Feds approve scaled-down Idaho wind farm near historic Japanese American incarceration site
The federal government has approved a scaled-down wind farm in Idaho over local opposition, including from groups concerned about its proximity to a historic site where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II
TWIN FALLS, Idaho — The federal government on Friday approved a scaled-down wind farm in Idaho over local opposition, including from groups concerned about its proximity to a historic site where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.
The Bureau of Land Management signed off on a final plan for the Lava Ridge Wind Project northeast of Twin Falls that decreases the number of wind turbines to 241 from 400 and imposes a maximum height of 660 feet (201 meters). The agency said the area “disturbed” by the project has been reduced by half from the initial proposal, with 992 acres (401 hectares) disturbed within a 38,535-acre (15,594-hectare) area.
The agency said the project could power up to 500,000 homes and that its approval “reflects a careful balance of clean energy development with the protection of natural, cultural, and socioeconomic resources on this historically significant landscape.”
Some groups have expressed concern over the high desert site's potential impacts on the Minidoka National Historic Site, where thousands of Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II.
Friends of Minidoka, a group that works to preserve the site and educate about its history, said it was reviewing the decision but that it remained disappointed by a project it views as harming the area's “sacredness.”
“Minidoka National Historic Site holds deep significance to both the nation as a whole and to the Japanese American community about the lessons of a gross violation of constitutional
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