Iberdrola has proposed a wind energy facility to be erected on national forest lands in the Green Mountain National Forest located in Vermont. The Forest Service released the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) in September 2008. The full DEIS can be accessed at http://www.windaction.org/documents/17983. The US Fish and Wildlife Service submitted comments on the DEIS. These comments can be downloaded by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

This motion was filed with the Vermont Public Service Board on Sep 22, the day hearings were to begin for the Deerfield Wind LLC proposal. Deerfield Wind LLC is seeking to erect 15 industrial scale wind turbines in the Green Mountain National Forest. In response, the Vermont Public Service Board ordered that the hearings be rescheduled to December 1, 2008.

The Deerfield Wind Energy facility is the first wind plant to be proposed for US National Forest lands. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement released by the US Forest Service can be accessed by clicking on the link(s) below. Comments will be accepted through until the end of November 2008.

The Vermont Public Service Board has issued an order regarding violation of a 2003 Certificate of Public Good issued to enXco authorizing construction of two wind measurement towers ("met towers") on Lowell Mountain. The CPG required that the towers be removed within five years of the date of the CPG. The order detailing the violation and subsequent agreements is listed below.

This paper documents the results of an in-field test at the Maple Ridge wind energy facility in New York to determine the effectiveness of using an experimental acoustic bat deterrent to reduce bat mortality. The executive summary excerpted below suggests the results were inconclusive. Most bat experts remain unconvinced that acoustic deterrence will be a suitable mitigation approach to reduce bat fatalities at existing turbines.

Memo from the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities Chairman, Paul Hibbard, to the ISO New England. Chairman Hibbard expresses his concerns over the push to regionalize costs for building expensive transmission lines to service renewable projects (wind) built far from load centers. Current FERC rules are unclear on how to justify distribution of the costs across all ratepayers within the region unless it can be shown such transmission is needed to ensure the reliability and integrity of the grid.

This document includes discovery questions and responses between Windaction.org and Deerfield Wind.

The Vermont Legislature has now passed S.209 with amendments objected to by Northeast Kingdom Senators Coppenrath, Kitchel, and Starr and by several other senators with industrial wind energy proposals in their districts. As Sen. Coppenrath noted in consideration of an amendment to S. 209, recorded in the Feb. 26, 2008 Journal of the Senate, "I vote No because, although there are many very good provisions in this bill, I believe that Section 25 clearly allows the destruction of our mountain tops and ridgelines while providing subsidies for wind developers at the expense of the Vermont resident property tax payers."

This Appellent's brief was filed with the Vermont Supreme Court in response to the Vermont Public Service Board's decision to grant a certificate of public good to UPC Wind's Sheffield Wind energy project.