BLM issues final approval of scaled-down Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) – On Friday, the Bureau of Land Management issued a final decision for the Lava Ridge Wind Project, permitting company LS Power to move forward with a scaled-down alternative of the original proposal.

The alternative, which is nearly half the size of the original proposal, spans 104,000 acres northeast of Twin Falls and includes 241 turbines with a maximum height of 660 feet.

Despite the reduction in size of the project, the Lava Ridge Wind Project has become one of Idaho’s most controversial environmental issues in recent years — reflecting tensions between advancing clean energy, protecting ranching and outdoor recreation interests, and preserving historic sites.

Proponents argued that it would promote energy independence and boost Idaho’s economy by creating jobs and tax revenue, including more than $250 million in tax revenue over 30 years to Lincoln, Jerome and Minidoka counties. Opponents, including all of Idaho’s congressional delegation and many Idaho legislators, cited concerns about its effects on recreation, ranching, wildlife, and the preservation of Minidoka National Historic Site — a site of a former incarceration camp for Japanese Americans during World War II.

Permitting for the Lava Ridge Wind Project began in 2019 and has since been shaped by input from technical experts and the community, who raised concerns about reducing impacts to wildlife habitat and migration corridors and the impact to the immersive experience at Minidoka National Historic Site, according to a press release from Magic Valley Energy, an affiliate of LS Power.

“The BLM spent hundreds of hours in the field and in conference rooms talking with Native American leaders, Japanese American community members, cooperating agencies, ranchers, and a broad range of people with deep ties to the Magic Valley, who all helped shape the proposal,” BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a news release. “Those discussions led to a final decision that balances clean energy development that the country needs and the protection of resources that are vital to the natural and cultural history of the West.”

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Luke Papez, senior director of project development at LS Power, said the company is pleased with the BLM’s decision and looks forward to advancing the project into the construction and operation phase, which is when the economic benefits will start to flow into local communities.

The company has a phased construction plan in place to let Idahoans continue to use public lands during construction. Initial activities for construction could begin in 2025, Magic Valley Energy spokesperson, Amy Schutte, told the Idaho Capital Sun.

“Projects like Lava Ridge are necessary to help keep the lights on and power everything from homes to small businesses and American industrial centers,” Papez said in a press release.

Japanese Americans, descendants of Minidoka survivors denounce wind project

The Japanese American community has been one of the strongest opponents of the Lava Ridge Wind Project, claiming the construction of the project would take away from the immersive experience of Minidoka National Historic Site. The site, an important place for conscience and healing, was named a national monument in 2001 and a national historic site in 2008.

According to the Bureau of Land Management record of decision, the selected alternative for the wind project results in the lowest levels of visual change to the surrounding landscape compared to other options. The BLM has also enacted interim measures to limit additional development and protect cultural resources found at the Minidoka National Historic Site on 15,000 acres of public land.

The project will still be built nine miles from the Minidoka National Historic Site, where 13,000 Japanese Americans and Alaska Natives were incarcerated during World War II.

Minidoka was one of 10 relocation centers authorized under President Franklin Roosevelt, who in 1942 signed an executive order after the bombing of Pearl Harbor to forcibly relocate Japanese Americans to incarceration camps. The order led to the forced arrest of an estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans, the freezing of their assets, and their relocation to isolated sites across the U.S.

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Erin Shigaki, a Minidoka descendant and a longtime member of the Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee, said she that while the committee is pleased with the BLM’s decision to shrink the project and defer applications for wind and solar projects near Minidoka, she said the project’s impacts on the Japanese American community are “unacceptable.”

“We have an obligation to our ancestors, to our children and future generations to ensure that stories of forced incarceration of Japanese Americans are not erased by so-called clean energy,” Shigaki said in a press release. “Siting wind projects located in the viewshed of sacred land and over the universal objections of our community and local communities is not clean energy.”

The Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee, a volunteer-run organization of survivors, descendants and allies, provides opportunities to honor and heal Japanese American community members who were impacted by the incarceration camps during World War II. Minidoka survivors like Mary (Tanaka) Abo are calling on U.S. lawmakers to support permanent protections for Minidoka.

“For Minidoka pilgrims and visitors, the overall immersive experience of being unjustly cast out into a desert prison camp will certainly be distorted by the massive wind turbines,” Abo said in the press release. “Minidoka is an important part of U.S. history and deserves to be permanently protected for all Americans.”

Idaho elected officials say they will continue opposing project

Idaho’s congressional delegation has consistently opposed the Lava Ridge Wind Project, and even introduced legislation in Congress in 2023 to stop its development.

On Friday, U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said the BLM’s decision is an “abuse of our public land.”

“Today’s decision on Lava Ridge flies in the face of the people of Idaho,” Risch said on X. “Despite the outcry from Idahoans and the broader Japanese American community, the Biden-Harris White House refuses to listen. Instead, this administration will spend its final days attempting to inflict irreversible damage on Southern Idaho and the Minidoka National Historic Site.”

Like Risch, U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, both Idaho Republicans, said on social media the BLM’s approval of the project disregards Idahoans’ concerns, and they look forward to engaging with the incoming Trump Administration to have the project reviewed.

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador also condemned the project.

“Idaho has spoken very clearly in opposition to this project,” Labrador said in a statement. “The Lava Ridge project is a jewel in the Biden Administration’s Green New Deal crown and the Administration is moving ahead regardless of the damage to Idaho farms, ranches, rural communities, agricultural aviation, water supplies, wildlife, and historical sites. We will keep fighting this attempt to blatantly ignore the voice of Idahoans.”