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Updated: July 30, 2026 @ 2:31 pm
Lorianna Breiler looks across the shrub-steppe land along Badger Mountain, June 16, 2021.
News Reporter
Lorianna Breiler looks across the shrub-steppe land along Badger Mountain, June 16, 2021.
After years of protesting a solar farm on Badger Mountain, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and Douglas County residents are rejoicing at the project’s cancellation.
The Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council issued a notice of application withdrawal for the Badger Mountain Solar Energy Project on Monday.
The notice said staff at the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or EFSEC, received a letter from Aurora Solar LLC on July 20 requesting the withdrawal.
In an email to NCWLIFE, Vice-Chairwoman Karen Condon said Colville Tribes learned of the application withdrawal after being approached for comment by a news organization, and then found the notice posted online.
“We were very pleased and gratified that the correct decision was made,” Condon said. “Sacred sites are entrusted to us by the Creator to care for and pass down to future generations. It is important in our culture to keep spiritual locations as pristine as possible.”
According to application documents from September 2021, the project was a proposed 200-megawatt facility with “an optimal battery energy storage system (BESS) capable of storing up to 200 MW of energy in unincorporated Douglas County.”
The Colville Tribes said the proposed area on Badger Mountain is a sacred site and situated on traditional territories of the Moses-Columbia and Wenatchi tribes.
The Colville Tribes have opposed the project since November 2021. At that time, Condon said the tribes wrote their first letter to the state requesting a full consultation, among other things.
“The value of consultation is to ensure that tribal voices are heard,” she said. “If the tribal perspective had been fully recognized in 2021, the solar project could have perhaps been relocated much earlier to a more appropriate site. Fortunately, since the application has been voluntarily withdrawn, we will not need to pursue further efforts to protect this sacred mountain from this particular development project.”
In the following years, the project was the subject of a collaborative investigation between High Country News and ProPublica published in January 2024. High Country News reported that an archaeologist working with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources “identified significant shortcomings in the report that was submitted to get the project approved and the investigation documented bullying behavior by the companies involved.”
The following March, a demonstration held by Wenatchi tribal members occurred on Badger Mountain against the development.
“The Colville Tribes does appreciate the value of renewable energy such as solar power, but we are confident a more appropriate site can be found for solar development,” Condon said.
In 2021, The Wenatchee World profiled Badger Mountain residents who voiced concerns about the lack of communication by project developers and how the project would affect the area they live in.
One resident, Lorianna Breiler, told the World she created signs, a “Save Badger Mountain – No to Solar Panel Farms” Facebook page, and went door-to-door to ask residents if they knew what was being planned. The acreage around her home had been in her family for four generations, according to the report.
Breiler said at the time the proposed solar farm would’ve “ruined the way of life” of residents.
“I wake up, I see the sun rise, I see the dawn,” she said. “It’s my home, it’s right here. It runs deep in my heart … It means everything to me.”
On Tuesday, Breiler told NCWLIFE in an email that she was “stunned with relief” when she’d heard the news that the project had been withdrawn.
“Badger Mountain is a place of beauty, peace and home to a variety of wildlife – which needs to be protected for all generations,” she said.
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