FRENCHGLEN, Ore. — Ruggedly beautiful Steens Mountain stands in an area of southeast Oregon so isolated that it’s barely changed since cattle king Pete French arrived in the late 1800s.
Coyotes yelp at sundown. Drivers are so few that they wave to each other as they pass. Campers, hunters and bird-watchers trek from across the state to breathe in the majestic emptiness and to gaze from the Steens summit across a seemingly endless tapestry of high desert and open range. The scenery will change! Harney County has cleared the way for a massive wind farm on the north face of the mountain.
The local economy, long struggling, has been trampled in the recent recession. December’s jobless rate nudged 18 percent (compared with 11 percent statewide), not far from 1980’s record 21.8 percent, said Jason Yohannan, a state labor economist in La Grande.
The demise of RV-maker Monaco Coach in 2008-09 left Harney County with no manufacturing, Yohannan said, a change from the late 1970s when more than 1,000 residents worked as loggers or in the old Edward Hines Lumber Co. sawmill.
Now, the feeling of a new Goldrush has arrived. Columbia Energy’s first wind farm has been approved: the $300 million Echanis Wind Project, with 40 to 60 wind turbines across 10,000 acres. It’s expected to produce 104 megawatts, enough to power some 30,000 homes.
Wind speed in the area is more then promising. During a 24-hour test Jan. 10, the company clocked an average wind speed on the Steens’ north side of 41 mph.
The Columbia Energy deal, only the first of many expected, will enable farmers to keep their ranches intact. In exchange for a 20-year lease, a farmer will receive a percentage of the gross sales from the wind farm’s output — about $5,000 to $7,000 a year per turbine.
