A wind turbine company is being sued by a farming community in Kerry one year after a bog slide - which has still not been cleared - blocked access to their land. Residents of Lyrecrom­pane in the Stack mountains have insisted that the wind farm - currently being developed by Tralee-based Tra Investments - is to blame for last August's bog slide.

Despite its relatively small land mass, Scotland plays an important role in the UK in storing carbon on our land. We host 55 per cent of the UK's terrestrial carbon store. The richest stores are our peat lands, poorly-drained soils ...However, the landscapes that best accumulate carbon - our wild and windy moorlands - also offer the best sites for energy generation from wind power: Scotland has 25 per cent of Europe's wind energy source, according to the Scottish Government.

Photographs taken at Meridian's West Wind project above the Makara coastline show how sediment has been overflowing from the construction site. The photos were taken by marine environmentalist Jim Mikoz, who wrote an article in the NZ Fishing Coast to Coast magazine with the headline: The dirt behind wind turbines.. your fishing is at serious risk. In response to the article, Meridian wrote a letter to the editor stating that there would be no mud runoff into the sea from its construction site.

Scientific consultant Brian Patrick, of Alexandra, gave evidence on the proposal as a witness for appellant Ewan Carr. His evidence included planned mitigation measures and whether they were appropriate. During cross-examination, Mr Patrick said Meridian's plan to store spoil, including soil taken from the site during construction, in various disposal sites on the proposed 92sq km property would unnecessarily threaten indigenous flora and fauna of the Lammermoor Range.

Plum Creek owns the property west of Greenville, and its logging contractor was clearing land for TransCanada, the developer of a wind farm. The Land Use Regulation Commission issued a notice of warning to TransCanada based on the erosion. A Maine environmental group called for the state to fine Plum Creek and a logging contractor for cutting trees too aggressively. The Natural Resources Council of Maine released photos of the erosion, which it said was effectively a 900-foot-long mudslide, along with internal communications that it says show Plum Creek's logging contractor was warned to stop working in the area until after the ground froze.

A group of town residents and state environmentalists has lost a legal challenge against the Hoosac Wind Project, a 30-megawatt turbine venture planned for Bakke Mountain in Florida and Crum Hill in Monroe. Their case - which hinged on permitting - attempted to reverse the state Department of Environmental Protection's June 2007 decision to grant a wetlands permit for the estimated $45 million project. Eleanor Tillinghast, president of Green Berkshires, a plaintiff in the case, said an appeal is being considered.

This time the focus is Kibby Mountain in western Maine where Transcanada is in the process of developing a wind power project, and where related logging operations by Plum Creek and a sub-contractor have been linked to serious land use violations. Pictures taken at the site by an independent engineering firm and provided to the Land Use Regulation Commission in late October show a logging road so damaged by rain, logging activity and erosion that it created a mudslide described as nearly 900 feet long.

Planned erosion and sediment spill mitigation for the proposed $2 billion Project Hayes wind farm was questioned during an Environment Court appeal hearing for the development yesterday. Technical director Graham Levy, of Christchurch, gave evidence as a witness called by the Otago Regional Council. ...When cross-examined by Upland Landscape Protection Society counsel Ewan Carr, Mr Levy admitted he did not have experience of earthworks and potential mitigation of such works at a site of the Project Hayes development's elevation.

Developers who consistently abuse the planning system could be banned from building in Ireland, under legislation being drafted by the minister for the environment. ...The ban on planning retention for developments requiring an EIA was prompted by a judgment by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last July. ...The judgment related to a wind farm at Derrybrien, Co Galway, where the construction of a service road caused a landslide on a blanket bog.

With two pipes beneath a road clogged in Noxen, Supervisor Carl Shook is concerned about runoff from a proposed wind farm in Wyoming County. "There is going to be a lot of water running off the mountain," Shook said. Shook was one of about 30 people last Wednesday who attended a public hearing ...The state Department of Environmental Protection held the hearing to receive public comment as it reviews an application from BP for a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.

The EU Environment Commission is to investigate a windfarm development in the Stacks mountains which was at the centre of concerns after a bog slide during heaving rainfall in August. ...Local residents in the Stacks mountains wrote to environment commissioner Stavros Dimas in October to say they were deeply concerned with the manner in which the windfarm at Ballincollig Hill, near Tralee, was being constructed on sensitive bog and to ask that work - which resumed recently - be stopped. The residents said "large tracts of beautiful boglands and rivers" had being damaged in the slide and the nest of a hen harrier, hares and other wildlife disturbed.

Steuben County Public Works Commissioner Vincent Spagnoletti said the company, formerly known as UPC, will pay the county to restore several county roads to the same shape they were in before construction began. The two projects in the Dutch Hill and Lent Hill regions total 51 turbines. Seven miles of county Route 35, listed in fair condition before construction began, will need extensive repairs, including four miles of rebuilding, Spagnoletti said.

A bogslide which threatened one of the country's premier fishing lakes appeared to have come to a halt yesterday. For the third consecutive night, geotechnical experts and wind farm and forestry staff remained at the scene of a potential environmental disaster. ...The slide began on Tuesday afternoon during the construction of a road to the Garvagh Glebe North wind farm, a joint project between Coillte and Hibernian Wind Power, a subsidiary of the ESB.

It's probably too much to expect, but, following the country's latest landslide or bog overflow, county councils and An Bord Pleanála should have more regard for people living in susceptible areas. Despite the concerns of people in Derrybrien, Co Galway, regarding a wind farm in their area, planning permission was granted for it by An Bord Pleanála. Residents' worst fears came to pass when a landslide caused devastation in 2003. Fast forward to August, 2008, and a similar landslide involving 20 acres of bog in the Kielduff/Lyrecrompane area of Co Kerry. ...The Irish Peatland Conservation Council (IPCC), which aims to save Irish boglands, is calling on the Government to come up with a policy on the location of wind farms in sensitive habitats.