These days they can be a contentious issue, dividing many of the region's most active environmental groups.
The Sierra Club, the New Jersey Environmental Federation and Environment New Jersey have long pushed the state for tighter controls on development in coastal areas where, among other creatures, rare and endangered migrating birds nest, feed and pass annually. But they are now vocally pressing the state Department of Environmental Protection to ease restrictions on large windmill and solar energy projects proposed in those same protected regions.
Groups such as the American Littoral Society, however, have endorsed the DEP's more cautious approach to erecting windmills in sensitive wildlife habitats
The debate is taking place as the DEP is proposing new regulations on windmills and solar panels. The rules are outlined in an 82-page document that is now the subject of a 60-day public review period. In most cases, the DEP is proposing limits on the height of windmills, the type of windmills, the number of windmills and restrictions on the amount of land solar panels can cover in the protected coastal regions along the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay.
Some of the best wind patterns in the world are found in coastal regions. But a terrible consequence of the push to develop alternative energy has been the realization that birds get chopped up by the rotating blades of on-land wind farms. More recently, evidence has mounted that bats, which are already being decimated in the northeast by the mysterious "white-nose syndrome," also are being mulched enmasse by wind turbines erected on inland, mountain ridges.
The only major windfarm operating in New Jersey is a five-turbine onshore facility built in 2005 to augment the electrical power feeding the Atlantic County Utilities Authority treatment plant in Atlantic City.
New Jersey, which gets less than 3 percent of its energy from solar and wind power, has plans to develop the nation's first offshore wind farm in an effort to meet an ambitious goal of generating 30 percent of its electricity by 2020 from renewable energy sources.
But while the environmental impacts of offshore farms are still being studied, the DEP has been grappling with the known destruction onshore wind facilities have had on birds and bats in determining whether some land-based wind farms may still help the state meet its renewable energy goals.
"This rule does not stop windmills," said Jeanne Herb, director of Policy, Planning and Science for the DEP, calling the proposal just the "first step" toward guiding windmill and solar development in sensitive coastal habitats.
"The purpose of the rule was very limited. We are streamlining the process for some permits. It was not intended to fix every possible issue associated with development in coastal regions. The purpose of this rule is to streamline the process for some renewable energy projects and have that balanced with protecting species," she said.
Ruth Ehinger, manager of the DEP's coastal management program, said existing state regulations require a lengthy and detailed "individual permit" review process by the DEP for every renewable energy project in a protected coastal area whether that project is a massive wind farm proposed by an energy company or a lone windmill proposed by a farmer trying to electrify his house and barn.
Not every environmental group is against the DEP proposals.
The Americal Littoral Society supports the proposed set of rules by which state officials say they will streamline state reviews for small wind and solar projects, but still require more in-depth DEP considerations for larger projects in coastal areas.
"The rules put important protections into place for critical wildlife habitat that might be negatively impacted by wind turbine development," said Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society, a national coastal conservation organization.
But Jeff Tittel of the Sierra Club, David Pringle of the New Jersey Environmental Federation and Matt Elliot of Environment New Jersey said the DEP is being more cautious about renewable energy than the type of projects that already have destroyed miles of coastal wildlife habitat, such as shopping malls, industrial complexes and casinos.
"We are not taking a back seat to anyone in protecting critical habitat. None of us are suggesting we put windmills on piping plover nests. But there are plenty of places, we believe, where wind energy should be aggressively pursued," said Pringle of the environmental federation.
"The DEP has cynically come up with rules that only streamline a project if you are putting up a pinwheel next to your house. But they are not streamlining the process for the development of any meaningful solar or wind projects that address the biggest threat to migrating birds and rare species which is global warming," said Tittel.
Elliott called the DEP approach hypocritical.
"There is a disconnect here. They chose to go over the top in regulating wind, under the guise of protecting species, but the same cautious standards are not being applying to other kinds of development that have much more impact on wildlife and habitat," he said.
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