October 18, 2023 EFSEC Monthly Meeting - Presentation on the HHH FEIS by staff member Sean Greene

Here are my notes on the HHH Final Environmental Impact Statement presentation

Bottom Line:

They are proceeding full-speed ahead. The FEIS expected to be completed by October 31, 2024. They made minor revisions to the DEIS and turned it into a FEIS.

  •  Ignores the objections of the cities, counties, and the local groups.

  •  Fails to respond to the problems identified in the DEIS and UASC.

  •  Fails to offer any reasonable alternatives.

  •  Fails to offer effective mitigation.

  •  Acknowledges significant unavoidable impacts remain.

  •  Proceeds to support the proposed action anyway.

  •  Violates SEPA and the RCW/WAC.

  •  Inadequate public outreach beyond noticing. Limited public comments

  •  No explanation describing how EFSEC and the FEIS address the comments received. This will be Chapter 10 of the FEIS

  •  September 26, 2023 memo to EFSEC from Tim McMahon identified changes to the proposal but has not received any public review.

Serious issues remain over numerous elements still exist.

  • Benton County issues over conditional uses and incompatibility still exist.

  • Yakima Nation issues over cultural impacts still remain.

  • TCC  - no reasonable elimination or turbines considered for reduction of the visual impacts. Are using only 0.5 miles as the setback distance.  3 new KOP’s.

  •  Fail to identify fire as a significant Unavoidable Adverse Impact.

Another presentation will be offered at a November 29 special meeting – several subject matter guests as experts.

Next steps

  • Deliberation on the adjudication, final order, SEPA – FEIS.                                 

  • Council takes both and formulates a recommendation to the Governor.

Selected Photos from the Presentation

The photo on page 6 of the presentation showing in green turbines for removal does not appear to track directly on to the map showing the turbines to be removed based on the Sept 26, 2023 memo.

The map still has turbines 1,2,3,4 along the ridge overlooking Benton City.  So I’m not at all sure what Sean Greene showed.