Group says state omitted critical wind farm comments from record
Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business|Mar 12, 2026
Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S., an opponent of a proposed wind farm near the Tri-Cities, claims that the Washington state attorney general's office failed to include about 400 public comments opposing the project in records sent to the state Supreme Court. These comments, from various local organizations and experts, were omitted due to a coding error but were later added after the oversight was pointed out. The group emphasized that the missing comments highlighted significant opposition and procedural issues with the project's approval process.
Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S., an opponent of a proposed wind farm near the Tri-Cities, claims that the Washington state attorney general's office failed to include about 400 public comments opposing the project in records sent to the state Supreme Court. These comments, from various local organizations and experts, were omitted due to a coding error but were later added after the oversight was pointed out. The group emphasized that the missing comments highlighted significant opposition and procedural issues with the project's approval process.
One of the opponents of a proposed wind farm south and west of the Tri-Cities claims the state attorney general’s office left public comments opposing the project out of records transmitted to the Washington Supreme Court.
Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S. told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business that its attorney discovered the missing comments, which totaled roughly 400, over 950 pages, after reviewing the “certified as complete” administrative record sent to the state’s top court as the nonprofit and other opponents sue to stop the project.
The omitted comments included expert witnesses for Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S. as well as Port of Pasco, state lawmakers representing the region, Tri-Cities Association of Realtors, Tri-City Regional Chamber of …
... more [truncated due to possible copyright]One of the opponents of a proposed wind farm south and west of the Tri-Cities claims the state attorney general’s office left public comments opposing the project out of records transmitted to the Washington Supreme Court.
Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S. told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business that its attorney discovered the missing comments, which totaled roughly 400, over 950 pages, after reviewing the “certified as complete” administrative record sent to the state’s top court as the nonprofit and other opponents sue to stop the project.
The omitted comments included expert witnesses for Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S. as well as Port of Pasco, state lawmakers representing the region, Tri-Cities Association of Realtors, Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce, Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Badger Mountain Irrigation District and Audubon Society members. Most of the withheld comments were in opposition to the project.
“Had we not discovered the omission, the Supreme Court would never have known about the breadth and consistency of opposition to the project and how it underscores both the substantive impacts of the project and the procedural deficiencies that undermined the adjudicative process,” Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S. said in a statement.
The assistant attorney general representing the state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council in the litigation did provide the records to the court after it was notified by Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S., attributing the exclusion to a coding error.
“We do not believe the omitted records are directly relevant to any of the assignments of error raised by the petitions for review,” wrote Jonathan Thompson, EFSEC’s senior counsel. “However, we are providing them to the court and the parties because they are documents that were ‘identified by the agency as having been considered by it before its action’ in the matter under review, and therefore part of the agency record for review and defined in RCW 34.05.566(1).”