A group of environmental organizations and opponents of wind energy projects say they likely will file suit if the federal government approves the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm. A 60-day notice of violations of the Endangered Species Act was sent this week to Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin and to the U.S. Interior Department and other federal agencies that have reviewed Cape Wind's plan to build 130 wind turbines in the sound.

Cape Wind critics threw up an eleventh-hour roadblock this week, accusing two U.S. government agencies that approved portions of the proposed offshore wind energy project of violating federal laws. "We put them on notice," said Lisa Linowes, executive director of the Industrial Wind Action Group, which tracks the benefits of wind energy projects. Her group and eight others filed a 60-day notice of violations with U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

White-nose snydrome has the potential to devastate bats, which also are dying from impacts with wind turbines, Whidden said Feb. 25 during a lecture at Penn State Hazleton. Even before the new threats appeared to the nine species of bats regularly seen in Pennsylvania, one of them, the Indiana bat, was on the federal endangered species list, and that state listed the small-footed bat as threatened.

The future of Nevada is tied to the future of the sage grouse because the bird lives in a lot of the same areas that are expected to be used for wind, solar and geothermal energy. And although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided not to add the bird to the endangered species list Friday, it acknowledges that federal protection is warranted. The agency basically said it was precluded from adding the bird to the list because species that are more threatened are being given priority.

The finding shows the government is willing to protect sage grouse but not willing to do what's necessary, said Jon Marvel, executive director of the Hailey, Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project. "None of the actions proposed to date are mandatory, and that undermines the commitment for improving conditions for sage grouse," Marvel said.

Wildlife conservationists and energy developers alike found some encouragement in Friday's announcement that the sage grouse won't be listed as a threatened or endangered species. Many agreed that such a listing would have had a chilling effect on the agriculture and minerals industries, which are the foundation of Wyoming's economy.

The iconic sage grouse that once roamed the western U.S. plains in great numbers ...will not be listed under the Endangered Species Act, but the department will put special emphasis on preserving the chicken-sized bird on lands where oil companies want to drill and wind companies want to erect their massive turbines.

The Interior Department said Friday that the greater sage grouse, a dweller of the high plains of the American West, was facing extinction but would not be designated an endangered species for now. Yet the decision in essence reverses a 2004 determination by the Bush administration that the sage grouse did not need protection, a decision that a federal court later ruled was tainted by political tampering with the Interior Department's scientific conclusions.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is gathering information for a review under the National Environmental Policy Act of the proposed Buckeye Wind power project in Champaign County, Ohio, and of a proposed Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) developed by EverPower Wind Holdings, Inc., to "conserve" the endangered Indiana bat.

Sage grouse are being reviewed a second time because of a federal suit filed by Idaho's own Western Watersheds Project in 2006. In December 2007, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill overturned a previous decision not to list the bird because of concerns about political meddling at the Interior Department. The judge ordered Fish and Wildlife to take another look.

Efforts to protect an iconic bird could disrupt oil, natural gas and wind energy development in the U.S. West and add to the Democratic Party's green woes ahead of the 2010 congressional elections. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has until Feb. 26 to decide whether or not to list the greater sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act. This may prove politically charged as it comes in the face of opposition from energy interests and state governments who fear it will hurt economic development.

On a strip of California's Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation's quest for cleaner power. Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 mirrors on the site to gather the sun's energy. It could become the first project of its kind on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property.

The projects will help the nation and California meet renewable-energy goals, but they also raise new concerns about ruining scenic views and damaging habitat needed by species such as the desert tortoise, which has been creeping toward extinction. The Obama administration has selected three large-scale wind developments for a shortened approval process, part of an effort to advance alternative energy and reduce green-house emissions that experts say contribute to global warming. The energy companies hope to win BLM approval by Dec. 1, 2010.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is taking action to reduce fatal collisions with thousands of miles of public land structures by Western birds that the Obama administration is considering for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

A federal district court judge in Maryland placed a huge roadblock in the path of a planned industrial wind facility in northern Greenbrier County, saying construction of the wind turbines would violate the Endangered Species Act. Judge Roger W. Titus issued an order Tuesday afternoon granting an injunction, which halts the $300 million project in its tracks.

With less than one month before Massachusetts environmental officials are expected to sign off on the draft Ocean Management Plan, Vineyard critics were buoyed recently by a letter from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to the state. FWS said the plan lacks an analysis of alternative wind energy areas in federal waters and does not fully address the risks to protected migratory bird species.

A federal court opinion filed Tuesday in Maryland blocks completion of the planned 119-turbine Beech Ridge Energy wind farm in Greenbrier County, and restricts the operation of the project's 40 already-built turbines to the hibernation period of an endangered bat species. The opinion, written by U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus in Greenbelt, Md., determined that Beech Ridge violated the terms of the Endangered Species Act.

As the nation begins addressing the problem of global warming by looking at renewable alternatives to fossil fuels, a new slogan is emerging from the conservation community, especially fish and wildlife advocates: Remember ethanol! ...Solar and wind energy projects designed to produce power on scales large enough to light communities do not resemble the photovoltaic panels on your neighbor's roof, nor that windmill on the local farm. The gobble up land on a stunning scale that can make an oil refinery seem like a minor pothole on the migration route of wildlife.

The Altamont is the world's oldest wind farm with some 5,000 power-generating turbines covering 50 square miles on the Alameda County border. While generating good green power for the state, it has a bad reputation for killing birds. The wind turbines on the gusty Altamont Pass were installed after the energy crisis in the 1970s. Today, the world's oldest wind farm powers an average of 100,000 homes with clean green energy. But environmentalists say it comes at a steep price.

Bill Evans wants to make it clear he's not against wind turbines. "I'm not anti-wind. I'm a consultant who people call from both sides when there's a concern about the impact on migrating birds," he said. Evans, 50, is an Ithaca-based ornithologist who has studied bird migration in North America for more than 25 years. He helped start the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's research into avian night flight calls in the mid-1990s and in 1998 founded the non-profit group Old Bird Inc.