There’s still a lot of uncertainty surrounding how an offshore wind farm would impact specific species off the coast, but researchers say it will change the area’s ecosystem.

Impact on Wildlife Offshore Wind California

How renewable energy projects in the Mojave Desert threaten local species — and how to fix that.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape California

In a call-to-action to its membership, Black Swamp is sounding the alarm that removing the “feathering” clause from Icebreaker’s permit will essentially sign the death warrant for many thousands of birds. The grassroots group has urged its supporters to contact the OPSB and implore it to champion bird conservation and maintain the feathering requirement.

Impact on Wildlife Ohio

It is notable that many of the conservationists defending wildlife from industrial wind turbines and transmission lines view the Democrats’ refurbished Green New Deal and its call for the “rapid deployment” of wind and transmission lines not as a climate dream but rather as an ecological nightmare. This isn’t the first time Democrats have shown a willingness to sacrifice wildlife for the wind industry.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Birds Energy Policy USA

Testimony before the OPSB revealed that LEEDCo had not identified this monitoring equipment technology. Testimony also revealed that in the 10 years the project was under development, LEEDCo never took actual radar data from the proposed site. In light of this, in July 2018 the OPSB staff initially proposed that the turbines not operate from dusk until dawn from March 1 through Jan. 1 until the monitoring technology was installed and working. In its final decision, the OPSB implemented its staff's original recommendation, although narrowed the restriction to eight months.

Impact on Wildlife Ohio

The North Texas Heritage Association has sent demand letters to two energy companies planning wind farms in Clay, Montague and Jack counties. Landowners are concerned the miles of large wind turbines will disrupt an endangered bird, the Whooping Crane, that migrate through these counties twice a year.  NTHA had a study done on this and principal biologist Jennifer Blair found that these wind turbines would kill some of these birds Or disrupt their habitat. 

Impact on Wildlife Impact on People Texas

Neighbors of the proposed Strauss Wind Energy Project south of Lompoc have filed legal action challenging the adequacy of the environmental review, calling it "inadequate, insufficient and misleading." George and Cheryl Bedford, represented by Santa Maria attorney Richard Adam Jr., have strongly opposed the wind farm planned for 3,000 acres off San Miguelito Road.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape Legal California

“Lake Erie is simply too small to sustain any industrial offshore wind project,” said Rich Davenport of Tonawanda, who is active with several sportsmen’s groups, such as the Erie County Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs and the Western New York Environmental Federation. “The towers will displace water currents for quite a radius around each turbine, impacting nearby spawning shoals (even if sited away from spawning areas, you cannot avoid the current change), coupled with the massive amounts of infrasound, or low frequency noise, each turbine will generate while operating.”

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape Impact on People New York

“We opposed the project on the basis that it would significantly imperil or destroy wildlife habitat and bear habitat,” she said. “The Public Utility Commission did not, frankly, rule in the way that the department would have preferred. They issued a decision in which they approved the certificate of public good for the project. They found, based on our testimony, that there were 36 acres of bear scarred beech [trees] that would be removed as part of the project.”

Impact on Wildlife Vermont

Gov. Mark Gordon released a draft executive order to bolster migration corridor protections. The draft, published on Dec. 23, attempted to thread the needle between the need to preserve precious wildlife and the need to support Wyoming’s lucrative energy sector. Of the eight ungulate species, or hoofed mammals, making up the one million or so migrating mammals across Wyoming, the executive order places special emphasis on two: mule deer and pronghorn. Since its release, the draft has been lauded by several groups as a winning example of science-based wildlife management policy. Still, others fear it could add one more set of hurdles for energy developers to leap through.

Impact on Wildlife Wyoming

Bedford and his wife, Cheryl, purchased more than 400 acres of land on top of one of the hills surrounding San Miguelito Canyon in the early 1990s. With the land previously untouched, they had to build a private road leading up to their home, which sits at roughly 1,700 feet in elevation, before beginning construction.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Birds California

According to a letter submitted to the Sweetwater County Land Use Office regarding the solar project’s proposal April 27, 2018, the WGFD was concerned with how the facility’s perimeter fence would cause antelope and big game to funnel onto Wyo. Highway 372. The WGFD feared this would cause increased collisions between vehicles and wildlife. The letter also raises concerns about the solar facility’s location.

Impact on Wildlife Wyoming

Finally, using undercover cameras along one of the country roads, the lawmen connected the fence cuts to one vehicle seen over and over by the cameras. They traced his license, caught him and interrogated. Turns out, the man was mad at the landowner whose fences had been cut because that landowner would not put wind turbines on his property.

Impact on Wildlife Texas

Habitat will be lost. Recreational opportunities will be lost. Migratory birds including bald eagles, golden eagles, osprey and also bats will be killed.  Important wildlife migratory corridors for deer, bear, mountain lion, neo-tropical birds, and bald eagles will be disrupted. And, our public safety will be threatened.  Wind turbines cause fires and Walker Ridge is in high and extreme fire zones.  Are we really going to construct a new fire threat in these conditions? Have we forgotten the Pawnee Fire or the Mendocino Ranch Fire that both burned on Walker Ridge?

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape California

There has been much confusion and misinformation regarding both the PG&E power outages and Humboldt County’s current ability (or lack thereof) to be an energy island, resilient, and independent from the larger grid in California. The energy we presently get from the grid comes from the east, across the rugged coast ranges all the way from the Central Valley. The proposed Terra-Gen Bear River (Tsakiyuwit)/Monument Ridge wind energy project is just more of the same — a centralized grid-tied energy project that will be dependent on PG&E’s fire-prone transmission lines.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape California

As the controversial Terra-Gen wind energy project reached the Humboldt County Planning Commission table on Thursday for the first of a two-part public hearing, its numerous critics came out in full force, chorusing the project’s potential negative impacts as they filled the commission’s meeting chamber to the brim.

Impact on Wildlife Impact on Landscape California

Debate over the fate of Wyoming’s bustling migration corridors dominated a packed natural resource committee meeting Wednesday in Casper. State lawmakers and key stakeholders wrestled over how to maintain both a robust energy industry and healthy environment for the state’s iconic migratory game. Ultimately, committee members voted to sponsor a new bill that could overhaul how the state regulates migration corridors and expand the corridor designation process beyond the purview of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

Impact on Wildlife Wyoming

KAILUA-KONA — Pakini Nui Wind Farm operator Tawhiri Power LLC’s request for incidental take of three endangered species has been approved by state and federal officials.

Impact on Wildlife Hawaii

Little is known about how marine life will respond to the electromagnetic fields emanating from the spiderweb of cables carrying electricity from the Block Island Wind Farm and the many other offshore wind-power installations planned for the East Coast. But a new series of studies by a team of oceanographers at the University of Rhode Island suggests that some organisms will definitely be impacted.

Impact on Wildlife Offshore Wind Rhode Island

Overwhelming, too, for Al Eagles, a lobsterman from Newport, who questioned why the federal government is allowing projects to go forward when so little is known about their effects. “To me, everything you said up here was all unknowns,” Eagles said to Hare. “We could be devastating entire species out there. By the time we realize it, it would be too late.” Lanny Dellinger, also a Newport lobsterman and chair of a board that advises Rhode Island coastal regulators on fishing issues related to offshore wind, said the entire fishing industry is under threat. 

Impact on Wildlife Offshore Wind USA Massachusetts