A proposal now open to public comment that could allow for up to 400 wind turbines to be erected between Minidoka National Historic Site and Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in Idaho raises a question of whether they would intrude on the somber setting at Minidoka, where more than 10,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.

The project represents a balancing act for the Biden administration, which wants to bolster the country's ability to generate clean energy but also has spoken out about the shameful incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

"In one of the most shameful periods in American history, Japanese Americans were targeted and imprisoned simply because of their heritage. Families were forced to abandon their homes, communities, and businesses to live for years in inhumane concentration camps throughout the United States," Biden said on February 19, 2021, the Day of Remembrance of Japanese American Internment. More recently, the president just last month signed legislation that provides funding to help preserve Minidoka and other sites in which tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were detained.

Yet at the same time, the administration is pushing hard to generate energy from wind farms. In October the administration announced plans to use $30 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law "to break down technology barriers to turbo-charge the deployment of this affordable resource all across the country," noted U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm at the time.

The proposed option for the Lava Ridge wind farm being sought by Magic Valley Energy, LLC would bring hundreds of wind turbines rising 740 feet (at blade tip) above the sagebrush plains of the Snake River Plain roughly 2 miles from the visitor center at Minidoka and about 19 miles from Craters of the Moon, according to the agency's draft environmental impact statement. Photo illustrations contained in the voluminous DEIS show that the turbines would easily be visible from the heart of Minidoka, while from Craters of the Moon they would rise as a sort of stubble on the horizon.

The four alternatives under consideration by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which must approve the right-of-way needed for the project, are:

• Alternative A – No Action, in which the BLM would not authorize construction, operation and maintenance, and decommissioning of the project
• Alternative B – Proposed Action, which as described by MVE would span 197,474 acres and would have a maximum of 400 wind turbines
• Alternative C – Reduced Western Corridors, which has a project area of 146,389 acres and a maximum of 378 wind turbines
• Alternative D – Centralized Corridors, which has a project area of 110,315 acres and a maximum of 280 wind turbines
• Alternative E – Reduced Southern Corridors, which has a project area of 122,444 acres and a maximum of 269 wind turbines

The BLM has identified Alternatives C and E as its preferred alternatives.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation last year included Minidoka on its list of the country's top 11 most-endangered historic places.

Minidoka’s sweeping vistas and distant mountains continue to convey the isolation and remoteness that Japanese Americans experienced there. However, a wind farm has been proposed next to Minidoka National Historic Site, potentially including construction of wind turbines within the historic footprint of the Minidoka camp. If constructed as currently planned, the project could irrevocably change Minidoka’s landscape, potentially creating a visual wall of hundreds of wind towers, each taller than the Seattle Space Needle, with blades exceeding the wingspan of a Boeing 747. -- National Trust for Historic Preservation.

With public comment on the proposal being taken throuch March 21, Friends of Minidoka plans to host a webinar this Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. MST (8:30 p.m. EST and 5:30 p.m. PST) to discuss the project and the impacts it believes would affect Minidoka. You can register for the webinar at this site.

This is how the "Block 22" barracks of Minidoka appears today/Kurt Repanshek file

This photo illustration, with wind turbines highlighted in red, shows how visible the wind farm would be from Block 22 if approved/BLM

Wind turbines would also be visible from Craters of the Moon under the proposed alternative, but not as starkly/BLM

When it Minidoka opened as a concentration camp on August 10, 1942, it was located on 33,000 acres, though just 950 acres were used for administrative and residential purposes, with another 800 acres set aside for farming. The surrounding landscape was an affront to many of the Japanese-Americans who had been pulled from lush Washington and Oregon.

"The first thing that impressed me was the bareness of the land," said Shozo Kaneko in a 1943 interview. "There wasn't a tree in sight, not even a blade of green grass. Coming from the Northwest where there was a lot of green fields and forest, the sights staggered most of us who had never seen anything like that before."

At the height of World War II, the incarceration camp held hundreds of buildings: barracks for families, a hospital, tool shops, lavatory, gas station, pump house, laundry, men's and women's dormitories. Threaded through the site were paths to vegetable gardens, a poultry farm, and pig sty.

Today, most of the historic fabric that depicted a repugnant chapter of U.S. history has been erased by time. To the south of the barracks stands an enormous root cellar the incarcerees built to hold the onions, carrots, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, radishes, cucumbers and other produce they grew on plots to the east of the dozens of barracks to feed themselves. 

In addition to intruding upon Minidoka, the option being sought by Magic Valley Energy could, according to the DEIS:

• Lead to the deaths of as many as 15,000 bats a year.
• Lead to the deaths of nearly 18,000 birds a year, including members of special status species such as ferruginous hawk, longbilled curlew, short-eared owl, and burrowing owl.
• Cause the deaths of 13 golden eagles a year.
• Lead to the loss of 807 acres of greater sage-grouse habitat.
• Subject Native American tribes and Japanese American communities to disproportionate high and adverse effects from changes to the setting, feeling, and visitor experience at Minidoka War Relocation Center and Minidoka National Historic Site.