Environmental groups and residents of Nevada have filed a complaint in U.S. District Court of Nevada challenging the Department of the Interior's permit granting Duke Energy permission to construct an 87-turbine wind energy facility east of Searchlight on 19,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land. Excerpts of the complaint are provided below. The plaintiffs argue that Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar acted in a manner that was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and contrary to law. The full complaint can be accessed by clicking on the link(s) at the bottom of this page.

Alvin J. Coleman & Son has filed a Mechanics Lien in the State of New Hampshire for the amount of $3,490,781. The Lien was filed against Cianbro Corporation, Groton Wind LLC, Iberdrola Renewables LLC, Iberdrola Energy Projects Inc, Yankee Forest Limited Liability Company and others. The full document can be accessed by clicking on the link(s) at the bottom of this page.

The Wildlife Society's March Bulletin included this impacting paper by Dr. Shawn Smallwood who compares post-construction bird and bat fatality assessments conducted across the United States. He estimates 888,000 bat and 573,000 bird fatalities/year (including 83,000 raptor fatalities) at 51,630 megawatt (MW) of installed wind-energy capacity in the United States in 2012. As wind energy continues to expand, there is urgent need to improve fatality monitoring methods and address the levels of mortality.

William Staats is a wildlife biologist for the New Hampshire Fish and Game. He submitted this testimony before the State of Vermont, where he resides. Mr. Staats has direct experience with the impacts of industrial scale wind energy development on New Hampshire ridgelines. His testimony provides critical insight into the true impacts of the towers on the State's wilderness areas.

This petition by the New Hampshire House Science, Technology and Energy Committee asks the State's Site Evaluation Committee (SEC) to adopt rules establishing comprehensive procedures and siting criteria for applications for certificates for wind-powered energy facilities. The SEC which is authorized to certificate projects greater than 30 MW must respond to the petition within 30 days.

This important ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) finding that offshore wind is not a reasonable alternative for baseload generation produced by nuclear power plants. The NRC further concluded that the intermittent nature of wind power means that it cannot be considered baseload without effective energy storage mechanisms, and that storage technology is “not sufficiently demonstrated at this time.”

This recent paper offers important data on how birds use wind flows to aid in flight and how modeling wind flow across complex terrain can assist in siting wind energy facilities to reduce avian mortality.

The Northern Pass transmission line, if built, will carry 1200 MW of renewable energy from Canada to New England. The proposed transmission has set off a firestorm of opposition in New Hampshire where the line will bisect the state and travel through sensitive land areas. The debate concerning property value impacts is similar to the that involving wind turbines. Residents in New Hampshire commissioned two studies, a Resources Impact Report and an Appraisal Report, which looked at how the power line will impact their property. A summary of the two reports is excerpted below. Both reports can be accessed by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

This policy of the New Hampshire Audubon Policy on Wind Energy Projects was approved by the Board of Trustees on January 24, 2012.