LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Killing endangered bats worth $1 million each per year 

Credit:  by Chris Clarke on June 18, 2013 | ReWire | www.kcet.org ~~

In case you thought the wildlife and wind turbine conflict issue was limited to eagles, condors, and California, think again. A Vermont wind installation is seeking permission to legally kill four endangered bats a year with its turbines, and says that the permit would save the company $4 million a year.

The Kingdom Community Wind project on northern Vermont’s Lowell Mountain Ridge, a joint project of Green Mountain Power (GMP) and Vermont Electric Co-op, will consist of 21 three-megawatt turbines along five miles of ridgeline. A flashpoint for controversy in northern Vermont, the project poses a serious threat to the local population of little brown bats, as well as a few other bat species.

Little brown bats, a.k.a. Myotis lucifugus, are one of North America’s most common bats. But in Vermont, the bat population has been hit so hard by the deadly epidemic white nose syndrome, which has a mortality rate of 95 percent, that the state has listed the species as endangered.

According to GMP, running the facility in such a way as to protect the bats would require the turbines be “curtailed” – shut down, essentially – at night during the bats’ active season, about six months a year. That would cost the company an estimated $4 million a year in power it couldn’t generate and sell.

According to Vermont Public Radio, the state’s Agency of Natural Resources says that 19 of the state’s 20 wind installations have had little brown bat mortality issues. Nonetheless, the agency is considering a state “take permit” that would allow GMP to kill four little brown bats each year, along with three bats of other species. In exchange, GMP would fund a state Fish and Wildlife Department project that protects maternal bat colonies.

Of course, bats aren’t just injured by direct turbine blade strikes: the abrupt low air pressure caused by the high-speed whoosh of the turbine blades can cause fatal internal hemorrhaging. That’s actually the cause of about 95 percent of bat fatalities in most wind turbine studies. Given that a bat might make it a few hundred yards while bleeding internally, and that Kingdom Community Wind is atop a ridge surrounded by thick forest full of hungry scavengers, finding each bat killed by GMP’s turbines is probably not possible.

Source:  by Chris Clarke on June 18, 2013 | ReWire | www.kcet.org

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon