Editor’s Note: We have covered BESS Battery Facilities at length in the Herald. Here is another MASSIVE Bess going in and trying to disrupt wildlife habitat. These facilities can be highly dangerous and are disruptive to the environment. Find out more on this 400 MW monster right here: https://brightnightpower.com/tualatin/ – Another Private Equity Firm building Batteries for Power Arbitrage – perfect!
Press Release- Tualatin River Keepers- Many of Oregon’s most precious wildlife habitats and wetlands are protected in our National Wildlife Refuges. These protections are under threat by planned power lines across the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge in Sherwood. Florida-based BrightNight Energy is proposing a multifaceted power line project across Onion Flats, a wetland area of the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge just across from the Visitor Center. If approved, BrightNight and PGE would build a lithium-ion battery storage system, along with ten 115-130-foot-tall towers and high-voltage power lines directly across wetlands that serve as a key staging area for migratory birds and waterfowl. In a statement, former Manager of Tualatin River NWR and current board member of Friends of the Tualatin River NWR, Larry Klimek, shared, “I would anticipate a significant number of birds will be injured and killed as a direct result of striking the proposed transmission lines.”
Infrastructure development on a National Wildlife Refuge typically involves substantial environmental review and public engagement, but under the Trump administration, destructive activities on public lands are being rushed with little concern for the effects on natural resources or local communities. To date, residents in surrounding communities, many of whom were involved with the creation of the Refuge in 1992 and its subsequent expansion over the following decades, have not been made aware of the proposed project.
“The Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge represents the best of our community. It was developed through the hard work and perseverance of so many Washington County residents, and we’re shocked to see these wetlands under threat from such a cynical project,” shared Tualatin Riverkeepers Executive Director, Glenn Fee. “We’re calling on BrightNight Energy and PGE to choose an alternative that will protect the countless waterfowl that this proposal endangers.”
Concerned community members are encouraged to contact their public officials and to attend a PGE Community Forum on:
Wednesday, March 18, at 6:00 p.m. at Sherwood Middle School.
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STOP this from happening. Contact your public officials and STOP this. Attend the public meeting if you can. VOICE your opposition. If this project gets the go ahead…. disrupt it by whatever means needed. MONKEYWRENCH.
This would be horrible. I oppose this action with every fiber of my being. This area is a protected land and needs to be treated as protected. Thank you for posting and helping the community become aware of this dangerous proposal. We need the press to continue to understand what is under threat within our communities. This is a HUGE threat to the wildlife that call this protected area home and especially dangerous for all the waterfowl that migrate through this precious location.
Agreed – thank you for standing up!
They’re really testing the fences. When PGE wanted to shoot lines right through Forest Park, you got the sense it was to see where they could get away with it. The fact that they keep proposing facilities on or adjacent to wetlands here tells me they’re trying to find more environmentally pliable partners.