The proliferation in recent years of wind power — a clean, renewable source of electricity — is clearly welcome. As with most technologies, however, we’re learning that it also presents challenges.

Current case in point: High water levels this spring have hydro-electric dams generating at capacity, just as high winds are blowing and moderate temperatures have demand for power at a low point. We have too much of a good thing: more clean power than we can use.

So the Bonneville Power Administration, the region’s chief power marketer and therefore its electricity gatekeeper, recently adopted a necessary and sensible policy that enables it to tell non-hydro generators to stand down temporarily.

Wind still gets preferential treatment — thermal sources like coal and natural gas have to shut down first, and extra water is stored behind dams if possible — but in extreme and relatively rare circumstances, output from wind farms is being limited. In the past week, BPA has ordered production from wind and other generators curtailed several times.

Wind producers, not surprisingly, aren’t happy. Some suggest spilling more water over the dams to reduce generation there, but that can cause high nitrogen levels in the water that’s harmful to protected salmon and steelhead.

Some argue the agency has overstepped its authority, and say they’ll sue. A courtroom fight pitting one clean, renewable energy source — wind — against another — hydro — would clearly be counterproductive.

Better to seek legislative fixes. With more wind power coming online each year, the problem will only get worse.

Washington, Oregon and California all require utilities to derive an increasing portion of their power portfolios from renewable sources. Trouble is, hydro isn’t considered renewable for such purposes, because it’s already so abundant. The idea behind such efforts was to encourage development of new sources like wind, solar, tidal and geothermal.

Investors in wind farms depend on federal tax credits they earn for selling the power they generate. When they shut down, so do the credits — even if BPA offers to replace the lost power with free hydro, as it has.

Federal and state legislation could be crafted narrowly to allow hydro to count as a clean, renewable source that satisfies portfolio requirements and earns tax credits for wind producers during times of extraordinary water levels, high wind and low demand — and only during such times.

As it is, wind producers want BPA to pay them to shut down — a cost that would be passed to current power customers, including those of the Snohomish County PUD. This would be particularly galling given the fact that about half the wind power produced in Washington goes to California to help satisfy its renewable requirements. Customers here shouldn’t have to pay higher rates so Californians can say they’re greener.

This is a problem of natural abundance, exacerbated by laudable but imperfect human goals. We can’t change the former. We have complete control over the latter. We should exercise it in Congress and state legislatures.