The Pennsylvania Game Commission today signed cooperative, voluntary agreements with 12 companies to avoid, minimize and potentially mitigate any adverse impacts the development of wind energy may have on the state's wildlife resources.

As the debate goes on, the turbines are going up in record numbers -- a trend that's expected to continue as the clean energy industry moves to take advantage of concerns about global warming and rising fossil fuel costs. ...Rick Webb, a senior scientist in the University of Virginia's Department of Environmental Sciences, isn't so sure wind power, particularly on the mountains of the mid-Atlantic, will help much. Webb participated in a National Academy of Sciences committee that studied wind power and released a report this year that found wind power is growing, but in many places, guidelines for development are lacking. ''I think the potential electrical supply and the potential reduction to other sources of power won't be great enough to compensate for environmental damages on the ridges,'' Webb said, adding he believes offshore development of wind farms would be more useful because there is a more-abundant supply of wind there.

Rick Koval wants to speak for the plants and animals he believes will be harmed by the construction of roads and wind turbines around Crystal Lake.

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.

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.

BEAR CREEK TWP. – A zoning battle over the use of public land for a potential wind farm project broke down into arguments between those wanting to live without turbines and conserve land and those who want to turn a profit and conserve energy.

While the open sky is big enough for 400-foot-high wind turbines and migratory birds, animal conservationists are airing their concerns about the threat windmills pose to wildlife. "Any place thinking about installation (of wind turbines) should take years studying the issue," Keith Bildstein, director of conservation science at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, said Friday. "That is a prescription the wind industry apparently finds distasteful." Bildstein and other local conservationists and bird-watchers say the wind industry fails to adequately study bird migration patterns before wind projects break ground.

A Northumberland County firm has backed off a plan to build wind turbines on South Mountain in eastern Lebanon County. ...But birds and bats got in the way of the plans, said Justin R. Dunkelberger, chief executive for Penn Wind. He explained that the South Mountain site is part of a bird-migration path and is also frequented by bats. "As a wind developer, we have to be concerned with birds and bats," Dunkelberger said. "We want to be responsible developers."

Although the zoning board now has ruled to approve a portion of the proposed wind turbines, recent action by the board of county commissioners would allow a wind power project to start without going before the zoning board. Earlier this month, Commissioners Vincent Zapotosky and Vincent A. Vicites voted to change the zoning ordinance to allow wind turbines as a permitted use in A-1, M-1 light industrial and M-2 heavy industrial zones. Previously, wind turbines were only permitted after obtaining a special exception from the zoning board.

While planning to harvest the wind, the Hazleton City Authority wants to protect bats. The threat to bats will be weighed as the authority continues planning for a wind turbine that could provide electricity to its water treatment plant on Route 424. "There are rare species of bats in the area. There has been some concern with wind projects and bats across the country," Jay Carlis, marketing director for a company developing the wind turbine, said.

In an effort to limit bat and bird kills by windmills, the Pennsylvania Game Commission yesterday suggested a voluntary agreement with wind-farm developers. The proposal is an “intermediate step” in protecting birds and bats from the whirling blades, said William A. Capouillez, director of the Bureau of Wildlife Habitat Management. “It’s not quite where we want to be from a regulatory standpoint, but it’s better than what we have now,” he said. “No other state has anything similar.” The Game Commission is charged with protecting all the state’s wildlife.

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission will develop guidelines for wind turbine development in wetland and watershed areas following the quarterly board meeting in Harrisburg. The commissioners agreed during the Oct. 1 meeting not only to develop guidelines but also send a letter to Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty concerning the matter, said Len Lichvar, the District 4 commissioner. "We need to develop a full-blown policy, especially in exceptional value watersheds and wetland areas. We're charged by legislature to protect the resources of the state," he said. ..."We're more concerned with predictive studies, not necessarily post-construction studies. ..."

As wind power gains steam as an alternate energy source in Pennsylvania, Donald Heintzelman wants to make sure the towering turbines are built far from the migratory routes of raptors and bats along the Appalachian Trail. ‘’I'm not opposed to wind facilities,'’ said Heintzelman, organizer of Saturday’s Wildlife and Wind Energy Conference at Kutztown University. ‘’I want them put in the correct place. Like it or not, these are coming.'’ But most of the speakers at the conference weren’t as ready to embrace the inevitability of the new technology, saying the blades of the giant windmills kill tens of thousands of birds and bats, reduce their ability to nest and breed and are an eyesore. They also said wind is a poor alternative to fossil fuels because it will only decrease electrical consumption by a small percentage.

Ottaway News Service

HARRISBURG -- The Kittatinny Ridge, a 185-mile forested highland linking the Delaware Water Gap, Susquehanna Water Gap and the Mason-Dixon line, is the focus of a new conservation effort.

A campaign by Pennsylvania Audubon seeks to place Kittatinny Ridge, also known as Blue Mountain, in the public consciousness as the largest uninterrupted forest area in eastern and central Pennsylvania. Kittatinny Ridge faces multiple threats from ill-planned development as well as an overabundance of deer, insect pests and illegal dumping by humans, the environmental group says.

Some of Pennsylvania’s mountaintops may become a battleground between developers and environmentalists. Developers are eyeing the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, which cross the middle of the state, to construct wind turbines to generate electricity. But migrating birds fly over those mountains every year and environmentalists worry the giant rotating blades of the turbines could kill many birds and alter their migrating patterns. About 150 people, residents and members of conservation groups, gathered Saturday at Kutztown University to discuss the growth of wind energy in Pennsylvania and nearby states.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has issued a letter of deficiencies about the controversial Shaffer Mountain Wind project, The Tribune-Democrat has learned. The nine-page technical review letter, dated Feb. 19, raises a list of concerns about Gamesa's post-construction stormwater management plan, required to gain DEP's national pollutant discharge elimination system permit. It reiterates many of the issues raised by citizens in hearings and in comments to the DEP. ...The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also has questioned the company about impacts to Indiana bats and bird migration. DEP also recommended that Gamesa respond to 22 questions gathered through the department's public comment period. Many of them deal with concerns about water quality, forest fragmentation and wildlife habitat. Gamesa has 60 days to respond.

The controversy over the bird started brewing during township meetings months earlier. Some residents disputed eagles are anywhere near the township. Other residents debated wind farms and whether the turbines would harm eagles or other birds. The Pennsylvania Game Commission is wondering the same thing. The commission is set to hire a new employee who would investigate mortality rates in birds and bats caused by wind turbines. Wind turbines in some areas have caused bat mortality rates to increase, said Tim Conway, the commission's Northeast Region information and education director.

An open house Wednesday by Spanish energy producer Gamesa USA is not exactly the kind of forum Tyrone's mayor had in mind when he asked the company to hold a public meeting on its proposed Ice Mountain wind farm. ... As it is set up now, with Gamesa representatives talking to people one-on-one, there's a missed opportunity for more people to hear how the company is addressing its critics.

A study conducted on behalf of Gamesa reveled that two juvenile Indiana bats, federally listed endangered species, were discovered in the middle of the company's proposed windmill project area. Jack Buchan, a Shaffer Mountain property owner and member of Sensible Wind Solutions, said he received the report a few days ago and was not surprised the Indiana bats were discovered at that location. He said Gamesa will need a "takings permit" under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to build the wind farm. "Since they were juveniles, it means there is a colony nearby that is probably breeding on Shaffer Mountain," he said.

Game commission wants to make sure birds won’t be harmed by new energy-producing windmills on the Appalachian ridge. Looking through 10-power binoculars from the south lookout at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary years ago, I watched a golden eagle soaring past a red-tailed hawk and a red-shouldered hawk. “Wow,” I wrote in my journal, “golden eagles are BIG.” Since then I have harbored a long-distance, at least a quarter- mile to a half-mile away, love for golden eagles. Unrequited or not, golden eagles deserve our protection, if not our love. Eastern golden eagles are a distinct geographic and genetic population, allowing the Pennsylvania Game Commission to list them as “Pennsylvania vulnerable” for conservation purposes. Their population is remaining stable or rising slightly, with partial evidence being the fall 2006 migration numbers recorded at hawk-watch sites along Appalachian ridges, going from north to south: Bake Oven Knob, 130; Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, 170; Second Mountain, 127; Waggoner’s Gap, 275; Allegheny Front, 222. (For more on the counts, see www.hawkcount.org.)