BY Courtney Flatt, Northwest News Network
A new energy storage project is in the works near eastern Washington’s Chief Joseph Dam on the Columbia River. The project is expected to bring construction jobs to the region. But the nearby Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation worry it would harm important cultural areas.
The Pearl Hill battery project would work like this: When there’s extra energy on the grid, it would pump water stored behind the dam in the Columbia River — known as Rufus Woods Lake — to a smaller reservoir up high. Then, when more energy is needed (like when people come home from work), it could generate power by releasing that stored water through a hydro turbine back into the lake.
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