Idaho Senator. Jim Risch (R) will continue to oppose a proposed wind farm northeast of Twin Falls.
Risch’s most recent bill would block the Lava Ridge project until the neutral Government Accountability Office assesses its impact on the adjoining Minidoka National Historic Site.
The site honors the 13,000 Japanese Americans detained there during WWII.
“This is so wrong on so many levels for anybody who has even the slightest concern and love for public lands,” Risch stated during a congressional hearing on Wednesday. “This thing ought to be off the table.”
Local county commissioners, state legislators, and other elected authorities have all rejected the project.
In October, Risch and the other three members of Idaho’s congressional delegation backed a bill that, if rejected by the state assembly, would have immediately halted any solar or wind energy project on public lands.
In June, the Bureau of Land Management released its final environmental assessment of the Lava Ridge project.
The optimal alternative would reduce the project’s footprint by half to approximately 104,000 acres and decrease the number of turbines from 400 to 241.
The closest cluster of turbines would be more than nine miles from the Minidoka site, but the environmental study highlighted that they would still be visible from some vantage points.
Sen. Joe Manchin, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, pledged to take up Risch’s idea during a hearing in September.