Aug. 23--The Washington Department of Natural Resources is no longer considering leasing 2,560 acres of state trust land to SDS Lumber Co. for possible future expansion of the proposed Whistling Ridge Energy Project in Skamania County.

A notice released by the DNR's Ellensburg office on Aug. 10 says the agency "is no longer considering a lease" but could reconsider the option at some future date.

"The reason it was withdrawn was because of issues with endangered species," DNR spokesman Aaron Toso said Friday. "It will give us some time to work with the federal services to see how we can make wind energy work with our habitat conservation plan."

The DNR land in question is in an area of scattered old-growth and second-growth forest that is habitat for the threatened northern spotted owl. Under its federally approved habitat conservation plan for state trust lands, the agency is required to manage the tract as a "spotted owl emphasis area," with restrictions on logging.

Last month, the agency found itself having to defend a wind turbine lease on forest land in Pacific County after a team of biologists said the proposed turbines would harm or kill marbled murrelets, robin-sized seabirds that nest in that specific tract of old-growth trees near the coast.

Since 1992, murrelets in the Pacific Northwest have been listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The DNR currently has 24 active wind power leases. Five wind farms with a total of 65 turbines operate on state trust land, all on unforested land in Eastern Washington. The leases yield $670,000 annually for the state Common School Fund.

Bingen-based SDS Lumber has applied for a permit to build a 42-turbine, 70-megawatt wind farm on a logged-over ridge it owns near Underwood. In the spring of 2008, SDS President Jason Spadaro approached DNR officials about the possibility of expanding the proposed Whistling Ridge project north onto adjacent state trust land.

SDS offered to pay to build roads, collectors and other infrastructure necessary to provide access to the remote state-owned site and to feed power generated by the wind turbines into the electrical grid.

Spadaro said he learned of the state agency's decision only Friday.

"DNR wants to take a very cautious approach to wind energy on forest land," he said. "That's certainly very understandable. Their decision on how to handle it doesn't affect the Whistling Ridge project positively or negatively."

New challenges

The Whistling Ridge project would be just outside the north boundary of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.