head of the Ecology Department’s Climate Pollution Reduction Program, in the news release. “HFCs safely sealed inside air-conditioning systems can be recovered, recycled and reused, but when they leak out, they become a major contributor to climate change.”

A 2008 state law that sets Washington’s carbon-reduction targets of 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, 70 percent by 2040 and 95 percent by 2050. 

Washington has fallen short of its original predictions of how much money its cap-and-invest program would raise in the first half of 2024; the actual total for the first half of the year is about $324.5 million. 

Late last year, state officials predicted that carbon pricing auctions would raise $941 million in the first half of this year. But auction prices have dropped dramatically. 

Carbon-emitting corporations, including oil companies, bid every three months on state allowances for their pollution emissions. 

During 2023, quarterly auction prices ranged from $48.50 for roughly one metric ton of carbon in the first quarter to $63.03 in the third. Those prices were significantly higher than expected, and were blamed for adding 21 to 50 cents per gallon to Washington’s traditionally high gas prices.

In 2024, the first-quarter auction price was $25.76 per allowance, which raised $135.5 million. The second-quarter auction price — publicly announced Wednesday — was $29.92 per allowance, raising roughly $189 million.

Reasons for auction price decreases are unknown, but there has been speculation. One theory is that bidders are unwilling to spend money on a program that could disappear at the end of 2024, when voters decide on a state initiative to repeal the cap-and-invest program. Others believe Washington’s carbon market is stabilizing and that bidders are becoming more savvy about the way they approach the quarterly auctions. 

While larger auction prices have been linked to higher gasoline prices, too many extra factors cloud any precise correlations. Numerous economic, geographic and other factors affect the rise and fall of Washington’s prices at the pump. For decades, Washington’s gasoline prices have been among the highest in the nation. On Wednesday, Washington’s average price for regular gas was $4.38 per gallon, compared to a national average of $3.45, according to AAA.

Washington State Ferries is inviting companies to express interest in building five new hybrid diesel/electric ferries. 

The bid process, announced Monday, is the latest step toward getting two new ferries running in Puget Sound by 2028, two more by 2029 and a fifth by 2030, said Steve Nevey, the Washington Department of Transportation’s assistant secretary for the ferry system.

Some politicians, including the Republican candidates for governor, have called for replacing the first two hybrid ferries with diesel-only vessels, predicting that diesel ferries can be finished quicker. But state officials say at this point, hybrid ferries can be built faster. 

“This hybrid electric design is the quickest path,” Nevey said.

Sources for the diesel engines and for some electrical systems that were used for the previous round of new ferries in 2014-2018 have gone out of business, so switching back to diesel ferries would require finding new manufacturers and doing new design work. “We’d have to start all over again,” said Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, the Washington House’s   transportation leader.

“Ship design is a lengthy and complex process,” Nevey added. 

The invitation for bids will gauge potential interest in building the hybrid ferries. The state expects at least 10 bidders nationwide to study whether they want to bid on Washington contracts. The WSF aims to have one or two shipbuilding companies contracted in 2025 to build the five hybrid ferries.

The ferry system is struggling to keep 10 routes that criss-cross Puget Sound fully functional. The system requires 19 vessels during its peak usage period and 17 during the off-season. With some ferries being maintained or under repair, the fleet usually has 16 to 18 vessels in service at a time. WSF aims to expand that to 21 to 26 vessels by 2040, 22 of which would be hybrid diesel/electric, to reduce the fleet’s carbon footprint by 76%.

After contracts are awarded in 2025, the ferry system expects the design work to take one year and construction to take two years.

The ferry system is seeking to replace its second-largest vessel — capacity 144 vehicles — with a model capable of handling 164 standard cars. The hybrid vessel — capable of a top speed of 17 knots — would be faster, lighter and more fuel-efficient than its predecessor, he added.

Grizzly bears will roam the North Cascades region for the first time in 27 years under a restoration process conducted by the National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the two agencies announced Thursday. 

According to the agencies’ restoration plan, they will capture 25 grizzly bears from the Rocky Mountains or interior British Columbia and release them in the North Cascades over five to 10 years. The aim is for this initial population to grow to 200 bears in 60-100 years. 

Agencies have not yet set a timeline to relocate grizzly bears to the North Cascades. The National Park Service will publish updates on its website.

Federal agencies say restoring a grizzly bear population would bring back ecological interactions crucial and beneficial to the region’s fish and wildlife habitat, including seed dispersal to replenish plant life and regulation of the prey population. The U.S. portion of the North Cascades region spans 9,800 square miles. About 85% of the region is under federal management. 

However, not all welcomed the news. U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Yakima, has proposed legislation to prevent the relocation, noting the potential impact on residents, livestock and wildlife. 

“This administration is, once again, disregarding local public opinion and instead catering to the whims of coastal elites and the out-of-touch environmentalist lobby, which has been rushing to finalize this plan since its inception,” Newhouse said in a news release Thursday. 

Grizzly bears inhabited the North Cascades for thousands of years, but the population has declined due to killing by humans. The species hasn’t been seen in the North Cascade since 1996. The species is currently classified as threatened in the lower 48 states. 

The bears will be designated as a nonessential experimental population under the Endangered Species Act, which provides additional flexibility in restoring a species’ population. 

The bears will have radio collars to provide wildlife managers with updates on their movement. Sightings of the bears are expected to be rare during the first 10 to 20 years of the restoration effort. 

The restoration decision follows a two-year environmental impact evaluation process, which included more than 12,000 comments from the public. 

A Washington commission recommended approval Wednesday of a slimmed-down wind turbine project just south of the Tri-Cities.

The Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council voted 5-2 to recommend that Gov. Jay Inslee approve the Horse Heaven Hills turbine project. The original project had faced criticism for threatening endangered ferruginous hawks and ruining views.

Inslee now has 60 days to make his decision. EFSEC is a committee of representatives from several Washington state agencies.

Scout Clean Energy of Boulder, Colorado, originally made plans for a maximum of 141 or 222 wind turbines – depending on approved height – along a 24-mile east/west stretch of the Horse Heaven Hills just south of Kennewick. However, the state council decided in February to implement two-mile buffer zones around 60 to 70 ferruginous hawk nests in that area and remove turbines along the north slopes of the hills. 

The buffer zone cuts Scout Clean Energy’s number of turbines by roughly half, though the precise number won’t be available until the company maps out a new plan. The company said the changes trim the projected 1,150 megawatts of wind power to 236 megawatts.

Scout Clean Energy’s original proposal also included two 500-megawatt solar panel farms on the east and west sides of the 24-mile stretch. EFSEC ordered that the eastern solar farm be removed because of its proximity to sensitive Native cultural sites. 

The wind farm has drawn strong opposition from numerous Tri-Citians because the original plan for the turbines would disrupt a currently pristine view of the hills from the urban area, and could disturb the ferruginous hawk nests. 

"By partially approving the Horse Heaven wind and solar project, EFSEC is balancing the need for renewable, clean energy with potential impacts on tribal cultural resources, wildlife and surrounding communities,” said the council’s chairwoman Kathleen Drew at Wednesday’s meeting.

The state Department of Ecology declared a drought emergency for most of the state Tuesday. 

The department first noted the threat of drought after a dry start to the winter. While precipitation in the past three months contributed to an increase in Washington’s snowpack, there still isn’t enough water needed for farms, aquatic wildlife and people. 

Snowpack is at 68% statewide, with several areas, including the Olympic Mountains, Lower Yakima and north Puget Sound region, having significantly lower numbers.

Drought is declared when there is less than 75% of normal water supply, and a risk of undue hardship. With anticipated warm and dry conditions this spring, Ecology said in a news release that it wanted to declare a drought to make assistance available before impacts become severe. The agency will have up to $4.5 million available for drought response grants for qualifying public entities to respond to the impact of current drought conditions. Declaring an emergency also allows Ecology to process emergency water-rights permits and transfers.  

Ecology is working with other state agencies to coordinate the drought response. Drought conditions could adversely affect the state’s agriculture industry (still recovering from losses from several years of adverse weather conditions) and also adversely impact fish and other wildlife. 

This drought emergency includes more of the state than the emergency from 2023, which was declared for watersheds in 12 counties. This time around, only a portion of the Puget Sound area, including the cities of Seattle, Everett and Tacoma, are not included in the emergency. Those cities have reservoir storage and water management strategies that make them resilient to drought, Ecology said in the news release. 

The Washington Department of Health plans to lower the limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced new lower limits on Wednesday.

The EPA released new nationwide maximum contaminant levels for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – known as PFAS – after a year-long review. The DOH responded to that announcement with an explanation of what those new limits will mean for Washington. The new EPA maximum levels are mostly lower than the limits adopted in 2021 by the Washington State Board of Health.

Those state limits will stay in place until the Board of Health adopts the new federal levels, which can take up to two years, according to a news release from the DOH.

PFAS are a class of water-resistant human-made chemicals used in a wide variety of products from rain jackets to Teflon pans to firefighting foam. These so-called “forever chemicals” do not break down easily in the environment. They have been found to have negative health impacts that include higher cholesterol, decreased immune response, thyroid disease and increased risks of kidney and testicular cancer.

The DOH offers a page filled with information about PFAS, and so do the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Recent reporting at Cascade PBS revealed how much of a problem these substances have been in Washington.

California and Quebec on Wednesday took the next step toward partnering with Washington to form a bigger carbon market.

The state and Canadian province formally announced their interest in the joint venture. The earliest that the proposed alliance could happen is 2025. Lurking in the background is a November referendum on whether to repeal Washington’s cap-and-invest program.

“Though Washington has formally expressed interest in joining the California-Québec carbon market, today’s joint statement is the first time that all three governments have expressed their mutual interest in forming a shared market,” wrote Washington Department of Ecology spokeswoman Caroline Halter in an email. Details will be hashed out among the three governments.

The Washington Legislature recently passed a bill that brings this state’s fledgling carbon market regulations in sync with the joint California/Quebec market. A bigger market is expected to bring down carbon emission auction prices, which would lead to lower gasoline prices.  

Washington’s carbon polluters, including oil companies, bid every three months on the amount of carbon emissions they can release. The volume of allowances is limited, which has driven up auction bids. 

Until recently, Washington’s auction prices — ranging from $48.50 to $63.03 per allowance of about one metric ton of carbon emissions — have been significantly higher than those of the California/Quebec joint market, taking a lot of blame for this state’s high gasoline prices. But while Washington’s carbon auction prices have been higher than those in California, Washington has frequently had lower gas prices. 

New York, Massachusetts and Maryland are watching Washington and this potential alliance with thoughts of creating their own cap-and-trade programs to eventually join the bigger market.

Earlier this month, at Washington’s first auction of the year, carbon allowance prices of $25.76 came in dramatically lower than those in the California/Quebec market, whose bid prices increased from $19 in 2021 to $41.76 last month, according to the California Air Resources Board. 

Since January 2023, Washington has raised $1.96 billion in cap-and-invest revenue for many dozen climate change mitigation programs.