ONDA and our partners have worked for years to ensure Steens Mountain remains free from industrial development. Our long-standing commitment to the mountain was vital to an effort to stop a massive energy development project from permanently marring the landscape.
In 2008, proposed wind turbines, access roads, transmission lines and associated development on Steens threatened habitat and migration routes for sensitive species of wildlife such as bighorn sheep, golden eagles, and greater sage-grouse, fragmenting one of the largest and most important landscapes remaining in the Great Basin.
Sage-grouse populations have been in decline for decades. The Department of the Interior recognized the sage-grouse population that lives on Steens Mountain as being “regionally significant” for the survival of the species. Industrial development on the mountain would have accelerated the species’ decline and jeopardized the future of this iconic bird.
Defending Wildlife and Natural Values on Steens
In 2011, ONDA and Audubon Society of Portland (now Bird Alliance of Oregon) filed a lawsuit challenging the Department of the Interior’s approval of a plan to build an industrial-scale wind energy facility on Oregon’s desert icon, Steens Mountain.
Without ONDA’s intervention, the developer would have built as many as 69 wind turbines and a high-capacity transmission line on top of the mountain. Our lawsuit blocked what was an unlawful project that would have forever scarred this ecologically and culturally important landscape.
In 2013, 2014, and again in 2015, ONDA petitioned the Secretary of the Interior to revoke the 2011 project approval decision. ONDA explained that the developer had lost its interconnection agreement that was necessary to deliver electricity generated from the turbines to the electricity grid. Southern California Edison had cancelled its agreement to purchase the electricity generated by the project, and the Bureau of Land Management had revoked its Notice to Proceed and refunded the project bond to the developer. Also, the required county permit had become void and new science demonstrated that the effects of industrial development on greater sage-grouse are far more serious than the agency had conceded in its environmental review.
By 2016, this crumbling financial and regulatory framework, coupled with powerful new spatial analyses illustrating the severe impacts the project would have on sage-grouse, made it clearer than ever that Steens Mountain simply is not the place for an industrial energy project. Nevertheless, the Bureau of Land Management rejected our petition, and ONDA was forced to go to court. In May 2016, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with ONDA that the Department of the Interior had failed to adequately consider the project’s effects on sage-grouse. In April 2017, the Oregon District Court vacated the project decision, effectively stopping the project.
Today, Steens Mountain remains a haven for wildlife. The mountain is beloved by local residents and visitors alike and serves as a key example of the importance of ONDA’s conservation advocacy.
Legal Documents
Opinion and Order vacating Record of Decision – April 2017 – 12-596 Docket 108
ONDA v. Jewell Amended Opinion Docket 75 – October 2016
Project status letter – Final – March 2016 – 13-36078
Reply Brief – Final – June 2015 – 13-36078
Opening Brief – Final – November 2014 – 13-36078
Steens Wind Petition – October 2015
Steens Wind Petition – April 2014
Steens Wind Petition – March 2013
Statement of Robert T. Anderson, Counselor to the Secretary (Steens Act 2000)
