Suit: Windmills threaten endangered bat
Animal rights and environmental advocates have sued a Rockville-based wind energy company, claiming its plan to build towering turbines along a West Virginia mountain ridge threatens an endangered species of bat.
The Animal Welfare Institute and Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy allege that Invenergy Wind LLC lacks a permit for its ongoing Beech Ridge venture, which calls for 124 390-ft. turbines, and that it will further destroy the habitat and decrease the numbers of the Indiana bat.
The tiny Myotis sodalis has been endangered since 1967 and is a “keystone ecological species” due to its insect-control function, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.
AWI of Washington, D.C., and MCRE of Williamsburg, W.Va., want Judge Roger W. Titus to declare Invenergy Wind, a unit of the Chicago-based “clean” energy company, has violated the “take” prohibition of the Endangered Species Act and enjoin it and its subsidiary, Beech Ridge Energy LLC, from continuing the project without approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Brendan Kearney
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer
11 June 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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