Starting in 2020 Maryland’s electricity consumers will be paying higher electric bills in order to subsidize two wind projects to be developed off the Ocean City waterfront. Over the lives of these projects the subsidies will total more than $2 billion. Despite this exorbitant cost the projects will deliver no environmental benefits and, most likely, will contribute to global warming. How did this lose-lose situation come about?

Impact on Wildlife Offshore Wind Maryland

“If necropsy shows that a perfectly healthy whale beached itself where offshore wind turbines do exist, they need to really check what kind of sound these things are putting out,” Bonnie Brady, director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association who regularly discusses the impacts of noise on marine mammals, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “There have been an unusual amount of strandings this year.”

Impact on Wildlife Offshore Wind Rhode Island

Still today, our understanding of renewable energy impacts remains woefully deficient, but a new study, published last month in The Journal of Wildlife Management, suggests that windfarms affect the hunting and scavenging behaviors of the desert’s foxes, coyotes, and bobcats. Scientists visited a wind farm near Palm Springs, California, home to 460 lofty wind turbines, and set up motion-activated cameras in front of 46 desert tortoise burrows. They found that mesocarnivores (animals that mostly munch meat, but also occasionally eat some fungi and plant material), like foxes and bobcats, more often visited tortoise burrows that were farther away from the noisy, spinning machines.

Impact on Wildlife USA

"Some of the developments are currently on undisturbed landscapes," said Agha, referring to sites that were being built on the first time. "And once you have the facility in place, infrastructure like roads and turbines add to the fragmentation of habitat. They could block migration routes for birds and restrict corridors that terrestrial wildlife use."

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Birds USA

According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Las Vegas Field Office, the agency is now in the process of closing the application for the project, 18 months after a federal judge voided the federal approvals for the project because of the likely harm to desert tortoises and golden eagles.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Birds Nevada

While the newly discovered right whale gatherings have attracted scientists studying population trends, food sources and more, the information arose because state offshore wind energy officials want to answer some basic questions. The four-year study sets baseline data about marine wildlife in the lease areas, and that information could be used in federal and state environmental permitting in the future, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center Offshore Wind Director William White said.

Impact on Wildlife Massachusetts

Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon told a legislative committee on Wednesday that disputes about wind energy development in the Sandhills are "tearing communities apart," dividing neighbors and families and even spawning death threats. ...The bill was endorsed by representatives of the Nebraska Wildlife Federation, the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy and sparked testimony from a parade of supporters who journeyed to Lincoln from the Sandhills for the morning hearing.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape Impact on People Nebraska

Calhan residents expressed their complaints towards wind turbines at a county meeting on Tuesday. KRDO NewsChannel 13 was at that meeting to hear several passionate pleas from those who say they are fed up.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on People Colorado

With the SEC approval, an ugly statewide precedent has now been set that undermines the integrity and work of local volunteers who develop these important land-use plans. The undeveloped forests in this area are now more vulnerable to future development. ...Green project or not, the AWE farm is located on the wrong site. Because the Site Evaluation Committee dismissed this, its decision must be reversed.

Impact on Wildlife New Hampshire

Today’s vote might not be the last word on the Kilgore project. One member of the three-member Cherry County Board, Jim Van Winkle, is a member of Cherry County Wind. He recused himself from the recent public hearing and probably will not vote today. That presents the possibility of a tie vote, which would send the wind farm back to the drawing board.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape Nebraska

Jefferson County Planning Board member Clifford P. Schneider, a retired wildlife biologist, said in a letter to the PSC that Apex Clean Energy used studies from the first Galloo Island proposal, filed by a different company, to minimize the potential environmental impacts of the project. And he attacked his former agency for altering report results to diminish their importance.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Birds New York

PENN FOREST TWP., Pa. - Penn Forest Township, Carbon County, Zoning Hearing Board was told Thursday evening by a retired medical doctor the wind turbine project proposed by Iberdrole Renewable would adversely affect the health of those who live near the proposed project.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape Impact on People Pennsylvania

“We endorse renewable energy, but this was the wrong project in the wrong location.”

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape California

The enticement of government-funded projects that exclude individual rights is causing a rift among Sandhills residents that may never heal. Infringement on landowner rights using eminent domain and endangering livelihoods by destroying our grasslands with this unnecessary construction project is offensive.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape Nebraska

Major conflicts of interest plague the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s review of the proposed Galloo Island wind project, and the department should be banned from participating further in Article 10 review, a former DEC employee has told the state.  

Impact on Wildlife New York

"So this is yet again a political decision not based on good process, not based on good science and is yet another bit of evidence of how the wind industry has corrupted our regulatory process."

Impact on Wildlife Vermont

A wind farm company proposing a project in Northwest Missouri has raised the concern of the Missouri Department of Conservation over potential bird and bat deaths.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Birds Missouri

“I have lived on this property for six years, and I have never had a stillborn (foal or colt) in my entire life,” she said. “The first one I have ever had was after they put in the turbines and turned them on. The turbines have changed our entire ecosystem.” 

Impact on Wildlife Colorado

Prior to October 2015, Ann-Marie McLaughlin said her 36-acre property in Calhan, Colorado, was teeming with prairie dogs. However, that all changed when the Golden West Wind Energy Center became fully operational last October.

Impact on Wildlife Colorado

The truth is that the impacts of wind farms are significant, and they are not positive for Tennessee's environment and wildlife. If you look at the 23 wind turbines proposed for Cumberland County, each 600 feet tall — three times the height of Neyland Stadium, with blades as long as a football field — and plainly visible from Interstate 40 and the surrounding area, you begin to understand the scope.

Impact on Wildlife Tennessee