The Bureau of Land Management is nearing a decision on a potentially massive wind farm that would be within view of a former incarceration camp in Idaho where Japanese Americans from the Pacific Northwest were held during World War II.
If built, the Lava Ridge Wind Project would rank among the largest power-producing wind farms in North America. But it could significantly alter the view sheds at the Minidoka National Historic Site, a National Park Service-run site that commemorates the 13,000 people who were moved from their homes in the 1940s to a remote stretch of high desert land in southern Idaho.
Mounting tensions over the project were on display recently as Idaho Republican lawmakers grilled Interior Secretary Deb Haaland about it during congressional budget hearings. It also highlights some of the potential challenges for the Biden administration, which has prioritized both expanding utility-scale renewable energy on public lands and trying to protect landscapes important to local communities.
The Lava Ridge wind farm would string together as many as 400 turbines, some taller in height than the Statue of Liberty, across a mostly flat, sparse planning area where locals say the visibility stretches miles in every direction.
