Get AI Briefings, Transcripts & Alerts on Local & National Government Meetings — Forever.
Paul Crouppen briefs Richland council on Tri City Cares' challenge to proposed wind project
Summary
Paul Crouppen of Tri City Cares updated the council on the group's multi‑year legal challenge to Scout Clean Energy's planned wind project, said briefs to the Washington Supreme Court are due Feb. 20, and warned the governor's remand and an executive order accelerating permitting could affect local input and the project's timeline.
Paul Crouppen, a volunteer with Tri City Cares, told the Richland City Council on Tuesday that his group is preparing a 50‑page brief for the Washington Supreme Court in a long‑running dispute over Scout Clean Energy’s proposed wind project.
Crouppen said the litigation, which has involved environmental impact statements, agency recommendations and parallel adjudication over roughly four years, centers on whether state regulators ignored scientific findings when the governor remanded a decision to the state energy commission. “You ignored the science,” he said of the governor’s action, calling the remand “irrational” and “arbitrary and capricious.” He said briefs are due Feb. 20 and that Scout will have 30 days to reply; oral arguments are tentatively scheduled for late May or early June, with a likely decision around July.
Why it matters: Crouppen said a key procedural and substantive change occurred when Scout altered its FAA filing and the governor remanded the commission decision, prompting Tri City Cares and others to seek judicial review. He described the commission’s earlier recommendation as reducing the project footprint by roughly half — including buffers around raptor nests — and said the governor’s action reopened the scope of permitted turbine locations. He also said hundreds of public comments that opponents wanted to rely on were inadvertently omitted from the administrative record and were added on Feb. 11 after correspondence with the attorney general’s office.
Crouppen described technical, siting and aviation concerns and emphasized local effects: he noted questions about interconnection approvals, off‑takers for the energy, and the proximity of turbines to homes. He said the group has raised more than $322,000 for legal fees and expert witnesses and encouraged public comments to the attorney general and governor about the omission of public comments from the administrative record. "It's the only real issue that they looked at in close detail," he said of the commission’s attention to ferruginous‑hawk buffers.
Council reaction and next steps: Council members thanked Crouppen for the update and asked several technical questions including whether project economics hinge on federal tax credits. Crouppen said the July tax‑credit threshold creates urgency but that legal delays or a remand could also make the project economically unviable if approvals are delayed past the tax‑credit date. He directed interested residents to TriCityCares.org for information and donation options and said the group would submit briefs on Friday, Feb. 20.
The council did not take action on the presentation; it was provided for information and public record.
