We recently found out that Wenatchee hosts one of many weapons manufacturing sites in the United States. Our local Pacific Aerospace & Electronics makes ceramic EMI filters for Apache AH-64 helicopters, which are currently being used to drop hellfire missiles on Gaza.
This means that Wenatchee is directly contributing to the genocide in Gaza.
Weapons Out of Wenatchee is a brand new grassroots campaign to get weapons manufacturing out of Wenatchee.
Right now, their focus is on spreading awareness so that more people in Wenatchee know that our own city is complicit in mass death overseas as well as worsening the climate catastrophe by supporting the military industrial complex.
We’re teaming up with Weapons Out of Wenatchee to work toward a goal of no weapons manufacturing in Wenatchee!
Microsoft Out of Wenatchee
Microsoft is currently building a data center in Malaga, Washington.
The proliferation of AI technology and the data centers necessary to sustain it are incredibly costly for the environment, and are a leading cause of increased emissions. You can read more about that here.
In addition to the environmental costs, Microsoft is perhaps the most complicit tech company in Israel’s illegal apartheid regime and ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. There is more information on that here.
Weapons Out of Wenatchee is taking on Microsoft, too, for its complicity in genocide as well as climate change. Visit the Microsoft Out of Wenatchee page on the Weapons Out of Wenatchee site for more information about the campaign.
Wenatchee for Palestine mobilized our base to attempt to prevent the Chelan County Public Utility District (PUD) from selling our power to Microsoft.
Unfortunately, the board of commissioners voted on June 16, 2025 to authorize the General Manager to enter into a large load service agreement and contract with Microsoft. The resolution includes as one of its three options the “Customer Choice” option that would require Microsoft to procure its own power (this is what we wanted), but the other two options would have the PUD supplying their power (we didn’t want this).
The specifics of the contract were kept deliberately opaque, and we don’t know what path the PUD will choose with this contract going forward. It’s unfortunate that they won’t set a stronger precedent to discourage companies like Microsoft from taking advantage of our community for our cheap power.
Even though we didn’t get the result we wanted, we made Microsoft aware that their complicity in genocide is threatening their business even in places like Central Washington. Our campaign reached the No Azure for Apartheid workers, and they promoted it on their instagram as well!
We’re not giving up our fight to stop Microsoft from establishing more data centers here! Even though this one door might have closed, we’ll keep looking for more opportunities to resist.
Things that you can do to help:
- Sign up at weaponsoutofwenatchee.wordpress.com to join the fight!
- Help spread awareness of the fact that weapons manufacturing is happening in Wenatchee by sharing the Weapons Out of Wenatchee website and zines.
- Do you know of any local events that may be sponsored by PacAero? Let us know!
