CHARLOTTESVILLE- Virginia's national forests are emerging as a potential battleground for wind energy, a key part of efforts to develop alternatives to coal and oil in the United States.

Few proposals have been made so far for wind farms in the thousands of acres of Virginia national forest, but those that have been submitted have sparked intense disagreement.

In a twist, environmental groups in favor of developing alternative energy and supportive of wind farms in general have steadfastly opposed using the state's rugged, mountainous national forests as sites for wind farms.

"We're supportive overall of alternative energy," said David Carr, general counsel at the Charlottesville-based Southern Environmental Law Center.

"[But] we don't support large-scale - industrial-scale - wind installations on national forest land in Virginia or in the southern Appalachians."

The wind industry is pretty far along with getting wind turbines permitted on national forest land in Michigan and Vermont, says James T. Smalls, district ranger for the Lee Ranger District of the George Washington & Jefferson national forests in Virginia.

Development of wind power is driven by President Barack Obama's goal of having renewable sources make up 25 percent of the country's energy use by 2025.

But undeveloped windy expanses, prevalent in western states, are hard to come by on the eastern side of the country. That's led the industry to consider Forest Service land near metropolitan areas such as Washington, Detroit and the New England area as potential wind farm sites.

A proposal to create a utility-scale wind farm, composed of 131 440-foot-tall wind turbines on Great North Mountain in the George Washington and Jefferson national forests, stretching across Hardy County, W.Va., and Virginia's Shenandoah County was denied earlier this year.

The proposal was rejected because the project would open up a remote wildlife habitat area, visually dominate the Shenandoah Valley and threaten the federally endangered Indiana bat species believed to be hibernating in nearby caves, wrote Maureen T. Hyzer, forest supervisor, in a letter to FreedomWorks LLC, the company that made the proposal.

But national forest land is not off-limits to renewable energy, Smalls said. The decision to deny FreedomWorks was based on criteria detailed in the George Washington Forest Revised Land and Resources Management Plan.

"The whole wind energy thing is brand new to the forest service. We don't really have any experience or guidance with this," Smalls said.

One of the biggest difficulties for the wind industry is finding a suitable site for development. Just the right combination of factors must exist for a developer to be interested. That is why there isn't a "land rush" in any of the national forests, says Laurie Jodziewicz, manager of siting policy at the American Wind Energy Association.

"To say we have to do it in one place and not in another is an awfully difficult case to make," Jodziewicz said. "If you can find financial investors willing to back the project and companies willing to buy the power, that [site] should be appropriate for development."

Appropriate sites require:

• good wind,
• access to transmission lines,
• a positive advisory opinion from the Federal Aviation Administration, which reviews every structure over 200 feet tall,
• accessibility, to get equipment to the site,
• the ability to pass the permit process,
• financial investors, and
• a buyer for electricity generated by the farm.

Getting a project built and operational takes more than just an interest in wind energy. But it's been proven that wind farms can be financed and built in the Appalachian region, and those in the wind industry are "better able to understand where the good wind is and whether it fits in" as a viable proposal than those who oppose wind development in Appalachia, Jodziewicz said.

Those who oppose wind development in the region's forests are concerned with the environmental impact of opening up nearly 500 contiguous acres in a remote habitat area - which the FreedomWorks proposal would have done - rather than if those requirements are met.

Located in West Virginia, Mountaineer Wind Energy Center, which came online in 2002, estimated that 4,000 bats were killed by turbines in the first year of operation, according to Rick Webb, senior scientist with the environmental studies department at the University of Virginia and manager of http://www.vawind.org. Webb has served on a National Academy of Sciences committee on the environmental impacts of commercial wind projects in the Appalachian region.

Bats in the region are already suffering from the mysterious White Nose Syndrome, a fungus implicated in thousands of bat deaths. The combined impact of turbines and WNS on the bat population could be devastating and was identified by Smalls as the most worrying aspect of the FreedomWorks proposal.

A Californian wind farm in Altamont Pass kills 100 golden eagles a year, Webb said. Western Virginia is home to not only golden eagles, but also bald eagles. Raptors seem particularly vulnerable, as well as tropical migrants that fly over Appalachian ridges at night, according to Webb.

"Studies that were done related to this project where scientists used radar to determine the passage rate [of migratory birds] basically identified this project as having the highest rate of migration of birds and bats anywhere in the East," Webb said.

Bat fatalities were a surprise to the wind industry, Jodziewicz said. The industry partnered with Bat Conservation International in 2004 and began researching mitigation methods. They found it to be "a fairly predictable phenomenon" and that fatalities could be reduced through certain methods.

Two methods, Jodziewicz said, have emerged as the most effective at reducing incidental deaths: curtailment - only turning on the turbines at higher wind speeds during the fall migration; and an ultrasonic sound emitter that "warns bats away."

"We all want to protect the bats and we all want wind energy ... we want to find a solution that we can put out there as quickly as possible," Jodziewicz said.

Mitigation methods don't address the problem of individual turbines breaking up continuous, remote forest habitat into a series of forest fragments. Predators that can't live in the interior forest move into the edges of forest fragments, driving birds away and greatly reducing the number of tropical migrants nesting in that area, scientific studies have shown.

FreedomWorks would have created a network of clearings - one for each turbine - connected by roads wide enough for the huge turbine blades to be shipped in, Webb said. That's a huge impact in terms of forest fragmentation, sediment control and wildlife, he said.

"That's why I think we need to look at this and be very skeptical of claims that this kind of development is any kind of meaningful solution to energy," Webb said.

Turbines aren't going to get smaller anytime soon, according to Jodziewicz. Advances in wind technology are making the turbines more efficient and cost-effective, but wind is too light and inconsistent to make utility-scale turbines shorter.

"Wind is much better and smoother higher off the ground, so I don't think we'll see smaller turbines ... I think we'll see better siting [in terms of] what makes a site more risky for wildlife," Jodziewicz said.

As for now, Smalls says he can't see how the current type of turbine can meet the George Washington and Jefferson national forests' management plan. But the forest service is a proponent of renewable energy. As Smalls spoke, he sat in a building powered by geothermal energy.

"My personal opinion is I'm glad that we're even discussing it," Smalls said.