The 39-turbine Roaring Brook wind farm project in the town of Martinsburg received little public comment Wednesday. And the four people who did speak at the town Planning Board public hearing on the project expressed mixed opinions. "There is insufficient evidence to suggest that birds won't be displaced by Roaring Brook Wind Farm," said Chris K. Lajewski, the Northern New York land steward for the Nature Conservancy.

Workers atop mountain ridges are putting together 389-foot windmills with massive blades that will turn Appalachian breezes into energy. Retiree David Cowan is fighting to stop them. Because of the bats. ...It is the first court challenge to wind power under the Endangered Species Act, lawyers on both sides say. With President Obama's goal of doubling renewable energy production by 2012, wind and solar farms are rapidly expanding. As they do, battles are being waged to reach the right balance between the benefits of clean energy and the impact on birds, bats and even the water supply.

A proposed West Virginia wind power project will harm a tiny, endangered bat and its developers should be should be required to obtain permits under the Endangered Species Act, attorneys for two environmental groups argued Wednesday in federal court. The developers admit bats will be killed by the turbines, but refuse to acknowledge the endangered Indiana bat will be among them, plaintiffs attorney Eric Glitzenstein argued in his opening statements.

The 124-turbine wind farm being built by Rockville-based Beech Ridge Energy would put the lives of endangered Indiana bats, and other bat species, in danger, according to the plaintiffs -- The Animal Welfare Institute, Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy and David G. Cowan. Plaintiff's witness Michael Gannon, a bat biologist and professor at Pennsylvania State University, said he is "very much in favor" of wind energy, but remains concerned that this project could have a devastating effect on the Indiana bat.

The proposed construction of massive wind and solar energy projects on public land in the California desert would hasten destruction and further fragment land that is home to 17% of state's rarest plants, botanists said Saturday. "Most of the solar and wind projects currently under review are in the wrong places," said Greg Suba, conservation program director for the California Native Plant Society.

Bird experts have welcomed the Scottish Government's decision to refuse permission for a wind farm they said would have posed a risk to golden eagles. WPR Wind Ltd hoped to build a 14-turbine wind farm near Inveraray in Argyll. However, RSPB Scotland objected to the proposal on the grounds that the site was one of the most productive areas in the country for golden eagles.

Lane Johnson said the great blue herons that perch on and near his property in Bell Acres are like an annoying little brother that you wish would go away, but you also feel obligated to protect. ...he spoke during a public hearing Monday night against the proposed erection of a 60-foot wind turbine that would go up about a half-mile away from the herons' nesting spot -- or rookery -- because it might endanger the birds.

When it comes to generating green energy from the wind, Texas leads the way. But in the pursuit of cleaner energy, there's also an environmental cost: Dead birds and bats killed by turbine blades. Now a unique research project in North Texas is trying to find out how many are dying and what can be done to save them. As Texas continues to flip the switch from dirty coal to clean wind, not all is perfectly green.

Scientists say man-made noise equipment, including anti-seal sonar devices used in fish farms, is driving deep-water animals such as whales to shore, where they die. A northern bottlenose whale was washed up dead on a beach in Prestatyn, North Wales, on Saturday morning, the tenth of the species to become trapped or stranded on British shores this year. ...Northern bottlenose whales are acutely sensitive to sound, for like other beaked whales they use sonic pulses for hunting. The noise of oil exploration (which uses loud underwater explosions to help geologists search for undiscovered reserves), wind farm construction and shipping are all possible culprits.

Sitting shoulder to shoulder in the portrait room at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, community members listened intently to panelists before engaging in a somewhat heated debate about windmills and nature. Lights were dimmed as images emerged of Don Quixote's jousting windmills and of dead bats to illustrate the wind-energy debate. The presentation, titled "Windmills: Viewed through the lens of art, science, and animal impact" included panelists Patrick Marold, Thomas Tailer and Scott Darling in this culminating event of a three-part series, "The Energy Project Vermont," a partnership between ECHO and Burlington City Arts with the support of University of Vermont.

Bell Acres Council will soon decide whether one more footprint will disturb the great blue herons and other residents. An alternative-energy demonstration site - involving a single 66-foot-high wind turbine, a 15-foot-high turbine, some solar panels and a trailer - has been proposed by a collaboration of Metal Foundations (Ambridge), Vox Energy (Allison Park) and Jet Industries (Ellwood City) for a site near the intersection of Big Sewickley Creek Road, also designated as the Red Belt, and Turkeyfoot Road.

The federal lawsuit filed against Beech Ridge Energy and its parent corporation by Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy and others will culminate with an evidentiary trial starting October 21st in Greenbelt, Maryland. ...Beech Ridge Energy concedes that approximately 135,000 bats could be killed during the twenty-year operation of the project. Despite this staggering figure, Beech Ridge Energy's staff have testified previously that Indiana bats were not likely to be killed by the project because pre-construction surveys did not establish presence of the species on the project site. However, the discovery process leading up to this October trial has exposed evidence to the contrary.

Reporting in The Journal of Wildlife Management, researchers write about a strategy for protecting migratory bats from fatal encounters with wind farms. Study author Robert Barclay discusses the method, which halves bat fatalities without significantly reducing energy production - or profits.

Wind turbine memorial. Illustration: Rob Biddulph Imagine that at the flick of a switch, you could not only turn a light on or off but select which power source you were going to use. Would an eco warrior choose wind power or coal? Surely this is a no-brainer. Not necessarily.

Wind farms can reduce bird numbers by up to half, according to a new study by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, that raises questions about the charity's support of the new technology. ...It suggested that the most likely cause of the decline is the fact that birds are less likely to live near wind farms because of the noise and development.

The RSPB Scotland study looked at 12 operating upland wind farms in the UK and found that numbers of several birds of high conservation concern are reduced close to the turbines. Affected birds include the hen harrier and golden plover, which are protected under European law, and the curlew, which is a high-priority species under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.

Every state in the northeast has set a target for increasing the amount of renewable energy it produces. Wind power is a big part of this push. Those towers and turbine blades can pose dangers to birds and bats. With more interest nationally in developing wind power, scientists are searching for more answers about the impacts, and how to minimize them.

The slaughter at Altamont Pass is being raised by avian scientists who say the drive among environmentalists to rapidly boost U.S. wind farm power 20 times could lead to massive bird losses and even extinctions. New wind projects "have the potential of killing a lot of migratory birds," said Michael Fry, director of conservation advocacy at the American Bird Conservancy in Washington. ...Officials in the wind energy industry say migratory birds and birds of prey, including eagles, are killed each year at some of the nation's biggest wind farms, but they say the concerns are overstated.

Scotland's ospreys are once again starting their epic annual winter migration to West Africa. Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), the biggest land manager in the country, has been keeping a close watch on the success of the fish-eating birds of prey. One of the birds monitored using satellite tracking technology is known as Red 8T.

A new study indicates that winds turbines could be contributing to the local extinction of an endangered vulture in southern Spain. ...The results suggest that if the number of wind turbines stays the same as it is today, the population will go extinct 10 years sooner than if there were no wind farms.