‘Going green now for who?’ Yakamas protest clean energy project on sacred site to power data center
News ClipTri-Cities Area Journal of Business·Goldendale, Klickitat County, WA·5/29/2026
The Yakama Nation is protesting a proposed pumped-hydro energy storage project near Goldendale, Washington, citing its location on a sacred site. Despite developers promoting it as a clean energy solution for homes, evidence suggests the project's power output will primarily benefit a large data center campus, intensifying the opposition.
environmentaloppositionelectricity
Gov: Yakama Nation
Supporters of a Goldendale pumped-hydro energy storage project have said it will help meet growing regional energy demand, and the project developers tout its potential to one day power up to half a million homes without sending harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But mounting evidence shows a large data center campus could be among the main beneficiaries of that power.