Questions & Answers : Goldendale Pumped Storage 

Tribal Cultural and Religious Resources

Question: Are there other places Yakama Nation can go to gather foods and medicines?

Answer: No. Rye Development wants to excavate Pushpum (also known as Juniper Point), an incredibly sacred area for Yakama Nation where they have gathered foods and medicines since time immemorial. Known as “mother of all roots,” Pushpum is a natural seed bank. Many species of plants and herbs can only be found here. 

Supporting Facts:

• Seed banks ensure genetic diversity and plant resiliency for the future. They are vital to maintaining the cultural and traditional practices of Yakama Nation alongside the ecosystem. 
• Many of the roots that grow here are endemic to this area, meaning that they cannot be gathered anywhere else. 
• Yakama Nation Tribal members gather First Foods and medicines that rely on Pushpum’s seed bank to maintain flourishing, healthy flora. Destroying that seedbank and removing key wildlife, like birds and insects, will have untold consequences that will deteriorate native food sovereignty and contribute to food scarcity.
• Pushpum figures prominently in Yakama Nation’s creation story. To destroy this area creates an unimaginable disconnect between the spiritual and physical relationship that Indigenous people hold to their lands. It furthers a legacy of dispossession and investing in greenwashed energy that continues patterns of unjust development. 

Question: What are Tribal cultural resources?

Answer: Tribal cultural resources are defined by Tribes. 

Supporting Facts:

• There is no federal definition of “cultural resources,” but they can include tangible resources or cultural practices. 
• Only Yakama Nation can determine and speak on what is sacred to them. They have made clear the importance of the area where the Goldendale Pumped Storage development is proposed and the cultural resources it would destroy. 
• If built, the development would completely destroy or disturb:
  • Six archaeological sites.  According to the Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, 79 percent of the development area is within high risk or very high risk areas for the possibility of encountering archaeological sites.  Archaeological sites have been recorded in the study area, and the study area is entirely within the Columbia Hills Archaeological District. 
  • Three Traditional Cultural Properties (TCPs). Pushpum and another site, Nch’ima, were identified by Yakama Nation with support from the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs. Pushpum and a third confidential TCP, were identified by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.  
  • An area of traditional gathering and activities that the Nez Perce Tribe has emphasized as part of a larger integrated cultural network. Destroying this area would have negative impacts beyond the development area in space and time.  
• Cultural resource protection sits within a distinct historical context of colonization, land theft, and cultural erasure for Tribal Nations, creating nuance that those outside that protection may find hard to understand. A lack of understanding in no way lessens the importance of protecting these resources. 

Question: Can’t the developer just replant any plants that are destroyed?

Answer: No. Cultural resources are non-renewable and irreplaceable. Once they are destroyed they don’t come back.  Any remediation to replant sacred plants misunderstands the relationship Indigenous people hold with First Foods and medicines.   

Supporting Facts:

• Pushpum is a sacred home to many traditional foods and medicines. Culturally, these plants are alive and this location is the environment in which they thrive and live. It’s what makes Pushpum so powerful and significant to Yakama Nation. 
• The plants located here have grown and thrived along with the Tribe and their cultural identity in a symbiotic relationship since time immemorial. This relationship cannot be artificially replicated. 
• The forced removal of a sacred plant is akin to the forced removal of Native people onto reservations. The removal is culturally detrimental to the health and welfare of the people and plants and creates a disconnect with the world around them, creating immediate and generational trauma. 
• Yakama Nation are gathers, not cultivators. They follow their First Foods on their ancestral land, where the plants themselves choose to grow; they don’t force their growth. 

Clean Energy

Question: Is this development needed in this location to meet our state’s energy storage goals? 

Answer: No. While it is true that we need energy storage to meet our goals, there are other ways to create storage. No alternative analysis of other locations has been done for this development. Other pumped storage developments are moving forward elsewhere. This is not the only location available for energy storage. 

Supporting Facts:

• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) both failed to require information on other ways to achieve comparable energy storage benefits—either through other locations for a similar project or other technologies. This means we lack the information to know how to meet energy storage needs elsewhere. 
• Since alternatives have not been explored, it’s inaccurate to say that this development is needed in this location for Washington to meet its energy goals. 
• Pumped storage technology is not necessarily the problem, it’s the location where this development is proposed. Other pumped storage projects like the permitted Gordon Butte development in Montana and the proposed Banks pumped storage development demonstrate other ways to develop this type of technology. 

Question: Are Tribal Nations slowing down clean energy development?

Answer: No. Tribal Nations have long engaged in green and alternative energy initiatives on their own accord to help usher in a just transition to clean energy. It is the erosion of trust with Tribes and violation of federal treaties that stalls progress in meeting the state’s clean energy goals.

Supporting Facts:

• Yakama Nation is developing renewable energy demonstration projects to show regulators and developers that a clean energy future does not have to destroy untouched forest, healthy shrub steppe, or other important subsistence or ceremonial lands. 
• Nimiipuu Energy Collective is a Tribe-to-Tribe energy cooperative leading solar and stored energy projects with the aim of alternatively producing all the power they consume.  
• The Nez Perce Tribe has installed a large-scale battery “megapack” that stores energy from solar panels to power the Lapwai Wastewater Treatment Plant that serves the Tribe.
• In 2022, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission released the Tribal Energy Vision outlining recommendations related to electricity storage and renewables to support the long-term health of salmon and people. 

Question: Does the Goldendale Pumped Storage development harm surrounding environmental resources?

Answer: Yes. The proposed upper reservoir would flood Pushpum, a natural seed bank and the site of rich biodiversity in plant and animal life. Once removed, it can never be restored. The loss of this resource would have devastating ecological impacts.

Supporting Facts:

• The development threatens wetlands, groundwater, and wildlife that would negatively impact the broader ecosystem. This includes impacts on golden eagles, little brown bats, smooth desert parsley, and other rare plants, including 15 endangered, threatened or sensitive plant species.
• The development would cause a permanent habitat loss of 193.6 acres.
• Development construction would disturb a former aluminum smelter cleanup site, potentially causing contamination of the groundwater. 
• The proposed upper reservoir would be located near an existing wind farm attracting diverse bird species that would then be threatened by the turbines.
• Environmental impacts include cultural resources. This project has serious environmental justice concerns for Tribal communities. Destroying cultural resources is an environmental impact that cannot be ignored. 

Rye Development

Question: Has Rye Development appropriately consulted with Yakama Nation on the development?

Answer: No. Consultation is a government-to-government responsibility. FERC designated Rye, a non-government entity, to consult with the Tribes involved. Yakama Nation did not consent to this. Yakama Nation’s inherent Tribal sovereignty and Treaty-reserved rights were ignored when a permit was filed for this proposal prior to any discussion with Yakama Nation.

Supporting Facts:

• Rye is not a government entity, so delegating consultation authority without Tribal agreement is an insult to Tribal sovereignty. 
• FERC released its final environmental review without consulting with Yakama Nation. The review lacks accurate information about cultural resources in the development area and provides no recourse for their destruction.
• Rye has proposed limited, culturally insensitive mitigation measures to address Tribal impacts. Ecology’s environmental review made clear that, to date, there is no mitigation that has been proposed or supported by Tribes.
• Rye is trying to financially compensate Yakama Nation to stop them from opposing this development. Money cannot replace the total desecration of cultural resources. This is a recurring practice by Rye, one that highlights its disregard for honest and genuine communication and engagement.

Question: Is Rye Development a trusted firm?

Answer: No. Rye has a documented history of submitting incomplete and inadequate federally mandated documentation related to consultation with Tribes. Alongside inaccurate consultation claims, Rye has a history of misleading the local community with promised jobs. 

Supporting Facts: 

• The Washington Department of Archaeology and Historical Preservation has highlighted an “unacceptable and knowing pattern of ignoring federal law and regulations” in correspondence with the developer.
• Rye is misleading the community of Goldendale, promising jobs to community members when, in fact, a majority of the permanent jobs will exist outside of the area and even out of state.
• Simply by continuing to press ahead while Yakama Nation and surrounding Tribes oppose the development, Rye Development is racking up development costs, paying for time spent trying to coerce Tribal leaders into looking the other way. That time and money would be better spent finding another possible location. 
• Rye has a history of ignoring Tribes throughout the region. Another of Rye’s proposed pumped storage developments in Oregon faces intense backlash from the Klamath Tribes because of the destruction of cultural resources. 

Economics

Question: Will the proposed pumped storage development bring high-paying, stable jobs to Goldendale and broader Klickitat County?

Answer: No. If the development were to go forward, only 15 or 20 permanent, development-related jobs would be sustained in Klickitat County. These jobs would not even necessarily be newly created or full-time positions.

Supporting Facts:

• Rye estimates the project would only maintain 20 to 40 related jobs elsewhere in Washington and Oregon.
• An estimated 93 percent of the jobs related to this project would be located outside of Klickitat County, and 24 percent would be located outside Washington and Oregon.
• The majority of materials and equipment required for this project would come from outside of Klickitat County.

Question: Is the billion-dollar price tag of the development worth it?

Answer: No. Some clean energy consultants indicate the proposed Goldendale project – $2.5 billion in construction costs – will cost more to build than it will ever generate in revenue to stay operational. 

Supporting Facts: 

• Pumped storage is expensive to build. This proposal is even more expensive since it is being proposed in a highly contested location.
• This is the third pumped storage proposal in this location that has been opposed by Tribes and NGOs. Continuing to propose developments here is a waste of time and money.
• An economic analysis estimates the development will actually operate at a loss of about $181 million per year, based on management and operating costs and debt servicing.
• Should it obtain a permit, Rye Development estimates construction will take five years. In that time, the technology of battery energy options likely will advance, and be better suited than pumped storage to meet peaks in energy demand more efficiently and cost-effectively.. 

Sources:

1.  SEPA Environmental Impact Statement Proposed Goldendale Energy Storage Project Washington Department of Ecology, at 162 (December 2022).
2.  See generally Courtney Flatt, NORTHWEST PUBLIC BROADCASTING, New Energy Storage Project on Upper Columbia Brings Jobs — and Concerns from Colville Tribes (Dec. 23, 2019), Julian Spector, GREEN TECH MEDIA, Montana Developer Ready to Build Modern-Day Pumped Hydro Storage (Aug. 13, 2019), Brian Gailey, KLAMATH FALLS NEWS, CIP Acquires Swan Lake pumped hydro project (Nov. 11, 2020), Sammy Roth, LA TIMES, Environmental Disaster or to a Clean Energy Future? A New Twist on Hydropower (Mar. 5, 2020), Bloomberg News Editors, RENEWABLE ENERGY WORLD, In quest for bigger batteries, California mulls pumped hydro (Jun. 10, 2019)
3.  Sun, Rachel. “Nez Perce Tribe Installs Tesla Megapack.” Northwest Public Broadcasting.
4.  FERC FEIS. table 3.3.4-2 in Appendix B
5.  Oaster, B ‘Toastie’. “Green colonialism is flooding the Pacific Northwest.” HighCountry News. 
6.  Robert Whitlam to Erik Steimle and Mike Tust, Jan. 5, 2022.
7.  Hofschneider, Anita. “Ignoring Indigenous rights is making the green transition more expensive.” Grist.
8.  Flatt, Courtney. “Energy Storage Project on Upper Columbia Brings Jobs – And Concerns from Colville Tribes.” KUOW.
9.  “Economic and Fiscal Impact Analysis of the Goldendale Pumped Storage Project.” Highland Economics.
10.  Highland Economics.
11.  Highland Economics.
12.  Jones, Anthony. “Critique of the Goldendale Energy Storage Hydroelectric Project (FERC No. 14861) Notification of Intent.” Rocky Mountain Econometrics.
13.  Ibid.