Filling the Void Photo: Jason E. Kaplan Marion Weatherford at his wheat and wind farm on the Columbia plateau
The growth of wind and solar industries brings a critical source of revenue and jobs to rural counties, and the occasional dustup over land use.
Driving south on Highway 19 from Arlington on the Columbia River, the road climbs steadily through rolling hills. After only a few miles, the road reaches the Columbia plateau, where dryland wheat farms stretch as far as the eye can see.
Marion Weatherford owns a wheat farm on the plateau close to where his family has been farming for five generations. “Our great-great-grandfather came over on the Oregon Trail when he was 16, in 1860,” Weatherford says. In 1881 he started farming wheat.