Goldendale pumped storage, and the ground it wants to stand on

What a water battery actually does

At full build, the project claims it could deliver roughly 1,200 megawatts for something on the order of 12 hours, per the developer's filings. Put plainly, that is enough to stand in for a mid-size power plant across a long winter evening, charging on surplus wind and solar in the small hours and discharging when households in Yakima, the Tri-Cities, and the west-side cities all cook dinner at once. Pumped storage loses some energy on the round trip, roughly a fifth to a quarter at comparable projects, so it is a buffer, not a source.

Goldendale was chosen for reasons a surveyor would recognize. The elevation drop is steep, which means more stored energy per gallon; the old Columbia Gorge aluminum smelter sits nearby with transmission already run to it; and a closed loop avoids the fish and flow problems of building on the Columbia itself. None of that makes the ground empty, which is where the harder part begins.

What the record shows, and what it doesn't

Two separate reviews are underway. One is a federal license at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that licenses non-federal hydropower; the other is a state environmental review at Washington's Department of Ecology under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA, the law requiring agencies to study a project's effects before approving it). At last public report, neither process had produced a final approval to build. Filings, comment periods, and agency letters are posted in FERC's eLibrary and on Ecology's project page, and a reader can search both by name.

Honesty requires saying the timeline is uncertain. Large pumped storage projects routinely take many years to license, studies on water supply and wildlife can send a developer back for more work, and state and federal reviewers do not always reach the same conclusion. If you want a date, the honest answer is that it depends on how the water-rights, cultural, and environmental questions resolve, and those are not close to settled.

Pushpum, and who decides

Pushpum is where the project meets its hardest objection. The upper reservoir would sit on that ridge, which the Yakama Nation describes as a first-foods gathering place central to its traditions and treaty-reserved rights. The Nation has formally opposed the project, and that objection is not a line item a developer can engineer around; it goes to whether the ground should be disturbed at all. Federal licensing requires consultation with affected tribes, so the Nation's position is part of the record FERC must weigh, not a side conversation.

Several parties hold a piece of the decision. Rye Development proposes and would build it; FERC and Ecology hold the permits; the Bonneville Power Administration operates much of the regional grid the project would plug into; Klickitat County hosts it; and the Yakama Nation objects. Behind all of them sits Washington's Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA), the 2019 law requiring the state's electricity to be greenhouse-gas free by 2045, which is part of why long-duration storage is drawing interest at all.

Worth watching this month

1. Check FERC's eLibrary for new filings or comment deadlines on the Goldendale project, the surest public signal that the license is moving or stalling.

2. Watch Ecology's project page for any updated environmental review documents or a water-quality decision, which would be a real step rather than a routine one.

3. Watch for formal statements from the Yakama Nation, whose position on Pushpum is the question most likely to decide the project's fate.

4. Keep an eye on Klickitat County and state land-use notices, usually routine but occasionally the place a hearing date first appears.

5. Note any Bonneville Power Administration transmission or market updates that would shape where this stored power could actually go.