Long before windmills festooned the San Gorgonio Pass, before Interstate 10 barreled through it and before homes and strips malls sprouted, animals rambled freely between the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains searching for food, mates and shelter. They still do, although they have to maneuver around some obstacles. The Pass and some of its mountain canyons are among the 15 wildlife linkages between the southern Sierra Nevada and the Mexican border that are considered key to keeping native species thriving and preventing their extinction ...

The ensuing paper chase through city ordinances, planning commissions, and permit hearings has consumed seven years and tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and - through California's obscure 1978 Solar Shade Control Act, which criminalizes the shading of solar panels by trees - resulted in the Santa Clara County District Attorney prosecuting Mr. Treanor and Ms. Bissett. ...The Solar Shade Control Act went unnoticed for 30 years, but since December it has come up in several lawsuits, says Stamen, the tree lawsuit specialist. "The legal system," he says, "will see [more of] these cases in the near future." Treanor and Bissett hope to influence that. "We woke up one morning essentially violating criminal law," says Treanor.

The Solano County Airport Land Use Commission voted Thursday in favor of 75 wind turbines to be built in the Montezuma Hills, reversing its decision from nearly a year ago. The project will now head March 20 to the Solano County Planning Commission, where it had stalled for nearly a year after officials at Travis Air Force Base raised concerns that the turbines may affect radar systems. The change in vote came after officials at Travis indicated they are no longer objecting to the proposal, as stated in a letter written by Wing Commander Col. Steven Arquiette earlier this month.

Nearly two dozen more wind turbines have gone into operation near Rio Vista, part of a Sacramento utility's efforts to get 23 percent of its power from renewable sources in the next three years. Sacramento Municipal Utility District has completed the second phase of its Solano County wind "farm" with the addition of 21, 415-feet tall wind turbines. ...each turbine costs about $4.5 million installed and should last about 20 years.

For the first time in more than a year, a group other than the Solano County Planning Commission will be discussing a proposal to install up to 88 wind turbines in the Montezuma Hills. The Solano County Airport Land Use Commission will hear the issue Thursday night, a year after voting against the issue the first time around for fear of the turbines affecting the radar system at Travis Air Force Base. The difference this time is that officials at Travis are no longer objecting to the proposal, as stated in a letter written by Wing Commander Col. Steven Arquiette earlier this month. ...The company proposing the project, enXco, has offered Travis a gift of up to $1 million that the base may use anyway it wishes.

A wind turbine caught fire in Birds Landing early Monday, but investigators have yet to identify what caused the flames. The fire, on the top portion and on the blades of the 200-foot turbine, was discovered around 5:30 a.m. by employees of FPL Energy - High Winds. The turbine that caught fire was one of 90 the company maintains in the 6700 block of Birds Landing Road near Rio Vista. Van Culver, high winds plant leader for FPLE, said by early afternoon the company was still assessing the risk of climbing the tower to get a closer look.

A large power-generating windmill caught fire early Monday near the Solano County community of Birds Landing, but firefighters were letting the huge structure burn itself out.

Peter Gross of Babcock and Brown presented a request for a permit to put up another meteorological tower in the town of Westfield. According to Gross, after the public meetings about the possibility of wind farms in the Westfield-Ripley area, several families approached him about how they could become involved in the project. "They came to us which started us looking at the possibilities in that area," Gross said. "We won't know for sure until we have the readings from the met tower but we're proceeding with hopeful caution."

An advisory panel said Friday the Sunrise Powerlink transmission line is consistent with two key energy goals: boosting reliance on green electricity sources such as the sun and wind and increasing the ability to import power. The San Diego Association of Governments' Regional Planning Committee, composed of a half-dozen city and county officials, voted 4-1 to adopt that advisory conclusion after it was suggested by Escondido Mayor Lori Holt Pfeiler, who supports the proposed $1.3 billion power line. ...The Sunrise Powerlink would string high-voltage wires from metal lattice towers as tall as 160 feet for 140 miles between El Centro and Carmel Valley. An additional 10 miles of wires would be buried underground. The line would run through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Ramona and Rancho Penasquitos. In a related development Friday, project supporters announced that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had endorsed the line late last year.

Predicting that it will be the largest wind transmission project in the country, Southern California Edison on Friday announced it was breaking ground on a desert wind farm that could provide power for upwards of 3 million homes by 2013. Officials estimate that the Tehachapi Renewal Project will eventually provide 4,500 megawatts of electricity. The project will harness the wind that blows through the Tehachapi Mountains about 100 miles north of Los Angeles.

Long before wind turbines sprouted on Altamont Pass, it was home to the highest density of golden eagles in the world and their major breeding area in the United States. Almost as soon as the first turbine started rotating, the bird carcasses started piling up: Golden eagles, burrowing owls, red-tailed hawks, other raptors, western meadowlarks and migrating songbirds. ...On Feb. 12, an interim report on raptor mortality during 2005-2007 was released. Instead of a reduction in raptor mortality, the study found deaths had risen except for that among golden eagles, which had fallen to the sustainable level of 49 deaths per year. Burrowing owl mortality suffered the greatest increase - more than 300 percent - and the overall raptor deaths almost doubled.

"Although the wind turbines currently operating in the wind resource area do adversely impact our radar coverage, we believe opportunities will soon arise both to improve overall radar performance and to work with enXco to mitigate that impact," the Lichte letter read. Neither the Air Force nor enXco could say whether that mitigation effort will include a gift to Travis of up to $1 million that was offered by enXco at a Feb. 21 Solano County Planning Commission meeting. That money was offered to improve the radar system anyway Travis chose.

Kern County's western Mojave Desert landscape could include up to 300 more wind turbines in the near future. ...Northrop Grumman complained they would have to shut down their nearby B2 bomber test facility if the turbines are built. Homeowners also protested that the pristine 6,000 acre site would be ruined by the development of the wind farm.

As the Santa Clarita Valley continues to grow and expand, there is a concern and movement to sustain growth without exhausting natural resources. Finding ways to balance growth with the environment has come to a crossroads. That crossroads can be found in Saugus, where a proposed renewable energy project may threaten the nesting grounds of federally-protected Red-tailed hawks. ...The new renewable power lines through Saugus would end at the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area in Kern County, which is a wind farm that will allow Edison to keep up with demands for renewable power. Yet Manwaring said she has no problem with Edison's renewable energy plan. She just wants to be sure the hawks are protected until they are done nursing.

The commission voted 3-1 to support the PdV Wind Energy Project by Power Partners Southwest LLC, an entity affiliated with enXco, to move forward with plans to place 100 to 300 wind turbines on nearly 6,000 acres about 15 miles west of Rosamond. ...Dave Mazur, a vice president and program manager for the B2 bomber, said the turbines would interfere with its operations at the Tejon Test Facility, so much so that it would have to close. The facility works on stealth technology testing and many classified military contracts, but it's not a military installation. Northrup asked the commission to postpone any decision so a third party, cleared to review classified issues, could review the project.

Reaction from residents on a presentation of Victor Valley College's planned wind turbine project was overwhelmingly negative ...The main concern that Silverman was admittedly unable to refute was the visual impact of the project. He showed computer-generated images of where the windmill will be and what it will look like from different locations. According to the pictures, residents with homes on the east side of the Mojave River would have the clearest view of the project.

The company trying to build additional wind turbines in the Montezuma Hills has offered Travis Air Force Base up to $1 million to help solve any potential radar issues caused by the structures. The Solano County Planning Commission again will hear the wind turbine issue at tonight's meeting, but based on a year of discussions and postponed meetings on the issue, a delay may be as likely as a decision. ...Also involved is the Solano County Airport Land Use Commission, which voted against the project in April due to safety concerns regarding interference with Travis' radar. The planning commission must vote with a super-majority to override that decision.

In an environmental dispute seemingly scripted for eco-friendly California, a man asked prosecutors to file charges against his neighbors because their towering redwoods blocked sunlight to his backyard solar panels. But the couple next door insisted they should not have to chop down the trees to accommodate Mark Vargas' energy demands because they planted the redwoods before he installed the solar panels in 2001. Experts say such clashes could become more common as California promotes renewable energy and solar systems become more popular. ...The law requires homeowners to keep their trees or shrubs from shading more than 10 percent of a neighbor's solar panels between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., when the sun is strongest. Existing trees that cast shadows when the panels are installed are exempt, but new growth is subject to the law.

As the Victor Valley College board of trustees gears up to consider erecting a 314-foot wind turbine, the project may face some unlikely opponents: birds and bats living in the nearby Mojave River bottom. ...A new study on a northern California wind farm at Altamont Pass shows that efforts have failed to protect birds from wind turbine blades which some environmentalists have dubbed "bird blenders," according to Environment & Climate News.

A January 2007 settlement agreement intended to reduce the number of bird deaths from wind turbines at Altamont Pass, California is failing, scientists report. As a result, environmental groups are calling for additional restrictions on wind power generation at the nation's largest wind farm. ...Many of the affected bird species are protected by state and federal laws. Some of the birds killed are protected by federal laws so stringent they do not allow the taking or killing of even a single member of the species. Wind farm critics say the failure to enforce federal wildlife protection laws in the Altamont wind farm case is a result of environmentalists' pressure for wind power.