Earlier this month, the state Department of Environmental Conservation issued its advice regarding how to minimize damage to bat and bird habitats.

"These guidelines set forth DEC's recommendations to commercial wind energy developers on how to characterize bird and bat resources at on-shore wind energy sites and how to estimate and document impacts resulting from the construction and operation of these projects," Alexander B. "Pete" Grannis, DEC commissioner, said in a press release.

DEC said its guidelines "are intended to provide comparability of data collection among sites and between years so that the information from each site contributes to a statewide understanding of the ecological effects of wind energy generation."

In the introduction to the guidelines themselves, DEC said that any "effort required to fully understand the movement of birds and bats at any given locale would be monumental and would take many years. Therefore, the studies recommended here are considered the minimum effort necessary to characterize bird and bat activity at a given project location within a reasonable time frame relative to construction."

The guidelines can be seen on the Internet at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/40966.html