Biologists for Fish and Game said the project of Granite Reliable Power LLC to build 33 turbines in the Dixville Peak and Mount Kelsey area would permanently bisect habitat of at least four wildlife species and will have "severe and unmitigated adverse effects on the natural community," which is host to about 60 others. AMC has filed as an intervenor on the project, expressing concern about the siting of half of the 33 turbines for the same reasons.

Granite Reliable Power's plan to erect 33 wind turbines on peaks in Coos County might be good for Gov. John Lynch and his goal of making 25 percent of the state's energy renewable by 2025. It would not be so good, according to Fish and Game officials, for the American marten or the three-toed woodpecker, threatened species that depend on the high-altitude forests that the project would disrupt.

Environmentalists are divided over the merits of a Pepco Holdings plan to string a 500-kilovolt power line through the heart of Delaware to better connect southern power plants with growing demand in the mid-Atlantic region. ...Clean-air advocates say it could help carry clean wind power to the homes and businesses that need it, even as they worry it will also import dirty coal-fired power from the South and Midwest. Wildlife and property-rights advocates are afraid the line will be a blight on the landscape, running through fragile areas along the Delaware River and Bay.

Should wind turbines hundreds of feet tall -higher than the existing Kumeyaay wind farm turbines- be allowed in the rural McCain Valley/Boulevard region in East County? Does the nation's critical need for "green" energy outweigh the concerns of residents seeking to preserve the rural character of their backcountry communities? With new industrial-scale wind farms proposed across America, East County Magazine's Gayle Early set out on a quest to explore these issues in depth for our three-part series on wind energy.

Despite Highland New Wind Development's request for streamlined treatment from state agencies, the Department of Historic Resources has determined the company must still submit a detailed site plan and visual impact study, particularly because its proposed 39-megawatt wind energy utility would be near a protected Civil War battlefield.

Construction crews should be busy on Fire Island near the western tip of Anchorage this summer, and the state's first major wind farm could be up and running there late next year. ..."We're moving forward with the project," CIRI spokesman Jim Jager said last week. Significant hurdles still remain, including determining which electric companies will buy the power and approval of all permits, Jager said.

Unlike other forms of green power such as solar panels or landfill methane gas, it's hard to hide a wind turbine, particularly in a state as small and densely populated as Massachusetts. ...That's creating a dilemma for conservationists and environmentalists who support renewable energy, but also want to preserve the state's wildlife population and scenic vistas.

A controversial proposal to site wind turbines on Sevenmile Hill near The Dalles has been cancelled. A letter from Massachusetts-based applicant First Wind dated Jan. 20 formally withdrew the company's application. ..."We're dancing in the street," said attorney Mark Womble, a Sevenmile resident who was part of fierce opposition to the plan. "We're excited. We're very happy."

The Minerals Management Service's 800 page Final Environmental Impact Statement on Cape Wind was released on Friday and in a largely favorable review found nearly all impacts to be negligible or minor. The few exceptions, where the 130 turbine wind farm would potentially or certainly have moderate to major impact were on birds, especially marine birds such as terns or sea ducks, on navigation and safety of recreational or commercial fishing boats, although those effects could be mitigated, and on visual resources of Nantucket Sound.

The fate of what would be the nation's first offshore wind farm is calling attention to the political obstacles facing renewable power, despite President-elect Barack Obama's determination to greatly expand its use. The project, called Cape Wind, is a Boston firm's plan to build 130 windmills across 25 square miles of federal waters off Cape Cod. ...A spokesman for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound says the group sees "lots of room to protest" the government review.

Wind power offers the potential of clean, inexhaustible, if intermittent, energy. But where to site wind turbines in relation to homes and communities is a major and growing point of controversy around the world and in the U.S. Here's why.

After years of battling environmentalists worried about the mixture of towering windmills and one of the world's busiest migratory bird flyways, Babcock & Brown opened its wind farm on the Kenedy Ranch. The wind farm will sport a bird radar detection system that company officials tout as the first of its kind. The system can automatically stop the blades if the potential for a mass bird kill is detected.

The industrialization of the ocean, coastal overdevelopment, contaminated sites and global warming will be among the top environmental issues in the Garden State next year, observers said. "What we're seeing is a gold rush toward energy development in the ocean," said Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society, a Sandy Hook-based coastal conservation coalition. "We gotta take better care of the coast," he said.

In March 2007, April Sall, the conservationist overseeing the Pipes Canyon Preserve in the San Bernardino County desert, got a call from an employee at the federal Bureau of Land Management. The caller wondered if Sall knew of a plan to run 85 miles of electrical transmission lines through the Morongo Basin, on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park, and through parts of the 20,000-acre private preserve northeast of Yucca Valley.

Despite the protests of environmental advocates who spent months trying to halt the projects, two large-scale wind farms in South Texas are now operational. Many of the approximately 250 wind turbines that were expected to dot about 20,000 acres of Kenedy Ranch, north of Raymondville, are up and spinning ...Seeing the turbines starting to spin is worrisome, Kittelberger said. "I think they were built without public input, and built (with developers) knowing they would kill thousands of birds," he said.

Scotland's wildlife habitats are at risk from poorly planned wind farms which can cause as much damage as new housing developments, a leading conservation body warns today. The John Muir Trust has found that the construction of a large scale wind farm, with access roads and cabling trenches, can destroy an area of land the size of 69 international-sized football pitches.

The only people who don't like wind farms are the people who don't have one - that was the punch line of a humorous story T. Boone Pickens told the crowd at Revolution: Oklahoma Wind Conference on Tuesday. But on Wednesday, conference attendees heard from a few people who are concerned that the wind industry is growing too fast to fully account for its effect on the environment, the economy and a multitude of secondary issues.

A two kilometre buffer zone from houses would make the proposed Glen Innes Windfarm unviable according to the project's developers, however they say they are hopeful of negotiating a compromise with critics of the project.

More than 30 people expressed their concerns about a massive power line upgrade project proposed by Central Maine Power at Lewiston City Hall Monday night during a public hearing before Maine's Public Utilities Commission. About 70 people were present. ...Nearly all of those who spoke before Commissioners Jack Cashman, Sharon Reishus and Vendean Vafiades were apprehensive about the project, anticipating noise pollution, loss of property value and health risks.

The controversy surrounding wind farms will be reignited this week when the government agency charged with protecting the environment reveals plans to build up to 80 wind turbines along some of the nation's most picturesque rivers.