Mighty River Power's planned positioning of some turbines at Turitea Wind Farm flies in the face of Palmerston North City Council's efforts to keep them away from houses, a board of inquiry has been told. The power company's 121-turbine proposal failed to meet the "spirit and intent" of the city council's 2006 decision that made a wind farm at Turitea possible, city lawyer John Maassen said.

The mayor and council recently approved a first reading of the ordinance that would allow personal wind turbines as tall as 165 feet in Frostburg's backyards. At the Aug. 20 public meeting, the city officials are scheduled to have subsequent readings and a vote on the matter, though some talk has surfaced about postponing that action until September. "A structure this high is equivalent to a 16-story building," Bambacus told the elected officials in an e-mail.

A proposal to disallow wind turbines in the Blue Mountain foothills continues Thursday night before the Umatilla County Planning Commission in the Pendleton Convention Center. Milton-Freewater-area resident Richard Jolly first made his proposal to the nine-member commission at a June 25 meeting, asking for a Goal 5 amendment to set aside a section of land east of Highway 11 as a viewshed to be protected for its aesthetic, natural resource and wildlife values.

Selby District Council this week agreed to form a stringent wind farm framework in a bid to stop the area skyline being "decimated with turbines". Members of the authority's policy and resources committee voted on Tuesday night to spend £30,000 to employ experts to assess all wind farm applications. ..."We've currently got eight or nine applications coming in, and I don't think we want to have our whole skyline decimated with turbines."

A month ago HNWD development made national news when its public relations firm announced that Virginia's first utility scale wind project was ready to start construction. As indicated here, that was a blatant misrepresentation. HNWD does not have a building permit, does not have an Erosion and Sediment Control permit, does not have approval from the FAA, has not satisfied the permit conditions imposed by the State Corporation Commission (SCC), and has not obtained an Endangered Species Act permit.

Logan Township supervisors will allow a wind farm developer to build the nation's next-to-tallest wind turbines in Chestnut Flats. Supervisors voted 4-to-1 Thursday night to allow Gamesa Energy to build 19 turbines north of Altoona, making them visible from 17th Street, Mill Run Road, Old Mill Run Road and along Route 36. Because of the vote, the turbines can placed on 335-foot towers, rather than 270 feet as allowed by ordinance.

More than 150 people gathered tonight in Georgia to debate a proposed five-turbine wind farm on Georgia Mountain. Some 30 speakers and the broader audience seemed split on the project as they participated in a hearing before the state Public Service Board, which would have to approve the development for it to proceed.

Rows of tall turbines have already remade the landscape on wheat farms and ridgelines on private land around the region. But so far there have been no wind farms built on public land in the Northwest. That's about to change. In 2006 the BLM received six right-of-way applications for wind testing in Oregon and Washington. The number last year was four times that -- 24. Wind farms in relatively untrammeled public lands present a number of potential problems while pitting two environmental concerns ...against each other.

Cohasset's first green project under the town's new wind turbine bylaw may soon be dead, after nearly two years of discussion and planning. Planning Board vice chairman Stuart Ivimey said last week he will not vote in favor of a special permit for a pair of commercial wind turbines proposed by a Plymouth company, leaving the project one vote short of approval.

Dr. Kent also said he believed it would be important for the state Fish and Game Department and scientists from the Appalachian Mountain Club to verify - ground-truth - the condition of the 1,700 acres that would be set aside as a mitigation package to compensate for habitat loss on Mt. Kelsey and Dixville Peak. "We need to know the details, what's really on the ground, to understand if it's "tit-for-tat" - that is, the same spruce-fir habitat that will be lost on those ridgelines," Dr. Kent said. "No evidence has been presented."

A "wind farm" that would take advantage of the gusts that have been blowing through the Central Coast at 30 to 50 mph is moving right along despite a lawsuit filed against the county's approval of the project. Construction won't begin for at least a year, but in the meantime officials of the developer say they are working to meet all the requirements imposed by the county with the intention of protecting the environment surrounding the "clean energy" project.

Consent for the planned 65-turbine wind farm on the Puketoi Range, about 10km north-west of Dannevirke, was turned down by a decision panel yesterday. The 150-metre tall wind turbines would have loomed the largest in New Zealand. ...in their refusal of the consent, the commissioners said there were "plainly potential adverse effects of some significance, which are not fully understood."

The wind farm debate that has raged across America has landed on Chicago's doorstep. Folks in quiet, rural DeKalb County are raising a ruckus at the possibility of 400-foot turbines next to their orchards, honeybees and livestock. About 700 people gathered in a high school gymnasium at 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday for a public hearing on the proposed wind farm. By the time the project developer had fielded every question and concern, it was 4 a.m. Sunday.

Hearing of the map from her neighbor, Nan Cook couldn't believe it. Drafted by the city's former planning director, Nancy Colbert, last March, the map shows possible locations where wind turbines could be placed in the industrial park. There are about 22. ...Cook, who lives on Hill Street, called the possibility of adding 22 more turbines to the industrial park "insane."

The scenic beauty of rural Tyrone could be under threat because of plans to build 218 wind turbines across the county, it can be revealed. Some 27 valid planning applications for wind farms have been lodged at sites across Tyrone, including five in the Dungannon area. The figures were revealed after an Assembly question from North Down MLA Brian Wilson, who is a member of the Green Party.

An application to build a wind farm near Napier has been declined for the second time by the Environment Court because the site is spiritually significant to Maori. The Hawke's Bay-based powerline company Unison applied to add 34 turbines to 15 already approved for a site on Te Waka Range near Te Pohue, on the Napier-Taupo Road.

Storey County residents told the Bureau of Land Management on Thursday that a proposed windmill project would ruin the tourist-based economy in Virginia City and surrounding areas. Jane Peterson, bureau energy project manager, said in a presentation to the Storey County Planning Commission that public comments collected since November have been split on whether to allow Reno-based Great Basin Wind to build about 70 windmills on BLM land in Storey and Washoe counties.

People will have a chance to ask questions and comment on a proposal to build a 22-turbine wind farm on several ridges in Roxbury at a hearing Wednesday night. The hearing, required by the state Department of Environmental Protection as part of the approval process, begins at 6 p.m. at Mountain Valley High School. ...Another wind project in the early planning stages is in the works for nearby Black Mountain in Rumford.

Emeritus professor Alan Mark, of Dunedin, gave evidence about the hurdles of revegetating native snow tussock at an Environment Court appeal hearing for the Project Hayes development yesterday. Prof Mark said trials of revegetation on site had so far produced less than satisfactory results, and he was concerned about whether it was possible to appropriately rehabilitate areas damaged during a five-year construction of the wind farm.

The fate of a controversial wind turbine project for Tazewell County is still up in the air. A newly created steering committee will now mull over a proposed ridgeline protection ordinance. The ordinance - if adopted by the Board of Supervisors - would regulate the development of tall structures along certain protected mountain ridges, including East River Mountain and Burke's Garden.