Monday, Highland New Wind Development told Highland supervisors it intends to develop a habitat conservation plan and obtain a federal incidental take permit. ...If true, we applaud the decision. But we're skeptical.
Monday, Highland New Wind Development told Highland supervisors it intends to develop a habitat conservation plan and obtain a federal incidental take permit. ...If true, we applaud the decision. But we're skeptical.
Monday, Highland New Wind Development told Highland supervisors it intends to develop a habitat conservation plan and obtain a federal incidental take permit - a move citizens have long hoped for. Company officials didn't say when.
If true, we applaud the decision.
But we're skeptical.
HNWD has resisted getting this permit for five years or more. The company has repeatedly claimed that applying for such a permit is too time- consuming, and too expensive. Ironically, the developer would already have one by now if it had applied in 2005, as agencies suggested.
In the face of strong recommendations of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to get the permit, the cautions of the State Corporation Commission about the financial risk of …
... more [truncated due to possible copyright]Monday, Highland New Wind Development told Highland supervisors it intends to develop a habitat conservation plan and obtain a federal incidental take permit - a move citizens have long hoped for. Company officials didn't say when.
If true, we applaud the decision.
But we're skeptical.
HNWD has resisted getting this permit for five years or more. The company has repeatedly claimed that applying for such a permit is too time- consuming, and too expensive. Ironically, the developer would already have one by now if it had applied in 2005, as agencies suggested.
In the face of strong recommendations of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to get the permit, the cautions of the State Corporation Commission about the financial risk of not getting one, and the lawsuits that loom if one is not obtained, HNWD has, as the SCC stated, "eschewed" the idea.
Most recently, HNWD attorney John Flora told our supervisors not to feel threatened by a lawsuit from county citizens because so far, not one endangered Indiana bat has been killed by a wind turbine. The threat comes from citizens who just want to stop the project, he said, and they are probably the same people that cost the county some $275,000 in legal challenges already. They ought to put that money toward helping these bats fight white nose syndrome instead, he added.
Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? HNWD should have put its money into getting a permit long before now instead of spending its little cash on resisting the idea. HNWD was so resistant, in fact, that Flora wrote a letter to then Sen. George Allen asking for help in getting the agency to back off. "The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is continuing to delay, if not prevent, the development of wind farms by continuing to impose demands and requirements that go well beyond any specific authority they have to regulate such projects," he told Allen in 2006. "In the absence of national direction, which expired this summer, local offices, like the one in Virginia, for the second time now in the history of the Highland project, is asking for things well beyond what is customarily requested or required." Flora said then. "Those who oppose development of and construction of wind turbines do so primarily because of proximity, not because of environmental or ecological concerns. The opponents have, however, found that the Fish and Wildlife Service is able to slow, and in many cases stop, the development of this alternative energy source ... The real issue is that the United States
Fish and Wildlife Service has adopted a NIMBY approach of not wanting any tall structures on ridgelines in the eastern part of the United States. That type of regulatory practice needs to be stopped and I hope you are in a position to help us with this problem."
The resistance to getting involved with USFWS went on for years, and even the Department of Environmental Quality and other state agencies were puzzled by HNWD's staunch opposition to getting that federal agency involved.
Flora told supervisors this week that HNWD intends to meet with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Friday to refine its post-construction plan for mitigating impacts to wildlife, and intends to submit a habitat conservation plan to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service so it can get an Incidental Take Permit.
Why the change of heart? It's likely the precedent set in the Beech Ridge case last month had a lot to do with it. A federal judge stopped a project mid-construction, after footers for towers had already been poured, because that developer failed to heed the recommendations to get a take permit.
Will HNWD get the take permit? And more, importantly, will it get one before construction begins?
If HNWD now "intends" to get the ITP, good. But our county supervisors should hold them to it, and require that permit to be in place before construction begins. Otherwise, citizens are certainly going to file the suit and take both HNWD and Highland County to federal court.
If the county gets sued again, there's no money to pay for that expense. Just before Christmas, we heard supervisors plead with elected state officials to find a better way to increase state financial support and protect all streams of revenue.
Requiring HNWD to get the permit before construction, and getting a commitment to that effect in writing, would be the wisest move our board could take to protect our tax dollars.
We know which road is paved with good intentions.