Clean energy industry making waves in Adams County

With the recent announcement from Avista that it has agreed to purchase power from the proposed Rattlesnake Flat Wind Project near Lind, coupled with the Adams-Neilson Solar Farm in Lind that went online late last year, there is no doubt that economic development in eastern Adams County is changing.

So how did the renewable energy industry end up finding its way to Adams County, and are there more projects in the works? And how might that affect--if at all--agriculture, the county's prime industry?

Adams-Neilson Solar Farm

In the case of the 28-megawatt Adams-Neilson Solar Farm, the county government took an active role as cheerleader and advocate, according to Stephen McFadden, Adams County Economic Director.

Avista, the utility company that provides electric and natural gas service to over 600,000 customers in the Inland Northwest, sent out a nationwide request for proposal (RFP) to solar providers. Avista's RFP said that it was looking to build a solar farm somewhere in its service area. In the RFP, Avista noted potentially good solar production areas--which also have immediately available substations--that the providers should look at for constructing a solar farm, which included Othello, Clarkston in Asotin County and Lewiston and Rathdrum in Idaho.

According to McFadden, the county government immediately jumped in and said "hey, we want you to pick Adams County." The county went so far as recruiting Governor Jay Inslee to write a letter of support to Avista, encouraging the utility company to select Adams County.

McFadden said that an underlying reason as to why they doggedly pursued bringing a solar farm to the county is to help increase the local tax base of towns and cities in eastern Adams County.

"This county, especially the eastern half of the county with Lind, Ritzville and Washtucna, has a fairly long history of population decline," said McFadden. "It hasn't had much success in diversifying its economy, or attracting private investment to increase local tax base so that cities and towns in the county can provide more, better and improved services to their residents ... So we went after it, and there were many companies that submitted proposals to the RFP."

The county talked with several solar provider companies during the RFP process, and Strata Solar, a company out of North Carolina that was seeking to increase its reach nationwide, ultimately picked the site on the hillside in Lind.

During a town hall meeting in Lind held by Strata Solar after it had selected the Lind site, Adams County Commissioner John Marshall asked the Strata Solar engineer in attendance why they chose Lind, "when everybody outside of this state thinks that all of Washington is like Seattle, rainy all of the time?"

As it turns out, the engineer's first job was in Portland, and he was familiar with the basin in eastern Oregon, which runs from Canada to Nevada. The engineer mentioned that data from NASA showed that Lind is the sunniest place in the state.

Strata Solar's proposal ended up being selected by Avista, and since then the largest solar power plant in Washington state was developed in Lind. Owned and operated by Strata Solar, the energy generated by the solar farm is offered through Avista's Solar Select program, which allows up to 80 commercial and industrial customers to receive carbon-free electricity at a premium cost.

"The 'win' there is that over the life of the project, it'll generate about $200,000 annually in new tax revenue," said McFadden. "And that tax revenue is divided among about a dozen junior taxing districts."

Some of the junior taxing districts that will receive a piece of the yearly tax revenue generated by the Adams-Neilson Solar Farm include County Current Expense, County Roads, the Parks & Recreation District at Lind, the Lind School District, the Lind Fire District, the Lind Cemetery District, the Emergency Medical Services Levy and the Public Hospital District.

Rattlesnake Flat Wind Project

Where county officials played the role of advocate and cheerleader in helping to bring the Adams-Neilson Solar Farm to Adams County, they played a lead role in helping to develop the Rattlesnake Flat Wind Project. The actual process itself, according to McFadden, can be traced back to starting in the early 2000s.

Some 15 years ago, Adams County staff came forward with an idea of looking at wind farms as a potential economic development project. At the time, wind farms were being developed throughout the Pacific Northwest in areas that had the highest recorded wind production. Swayed enough by the idea, county officials agreed to invest in installing meteorological towers, which measures wind.

"And so it seems like the wind blows here a lot, and the longer you live here the more you call it 'dust, the Adams County rain,' because the wind moves it around so much," McFadden said.

The original data collected all those years ago by county staff was then produced into a report for a developer. The developer has changed hands several times over the past decade or so, as has the report. And at the informational meeting held by NRG Energy in June of last year, which is now Clearway Energy, the visiting staff from NRG Energy acknowledged that the original data played a role in deciding to move forward with the Rattlesnake Flat Wind Project.

"So in this particular case, you can point to the county doing something and having a bit of an out-of-the-box vision 15 years ago," McFadden said, who also noted that it proves economic development isn't a fast process. "Fifteen years ago, the county spends money measuring wind for a couple of years and nothing immediately came of it. But then you fast-forward to now and you have a company standing in front of you saying, 'actually, your original wind data is part of why we think this is a good market to settle in.'"

Marshall was quick to credit county commissioners that he described as being forward-thinking at the time. He noted that the economy's changed in the last 15 years, and that the desire to have clean, renewable energy nowadays "is wholly different than it was then." Those two things, the changing economy and the want for renewable energy, came together at the right time, Marshall said.

The wind farm is expected to be constructed and begin producing energy sometime in 2020, and will span some 27,000 acres. Up to 90 turbines could eventually be built, although currently only about 55 turbines are set to be built during this phase of the project.

The farm will be electrically interconnected to Avista's regional transmission grid and will produce enough electricity to power nearly 40,000 homes. Most importantly for county officials, though, is that the tax revenue generated by the farm is expected to be much more significant than that of the Adams-Neilson Solar Farm.

Over $1.4 million is expected to be paid in property tax during the farm's first year, with an average of nearly $700,000 per year over the 20-year term of the project. Property taxes, on average, will decrease by roughly 8% for landowners in Lind, Washtucna and Ritzville. About $500,000 in Sales & Use tax will go to Adams County during the first year.

During the construction of the wind farm, which is estimated to take between 9-12 months, over 250 construction jobs will be created at its peak. More than 50 laborers will be hired locally during construction, as well. In all, about $12 million is expected to be spent locally during the farm's construction.

At least 10 full-time, family-wage operations jobs will be filled when the wind farm goes online in 2020, which includes a plant manager and turbine technicians. McFadden said the estimated yearly wage scale for those operations jobs is between $60,000 and $120,000. Some $350,000 a year is expected to be spent locally when the wind farm goes online, and Clearway Energy will require its crew to live within a 30-minute response time to the turbines.

"There's a really good chance that those are new folks moving into our county," said McFadden. "Hopefully they're bringing families and putting kids in schools."

By bringing in private investment to the area, McFadden says it allows for local government to spread out the burden in helping to fund services that the towns, cities and county provides. Due to the population decline and a lack of tax base growth, McFadden says the county has had to ask fewer and fewer property owners to carry the weight of helping to pay for those services.

The effect on Adams County farmers--is there one?

With the buzz about how Adams County is possibly in the early stages of a renewable energy boom, it's worth wondering if and what kind of effect that might have on the county's economic engine: agriculture.

McFadden was quick to point that county government officials have "no desire" to do anything that would harm the local agriculture industry, saying Adams County is an agriculture industry, first and foremost.

He also noted that according to the county's code, Adams County is a right-to-farm county. According to the National Agricultural Law Center, right-to-farm laws generally "seek to protect qualifying farmers and ranchers from nuisance lawsuits filed by individuals who move into a rural area where normal farming operations exist, and who later use nuisance actions to attempt to stop those ongoing operations."

According to Chapter 5.24 of the Adams County Code, a farm operation shall not be found to be a public or private nuisance if "the farm or farm operation conforms to generally accepted agricultural and management practices, and the farm or farm operation existed before a change in the land use or occupancy of adjacent land or other land in the general area." Farm operations also cannot be restricted to a specific time of the day, or day(s) of the week.

In the case of the Rattlesnake Flat Wind Project, farmers who have leased land for the project will be able to farm right around the base of the wind turbines. McFadden says he and other county staff toured a wind farm in the St. John/Rosalia area last summer, and that those wind turbines are located right in the middle of a wheatfield. The farmers simply just drive their combine around the oval and cut their wheat.

"I think that it's great when you've got a farmer who's growing a crop and he's going to continue growing the crop, but he's actually just increased his earning potential by leasing 0.6 acres out of a field for this windmill, and in return for that for the life of the project, he gets a lease check," McFadden said. Marshall pointed out that, unlike a crop, it doesn't matter how much precipitation they have each year, either. "That money still comes."

The farmers leasing their land to Clearway Energy are not responsible in maintaining the grounds, the sites or the turbines. The local year-round crew that is hired once the turbines are operational in 2020 will be responsible for that. Access roads will also be installed for the crew to reach the turbines.

Is there more where that came from?

There could be more cropless farms on the near horizon. With Adams County quite literally being the sunniest place inside of Avista's territory, McFadden said it has resulted in more than a dozen companies currently prospecting in the county, looking for the right opportunity to do a project.

While there's nothing in ink yet, McFadden said that some lease conversations are ongoing. County staff met with a solar company from Minnesota about a month ago, and were set to meet with another solar company this week.

With the state government leaning toward implementing rigorous renewable energy policies in efforts to combat climate change, McFadden said it's to Adams County's benefit that they are seemingly ahead of the curve when it comes to having expansive renewable energy projects already in place.

A recent measure passed by both the Washington House and Senate in the current legislative session--which will need to be passed by the Senate again because the bill was amended by the House, and then signed by Governor Inslee--would seek to eliminate fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal from the state's electricity supply by 2045.

The first step of the measure would require utilities to eliminate coal as an energy source by the end of 2025 as a first step in providing carbon-free electricity by 2045. Some 75% of electricity used in Washington is generated by carbon-free sources, including hydroelectric power. This would give the state 25 years to find carbon-free sources for the final 25% of its electricity needs. McFadden says the implementation of renewable energy policies like the aforementioned measure will obviously result in a demand for more solar and wind energy.

"The message that I think Adams County is giving is that we're friendly to the industry, as long as they're careful about land site selection and doing no harm to our existing prime industry, which is agriculture," McFadden said.

The magic in the deal, he reminded, is that solar and wind farms don't get built until there's an end buyer to purchase the power being generated. With utility companies feeling the heat to ditch fossil fuels in the near future, more potential buyers could be entering the renewable energy market in short order.