BEND, Ore. — Plans for a big wind farm in north-central Oregon have been scrapped, state regulators say.
The Brush Canyon Wind Power Facility would have had as many as 223 turbines in Sherman and Wasco counties, The Bend Bulletin reported Friday.
It would have been in an area of 76,000 acres, or 119 square miles.
The turbines that have spread across the windy Columbia plateau in recent decades have benefited from two government initiatives: requirements by West Coast states that utilities include alternative energy among their energy sources and a federal tax credit based on turbine production.
But in December, the U.S. Congress let lapse the tax break enacted in 1992 to nurture the fledgling wind industry.
The Brush Canyon proposal had its origin, like many in the Northwest, proposed by the North American arm of a European or Scandinavian utility company, in this case the German firm E.ON AG.
“We don’t know why they pulled out, but it’s not unusual,” said spokesman Rachel Wray of the state Department of Energy. “We’ve had a number of projects pulled over the last couple of years. Some that had gone a ways through the process and others that were a lot less far along. It really varies.”
Calls and messages from The Associated Press to the company’s Chicago office and German headquarters were not immediately returned.
In Central Oregon, some were happy and relieved at the decision, saying the project was far too big and disruptive.
Residents of the high-desert town Antelope were anticipating that construction traffic would increase traffic by 600 percent, Mayor John Silvertooth said.
“It’s like a doctor telling a patient he’s in remission, or waking up from brain surgery and hearing everything was a success,” he said.
Antelope’s population is now about 50. It was larger in the 1980s, and got a lot of attention, when thousands of followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh tried to establish a political power base on a commune that was eventually forced out.
