The Yakama Nation has reached a settlement with the developers of a 1,300-acre solar energy project that tribal leaders said would encroach upon sites where the Yakamas traditionally gather food and medicine. 

Cypress Creek Renewables, the developer of the Carriger Solar Project near Goldendale in Klickitat County, “has made significant commitments to meaningfully minimize and mitigate the project’s negative impacts to the Yakama Nation,” read a joint statement from the developer and Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. 

“This settlement is a result of respectful and solution-oriented communications that can happen during the permitting process and should be initiated by community-focused project developers,” the statement read. “Moving forward, it is important for Washington state agencies, including the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council and Department of Natural Resources, to help facilitate these types of creative and solution-oriented conversations early in the permitting process.” 

The settlement includes modifying the project itself, though details of how it will be changed were not disclosed.  

Cypress Creek will also support preservation of treaty-reserved resources on adjacent public lands. 

Cypress Creek, based in Santa Monica, California, plans to build the solar farm north of Highway 142. The firm applied for state approval for the project in February 2023.  

Gov. Bob Ferguson approved the solar farm in December 2025 over the protests of the Yakama Nation, calling the project a “win for our state.” The project is expected to generate enough solar power for 32,500 homes, according to the company’s website. The project, which also includes a 63-megawatt battery energy storage system, will tie into the Bonneville Power Administration transmission system. 

Ferguson’s approval came after he rejected the initial application for the project and told the state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or EFSEC, to talk further with Yakama Nation leaders about their concerns that protections for cultural resources were not strict enough. 

The Carriger Solar project isn’t the only state-supported clean energy project that has earned the Yakama Nation’s opposition.  

The tribe, along with the Benton County Board of Commissioners and nonprofit Tri-Cities C.A.R.E.S. is suing to stop construction of the Horse Heaven Hills Energy Complex, a wind and solar energy facility being pursued by Scout Energy.  

The tribe is also opposing a pumped-hydro energy storage project, also near Goldendale, that is reportedly intended to power a future data center. 

The Washington State Standard, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet, contributed to this report.