Environmental groups have denounced a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff report supporting a $3.3 billion pump-storage power plant along the Columbia River in south-central Washington.

FERC’s final environmental impact statement released Feb. 8 acknowledged the Goldendale Energy Storage Project would disturb sites sacred to tribes, but would provide renewable electricity with minimal impacts to fish and wildlife.

Environmental groups said the report ignored tribal concerns. Washington Conservation Action CEO Alyssa Macy said in a statement it was “environmental racism.”

“A clean and just energy future must prioritize the inherent and treaty rights of tribal nations and impacts on energy siting, or we risk repeating the harms of the past — that is not the way to address the climate crisis,” she said.

The Goldendale project would be Washington’s first power plant that makes electricity by releasing water from an upper reservoir though an underground powerhouse. The water would empty into a lower reservoir.

It would take more electricity to pump the water back to the upper reservoir than was generated. Proponents, however, say on-demand renewable energy is essential because wind and solar power are sporadic.

Needs FERC approval

Rye Development, owned by Danish investment firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, said in a statement the final EIS was a milestone in helping Washington meet its climate goals.

The Washington Department of Ecology last year determined the project would not harm water quality. FERC’s final EIS recommends that FERC commissioners license the hydropower project.

The Yakama Nation and other tribes oppose the project. Efforts to obtain comment Monday from the Yakama Nation were unsuccessful.

Two reservoirs required

Rye proposes to dig the upper and lower reservoirs eight miles southeast of Goldendale in Klickitat County on a site formerly occupied by an aluminum smelter.

The Yakama Nation and Umatilla tribes have used the area for thousands of years and continued to gather plants and meet there for ceremonial purposes until 10 or 20 years ago, according to the final EIS.

Rye anticipates the project will take five years to build. Plants gathered by tribes could be replanted after construction. Access will continue to depend on permission from landowners, according to the final EIS

The project would draw 7,640 acre-feet of water from the Columbia River and an estimated 360 acre-feet a year to make up for seepage and evaporation. Developers would buy water from the Klickitat Public Utility District.

The plant could make power for up to 12 hours a day. For the other 12 hours, water would be pumped back uphill.

Pumping the water back to the upper reservoir would take roughly 4.2 million megawatt-hours a year — more than the 3.5 million megawatt hours a year generated by sending the water downhill, according to the final EIS.

The plant would produce a little more than one-third the electricity of Washington’s only nuclear power plant.

The Columbia Generating Station in Richland makes enough electricity for more than one million homes, according to the plant’s operator, Energy Northwest, a consortium of public utilities.