Local governments are beginning to flex their permitting authority to challenge commercial-scale wind farms, a trend some industry observers say could impede broader federal efforts to expand renewable energy production. The latest round in the emerging battle between local governments and wind-energy developers occurred last week in Kansas, where the state Supreme Court upheld a Wabaunsee County zoning ordinance banning industrial-scale wind ...Experts say the Wabaunsee ordinance, unanimously upheld by the Kansas court, is a key test of local governments' power to effectively ban large-scale wind farms, as opposed to blocking a specific project or proposal.

The proposed construction of massive wind and solar energy projects on public land in the California desert would hasten destruction and further fragment land that is home to 17% of state's rarest plants, botanists said Saturday. "Most of the solar and wind projects currently under review are in the wrong places," said Greg Suba, conservation program director for the California Native Plant Society.

Sitting shoulder to shoulder in the portrait room at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, community members listened intently to panelists before engaging in a somewhat heated debate about windmills and nature. Lights were dimmed as images emerged of Don Quixote's jousting windmills and of dead bats to illustrate the wind-energy debate. The presentation, titled "Windmills: Viewed through the lens of art, science, and animal impact" included panelists Patrick Marold, Thomas Tailer and Scott Darling in this culminating event of a three-part series, "The Energy Project Vermont," a partnership between ECHO and Burlington City Arts with the support of University of Vermont.

Bell Acres Council will soon decide whether one more footprint will disturb the great blue herons and other residents. An alternative-energy demonstration site - involving a single 66-foot-high wind turbine, a 15-foot-high turbine, some solar panels and a trailer - has been proposed by a collaboration of Metal Foundations (Ambridge), Vox Energy (Allison Park) and Jet Industries (Ellwood City) for a site near the intersection of Big Sewickley Creek Road, also designated as the Red Belt, and Turkeyfoot Road.

Every state in the northeast has set a target for increasing the amount of renewable energy it produces. Wind power is a big part of this push. Those towers and turbine blades can pose dangers to birds and bats. With more interest nationally in developing wind power, scientists are searching for more answers about the impacts, and how to minimize them.

A proposal to put 15 wind turbines as close as one kilometre offshore in Lake Erie should require an environmental assessment, Gord Meuser, a spokesman for the group Citizens Against Lake Erie Wind Turbines, said Friday. SouthPoint Wind has completed its environmental screening report but Meuser said the group will be asking that it be bumped up to an environmental assessment with more studies specifically on Lake Erie.

Every state in the Northeast has set a target for increasing the amount of renewable energy it produces. Wind power is a big part of this push, but it may pose a danger to birds and bats. As part of a collaboration of northeast public radio stations, David Chanatry reports from the site of the biggest wind farm in the region.

Nature conservationists are expected to raise concerns over potential plans to place four wind turbines close to an internationally important bird reserve. ...Martin Kerby, RSPB planning officer for the North-east said: ... "When the planning application is submitted we will be looking very carefully at it. It depends on how many birds are passing through. "It's about 1km from Saltholme but of most concern is the North Tees mudflats."

Highland New Wind Development (HNWD), the self-touted "Greenest Wind Farm in the World," has initiated clearing, road work, and excavation for its 19-turbine project in the remote Allegheny Mountain, Laurel Fork area along the Highland County-Pocahontas County, Virginia-West Virginia border. ...The SCC has scheduled a hearing to be convened on September 23, 2009 to receive evidence and testimony from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) and HNWD concerning the wind energy developer's compliance with the SCC's December 2007 order

New Jersey and Delaware environmental officials say a wind farm planned for the Delaware Bay could disturb an important flyway for birds. Delsea Energy of Toms River, N.J., has a plan to construct 106 turbines in the upper Delaware Bay, on the New Jersey side of the shipping channel that divides Garden State waters from those controlled by Delaware.

A host of New Jersey environmental officials and scientists have lined up against another proposed "wind farm" in the Delaware Bay. In an Aug. 20 letter, Scott Brubaker, an assistant commissioner of the New Jersey state Department of Environmental Protection, listed numerous concerns about Delsea Energy's proposal for a 42 square mile field of wind turbines off the Cumberland County shore.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is being pressed behind-the-scenes to drop its opposition to wind farms in Delaware Bay, an internationally recognized migratory bird stopover, according to e-mails released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Documents reveal a powerful South Jersey Senator and a former DEP Commissioner pushing to reverse a DEP scientific finding that Delaware Bay "is not appropriate for a large-scale wind turbine project due to...impacts to migratory and other bird populations."

Environmental groups in Oregon have united to oppose the construction of new wind farms in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. One county is listening to their concerns. Umatilla County Planning Commission members intend to hear an amendment to the community's Comprehensive Plan that could ban future wind power developments from certain areas.

Despite the pollution reductions, Elk River has had some unintended consequences for the landscape and for wildlife. To the developer, these slight, grassy hills looked like a fine place to build a wind farm. But conservation groups saw something different. What had been nearly 8,000 acres of low-impact ranch land in one of the most threatened habitats in the world was now sliced by 20 miles of roads, 100 towers, transmission lines and a sizable electrical substation. And that was just the beginning.

The proposed Stockyard Hill Wind Farm will require further environmental studies to determine the impact of local wildlife. Last week the Federal Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts announced that Origin Energy’s proposed Stockyard Hill wind farm could have significant impact on protected species and communities. ...The decision will require further environmental studies be conducted to assess the severity of impact on native species and communities protected under the EPBC Act, such as migratory birds and critically endangered Natural Temperate Grassland of the Victorian Volcanic Plains.

The Competitive Renewable Energy Zone transmission lines proposed to pass through West and Central Texas have a number of ranchers and small town dwellers up in arms about the effect the 200-foot-tall lattice towers would have on the scenic Texas Hill Country. The Lower Colorado River Authority-Transmission Services Corp. proposes to construct three new, double-circuit, bundled conductor, 345-kilovolt transmission lines, primarily on double-circuit-capable lattice structures.

The office announced Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Baryonyx Corp., a Houston-based green energy company, that could turn waters off the island coast into the nation's biggest wind farm. Baryonyx Corp. was the sole bidder for the right to build a wind farm off the island's eastern shore, GLO spokesman Jim Suydam said.

The US's new economic stimulus plan is providing billions of dollars towards the doubling of the nation's supply of renewable energy; environmentalist groups, however, are opposing the plan to build new transmission lines intended to carry this 
renewable energy. ...Environmentalist group Industrial Wind Action executive director Lisa Linowes says that by establishing new transmission lines, the US is needlessly industrialising the
remote American landscape at the expense of its local residents.

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.

A $1.2 billion, 150-mile power line that would cross Maryland and lay high-voltage cables under the Chesapeake Bay for the first time has been proposed to ease the threat of blackouts on the growing Delmarva Peninsula. But the proposal is generating opposition from environmentalists, landowners and even business interests in mostly rural Dorchester County, who worry that the project could disrupt farming, damage sensitive marshlands and blight the area's growing tourism.