The Eastern Oregon wind corridor has transformed the landscape for miles around Boardman — some locals see renewable energy jobs and tax revenue as a lifeline, while others say the turbines have permanently altered the natural beauty of the gorge. Which side are you on?
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Add your commentBorn and raised in Morrow County. My dad worked at the coal plant, my brother now does maintenance on the turbines out by Arlington. You want to talk about economic lifeline? Those wind jobs kept our family here when half our neighbors were leaving. I'll take a turbine over a shuttered storefront any day of the week.
I manage a small rental property in Boardman and I can tell you directly — the wind energy workers filling up my units, eating at local restaurants, buying at the hardware store — that is real, tangible, measurable economic activity. Before the wind expansion this town was genuinely struggling. I watched businesses close on Main Street for a decade straight. You can love scenery AND appreciate that people need to eat.
The framing of this whole debate drives me crazy. It's not 'jobs vs. beauty' — that's a false choice invented to make us fight each other. The real question is whether the permitting process adequately protected viewsheds and wildlife corridors, and whether local communities got a fair revenue share versus what went to out-of-state developers. THAT'S the conversation Boardman should be having instead of relitigating whether wind power exists.
Okay I have to correct something I keep seeing in these threads — people act like the wind farms CAUSED the population decline out here. Boardman was losing people before the first turbine went up. The farms actually slowed that bleed. Check the Morrow County economic reports before you repeat that myth.
Fun fact nobody mentions: the wind farms actually generate enough tax revenue that Morrow County school funding went up something like 40 percent after the big installations. I read that in the East Oregonian a few years back. Our kids are getting a better education partly because of those turbines. Hard to call that an eyesore when it's paying for art class.
My grandfather used to fish the Columbia right where they put in some of those access roads for the turbine crews. He'd roll over in his grave. There's a kind of violence to watching something get industrialized that you associated with pure quiet your whole childhood. Money doesn't fix that feeling.
lol at the people calling this an eyesore from their air conditioned houses. where do you think the power comes from
Here's my challenge to the pro-turbine crowd: name one tourism dollar that came INTO Boardman BECAUSE of the wind farms. I'll wait. Because I can name about fifteen people I know personally who changed their Columbia River road trip route to avoid what they now call 'the turbine gauntlet.' Scenic tourism is real money too and we traded it away.
eyesore. full stop. drove out to the river last summer with my kids to show them what I grew up with and it looked like a sci-fi movie set. not in a good way. the gorge deserves better than this industrial sprawl.
Just moved here from Portland eight months ago and honestly? The turbines are kind of majestic at sunrise. I know that's probably a controversial take for longtime locals but there's something almost meditative about watching them turn along the ridgelines. Different doesn't automatically mean worse.
used to drive hwy 730 every weekend. genuinely loved it. now i just feel tired looking at it. idk maybe im just old
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