Harney County and the Steens Mountains: the next Gorge?
Posted on 12. Feb, 2010 by crowley in Blog, General
People see a lot of turbines in the east end of the Columbia River Gorge and wonder, “Is that going to happen in the Steens and southeastern Oregon, too?”
No. No, it’s not. For several reasons.
First and foremost, there simply are not many acres of land with sufficient wind resource. In fact, much of the best land (from a wind resource standpoint) is federally owned and designated as Wilderness or Wilderness Study Area (WSA). Those lands cannot be developed, period.
The map here has an overlay of publicly-available wind resource data and land ownership. Note how few acres show “developable” wind – it’s a total of about 95,000 acres. In a county of 10,000 square miles!
No, southeastern Oregon is NOT going to be the next Gorge, though a few good projects will be built where it is legal and appropriate to harvest these essential winter season winds to compliment the spring and summer winds in the Columbia River Gorge.
Connect with Us
