By Bill Lucia | Editor
There’s growing evidence that electricity from a controversial pumped-hydro energy storage project planned along the Columbia River could go to a large data center constructed nearby. The 700-acre hydro-storage project would be built on the grounds of a former aluminum smelter near Goldendale. This area is also archaeologically significant for the Yakama Nation, and a variety of plants the tribe has traditionally harvested grow there. The tribe and environmental nonprofits are fighting the project in federal court and have also called for Gov. Bob Ferguson to intervene.
Also in today’s edition…
A state representative fails to get ethics charges dismissed.
And, debate flares in Alaska over tax breaks for a proposed natural gas pipeline.
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The Columbia River Gorge as seen from above on May 8, 2026, near Pushpum, a site sacred to the Yakama Nation. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
By Alex Baumhardt
The owners of the pumped-hydro energy project, Danish investment firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, have said that the facility could support “enough on-demand renewable electricity to power about 500,000 homes.”
But the firm has not disclosed details about who would buy the energy. It’s increasingly looking like Denver-based data center company STACK Infrastructure would be among the power buyers and is seeking to purchase acreage next to the energy project.
“For who are we building? We’re going green now for data centers,” said Elaine Harvey, a watershed manager at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and a member of the Yakama’s Kamíłpa Band. “We’re not going green for Washington and Oregon state mandates. We’re going green for data centers.”
Paul Copleman, a spokesperson for Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, pointed out that the project had undergone a lengthy permitting process and said the company remains committed to working with tribes to safeguard cultural resources.
By Jerry Cornfield
A state ethics board late last week declined to dismiss an ethics complaint against Washington state Rep. Tarra Simmons, setting the stage for the allegations to be contested in a public hearing next month.
Simmons, a Bremerton Democrat, filed a motion asking the Legislative Ethics Board to dismiss the complaint, which hinges on allegations she improperly used her position as a lawmaker and campaign funds to aid two nonprofits. She worked for one of those groups. Simmons, who represents Kitsap County’s 23rd Legislative District, argued at a hearing last Wednesday that the conflict of interest charges were unsubstantiated.
But in a one-line ruling released Saturday, the board denied her attempt to have the case dismissed, clearing the way for the hearing to proceed on June 8 and 9. The last such hearing before the ethics board was a decade ago.
By Yereth Rosen
The Alaska Legislature on Thursday opened a 30-day special session on a proposal to cut taxes on the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline to encourage its construction. Gov. Mike Dunleavy is pressing for the tax break. But there’s skepticism among lawmakers about the need for it. They did not go along with the governor’s plan in the state’s regular session, which just wrapped up.
The project’s developers envision an 800-mile pipeline from the North Slope to Cook Inlet in southeast Alaska, where the natural gas could be loaded onto ships. Under Dunleavy’s proposal, the state and local governments would eliminate 90% of the property tax that would be levied on gasline-related infrastructure in exchange for future opportunities to tax natural gas as it moves through the yet-to-be-built system.
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