The state Fish & Boat Commission has been responsible for ensuring that wind energy development does not harm water or aquatic life since corporations began erecting turbines in Pennsylvania. But with the wind energy industry growing quickly - and showing no signs of letting up - Fish and Boat commissioners have decided to put the agency's regulatory policy in writing. The commissioners made the decision at their most recent meeting. They are accepting comments about the policy from the public. ..."Anytime there's encroachment on a ridgeline, you're dealing with headwater issues," Lichvar said. "If you have a problem where it begins, then you have a problem where it ends."

This document includes on-the-ground photos of the Allegheny Ridge wind farm in Pennsylvania which show the extent of land impacted by road development. The degree of clearing shown is typical for ridgeline wind energy development; however, as stated below, the clearing does not reflect pre-approval assertions made by the developer.

Windber Area Authority members are looking into the impact a proposed wind farm will have on an area watershed. The board agreed Wednesday to ask geologist James Casselberry to begin studying how the construction of 38 wind turbines along Shaffer Mountain could affect water quality for authority customers. “If in fact there is a threat, the best way to find out is to talk to a hydrologist,” said solicitor James Cascio.

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.

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.

The Jardine family has owned their property at Snowy Plain for generations. David Jardine is the fifth generation of his family to own the land and his young grandson should be the seventh.

CENTRAL CITY - A local environmental organization is calling for an independent study of surface and ground water on land where Gamesa Energy USA is proposing to erect wind turbines. In a three-page position paper, the Mountain Laurel Chapter of Trout Unlimited said the proposed Shaffer Mountain project could adversely impact the Piney Creek watershed and wants a water study done.

Today, Britain’s peatland habitats are at the centre of a rather different wrangle. The drive towards cleaner energy alternatives to fossil fuels, backed by government, has jump-started the wind power industry. And many of the most suitable locations for wind farms in the British Isles happen to be on peat.

A company which began work on a wind farm on a mountain bog in north Kerry two weeks ago tonight said an independent investigation was being launched into the cause of a massive landslide which killed thousands of wild salmon and trout. Tra Investments Limited in Tralee said geological experts would assess what led to a two kilometre long slick flowing off the Stacks Mountains polluting the most important water supplies. ...Eamon Cusack, chief executive of Shannon Regional Fisheries Board, said: "All I can say is that we're following every lead and we're obviously looking at the windfarm as a possible source of the start of the landslide."

The quarry is one operation with active quarrying being done on approximately 30 acres - self-contained. Would Gamesa's Wind Project be self-contained - I don't think so! Where the quarry is one operation - Gamesa would have 30 operations - for starters! Gamesa's 30 operations would be located in the "heart" of the Piney Run Wilderness Area, atop the many ridges where below, the exceptional value streams flow. The destruction from sight clearings, turbine installations, plus approximately 18 miles of interconnecting roads and transmission lines over the many ridge-tops would devastate not only the land area, but also the bird, fish, wildlife and eco-system of Shaffer Mountain.

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.

Locals in north Kerry are up in arms at the alleged role of a wind energy firm in the landslide that destroyed a river's salmon and trout stocks. Before the facts of what caused last week's landslide in a north Kerry river network were known, a nearby wind energy firm taking the brunt of the local anger. Prior to the landslide, Tralee-based company Tra Investments had begun site works for an eight-turbine wind farm in the Ballincollig Hill-Maghanknockane area. Within 24 hours of the slide, the company announced that it would commission an independent review into the incident, which it promised to make public.

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.