The number of birds could determine whether the developer, AWA Goodhue Wind, will be one of the nation's first wind farms to get a federal "incidental take'' license to legally kill or injure a specified number of eagles. Such permits are a new federal strategy aimed at managing the often-lethal conflict between birds, bats and turbine blades, and the question has drawn national attention to the small, 50-turbine project near Red Wing.With any luck, tax incentives for wind farms will expire before this project is approved or gets underway,, making these wind projects non-economical anyway.
The issue has stalled the Goodhue project for almost a year. In February, regulators delayed the project until the developer produced a plan to protect eagles, bats and other wildlife that might be affected by the towers.
Ironically, this is the very same county in which folks are fighting the mining of fracking sand,Goodhue County.
It's well documented that the number of animals killed by wind energy is far below the numbers that die due to pollution. It's not even in the same ballpark.
ReplyDeleteThat would be accurate.
DeleteSo with that reasoning let's continue the policy of "zero tolerance" for oil companies, and "full tolerance" of slicing and dicing whooping cranes, bald eagles and bats for wind energy (which has not one redeeming feature).