Some want renewable energy fast; others want to slow down to check on birds.

A submission to list the orange-bellied parrot as critically endangered, could put an end to wind farms in Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria.

The big wind farm debate rumbled on this week as the RSPB again signalled its opposition to the nine-turbine plan for West Hinkley. The society stood against Your Energy’s proposals when they were first submitted in 2004. Giant turbines, RSPB representatives say, would have a detrimental effect on the birds living around the site.

Scottish Natural Heritage yesterday confirmed its objection to a huge wind farm planned for Lewis. SNH board members reiterated their previous view that land covered by special protection area status might be harmed by the development. They also said there was insufficient information to determine the potential impact on birds. Last week, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) voted 18-8 in favour of the plan by Lewis Wind Power, subject to 50 conditions, including the removal of five of the proposed 181 turbines. Because of the scale of the 651-megawatt project, a final decision rests with the Scottish Executive. Meanwhile, SNH has withdrawn its objection to a proposed wind farm at Edinbane on Skye. It follows a public consultation by Highland Council on the latest submission from the developer AMEC, which included an appraisal of the likely effect on golden eagles.

MILAN, Italy, May 10 New technologies are making an effort to mitigate environmental concerns over bird fatalities caused by wind turbines in Europe. A new monitoring program called WT-Bird has passed preliminary tests and will enter the next phase of testing. The WT-Bird, created by the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands, uses several techniques to monitor bird collisions.

THE rare orange-bellied parrot, behind the scuttling of a $220 million Gippsland wind farm, is the subject of a $3.2 million Federal grant to protect its habitat.

THE orange-bellied parrot that played a key role in a controversial decision to reverse approval for a wind farm in Victoria has been placed on the critically endangered list. "I will be announcing today, in fact I think I'm announcing now, that I have formally signed the law upgrading the orange bellied parrot to critically endangered," Environment Minister Ian Campbell told a gathering of school children at Parliament House today. Only about 150 of the birds are left in the wild.

Interest by California-based AES Wind Generation in establishing a large-scale wind energy operation in Gillespie County is being reconsidered, it was learned here Monday. According to a City of Fredericksburg official who asked not to be identified, a letter from a company officer stated that AES SeaWest Inc. of San Diego has decided to discontinue pursuing wind energy in an area north of Fredericksburg that generally stretches between U.S. Highway 87 and RM 965. Instead, the city official related, the company has decided to focus on other areas in Texas. Prompting the decision, he added, was AES' concerns that sensitive species and bat colonies living in the area could be incompatible with large-scale wind energy.

Oakland, Calif. – The Alameda County Planning Department is recommending that long-time wind industry paid consultant and advocate WEST, Inc. serve as the so-called “neutral” scientific monitor for avian deaths caused by the Altamont Pass wind turbines, despite a clear and continuing financial conflict of interest.

Alameda County supervisors approved a one-year monitoring system that would study the impacts of the Altamont Pass windmills on scores of birds, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls and other protected species. The $1.4 million price tag for the deal caused concern among the supervisors, who are afraid the cost of the study has spiraled out of control, but saying the study was necessary, they approved it unanimously Tuesday.

OAKLAND Calif. – A blue-ribbon Scientific Review Committee (SRC) and an Avian Monitoring Team appointed by Alameda County to study bird fatalities at Altamont Pass has begun a groundbreaking monitoring program aimed at finding solutions for reducing the high number of birds of prey killed at some wind turbines. This monitoring effort is intended to detect trends in bird mortality at Altamont Pass and evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation measures implemented to reduce avian mortality. The goal is to reduce deaths of target raptor species by 45 percent.

I am a volunteer at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum hospital (in Walnut Creek, Calif.). In the last two weeks we have had to euthanize three golden eagles and many other birds of prey that have fallen victim to the (Altamont) windmills. Too often the windmills chop them up so bad it is impossible to save them.

Migratory birds and bats bludgeoned to death in flight. The movement of ungulates such as elk and threatened caribou disrupted. Wild wind-swept mountain tops -- the 'Beautiful' in B.C. -- despoiled by massive industrial infrastructure. Sound like green energy? These are among the concerns being raised over wind energy, even as the province's Environmental Assessment Office gives the green light to Dokie Wind Energy Inc. to build B.C.'s first wind farm near Chetwynd. "We still have concerns," confirmed Linda Sullivan, senior program officer for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, which has been working with B.C. officials. "Where there is wind, there are birds. There is a greater number of migratory birds in that particular area."

Anti-windfarm campaigners have welcomed Federal Government money to save an endangered parrot species.

A National Audubon Society chapter based in the Twin Cities has withdrawn its opposition to a proposed wind farm near the Mackinaw River on the Woodford-McLean county line. Angelo Capperella, spokesman for the John Wesley Powell Chapter of the Audubon Society, plans to be at the McLean County Zoning Board of Appeals hearing Tuesday on a special use permit the Chicago-based Ivenergy Wind LLC has requested for its White Oak Wind Energy Project. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in rooms 1406-1407 of the Community Commons Building at Heartland Community College. Invenergy LLC isn’t out of the woods yet, however. McLean County Department of Building and Zoning director Phil Dick said his office has received several requests from residents in the area of the proposed wind farm asking that the hearing be continued.

The Bloomington-based John Wesley Powell chapter of the National Audubon Society wants Invenergy LCC to do a little more bird watching. On Wednesday, Angelo Capparella, the chapter’s conservation chairman and a bird expert at Illinois State University, asked Woodford County zoning officials to require the wind farm company to redo a study of the potential impact its turbines might have on birds. Capparella plans to repeat the request when McLean County officials discuss the company’s plan next month.

Two golden eagles that soared along the Allegheny Front ridge in Central Pennsylvania late last year and are now gliding over the hills of West Virginia and Kentucky might one day help determine where new windmills will be built in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the East. The wide-winged raptors are wearing tiny radio telemetry transmitters that allow National Aviary researchers to track their migration routes and eventually develop the first bird's-eye-view data showing where electric wind turbines should be built and not built to minimize the killing of eagles and other big birds. Most wind turbine development has occurred without any scientific research on the consequences to migrating birds, according to Todd Katzner, director of conservation and field research at the National Aviary on the North Side. That has increased the risk that the turbine blades, some more than 100 feet long, will become bird slicers and dicers.

Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell has won a concession from the developer of the Bald Hills wind farm, with the company agreeing to move six turbines out of the potential flight path of the orange-bellied parrot. Senator Campbell blocked the wind farm in April, claiming a threat to the parrot, and the company’s move is an acknowledgment the turbines would have been on the potential migratory path of the endangered bird. The minister has agreed to reconsider the wind farm after legal action by the company. Opponents of the project said yesterday the company’s decision was an admission of guilt and showed the original proposal threatened the bird.

Standing outside the home of Bill and Rosina Martz along the Susquehanna River, it's easy to see Mahantongo Mountain and even easier to imagine how the landscape would change once 33 or more wind turbines are built. Gamesa Energy of Spain plans to build a 50-megawatt wind farm along the summit of Mahantongo Mountain. Township officials and local residents say the company is looking at a six-mile section of the mountain, starting near Route 147 north of Millersburg and running east to Deibler's Gap in Mifflin Twp. That size wind farm would require about 33 turbines, each of which would stand 416 feet above the mountain ridge with a single propeller blade reaching nearly 300 feet from end to end. They would be spaced about 1,000 feet apart.