The notion that industrial-size wind energy facilities — arrays of huge wind turbines — will solve America's increasing electrical energy demands, while simultaneously enjoying the benefits of being environmentally ''green'' technology, is inaccurate. These are not small windmills, or even Holland's more picturesque windmills. Instead, they range up to about 450 feet high and dominate the landscapes in which they are constructed. They also cause massive ridgeline and viewshed degradation on the forested Appalachian ridges in northeastern and southwestern Pennsylvania and in West Virginia.

That environmental damage is unacceptable. Nevertheless, more turbines are proposed for additional forested ridges in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, and may cause significant losses of tourism dollars. Another concern is that the 2003 voluntary siting guidelines from the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service recommend that large turbines not be constructed on known bird and bat migration flight-lines and corridors. Both the American Bird Conservancy and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association include similar precautionary principles in their position statements regarding these wind-energy facilities.

However, the wind energy industry is ignoring these voluntary guidelines, and tidal waves of these facilities are proposed for forested Appalachian ridgetops in Pennsylvania and neighboring states. In Pennsylvania, for example, these ridges include the famous Kittatinny Ridge, on which major autumn hawk migration watchsites such as Bake Oven Knob, Hawk Mountain, and Waggoner's Gap are located.

All the forested Appalachian ridges are autumn raptor migration flight-lines and corridors for at least 16 species, including rare golden eagles, bald eagles and peregrine falcons. These migrations (and spring migrations of golden eagles along Tussey Mountain near State College) represent a cautionary danger flag. So, too, do substantial numbers of bald eagles and golden eagles wintering in the remote mountains of Highland County, Va.

In the East, however, almost no accurate and objective scientific information is available regarding potential impacts on raptors and other migrating birds by arrays of these wind energy facilities on the forested Appalachian ridgetops. At the Altamont Pass wind energy facility in California, however, about 5,000 industrial-size wind turbines have killed thousands of golden eagles, hawks and owls in the past 25 years, a devastating impact on raptors. That is why siting industrial-size wind energy facilities on forested Appalachian ridges is playing ''Russian roulette'' with migrating raptors. Hence, it's necessary to employ a precautionary principle until accurate and objective scientific information is available.

There also are other troubling problems. One is forest fragmentation. It's a major cause of declining populations of neotropical migratory forest interior songbirds, such as wood thrushes and cerulean warblers. Hence it's not helpful knowingly to build wind energy facilities on sensitive environment sites and add more stress to already declining populations of forest interior songbirds.

Bat Conservation International also discovered thousands of bats were killed at two large wind energy facilities near Meyersdale, Somerset County, and at the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center on Backbone Mountain in W.Va. Regretfully, the owner of these facilities, FPL Energy, banned bat biologists from conducting additional research at the sites after the large bat mortality was documented. Hence, efforts to discover why bats are killed at these facilities, and how to mitigate or avoid the mortality, are being hampered.

Additional concerns focus on necessary safety lighting on large wind turbines and the tendency, under some weather conditions, of lights attracting nocturnal migrating songbirds — resulting in their deaths.

Finally, industrial-size wind energy facilities are unreliable continuous sources of electrical generation. Hence, their impact on reduction of greenhouse gases and global warming is roughly equal to removing several drops of water as one fills a large tub. Is the tremendous potential damage to raptors, neotropical migratory forest interior songbirds, bats and the fragmentation of forests worth the tiny amount of electrical energy contributed to America's energy demands by siting these facilities on forested Appalachian ridges? Those are ethical and practical questions demanding accurate and objective answers.

Donald S. Heintzelman of Zionsville is a professional ornithologist with 50 years of experience studying hawk migrations. He was a member of the curatorial staffs of two major state museums, and is the author of 21 books on raptors, other birds, and other wildlife.