Wind Power News: Puerto Rico
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch in its noncommercial educational effort to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of National Wind Watch. They are the products of and owned by the organizations or individuals noted and are shared here according to “fair use” and “fair dealing” provisions of copyright law.
Planning Board OKs Santa Isabel wind farm project
The Puerto Rico Planning Board has signed off on the lease of some 10,000 acres of land in Santa Isabel where San Francisco-based Pattern Energy Group will build the island’s first wind farm, the agency announced Thursday. The approval comes more than a year after Pattern entered into a 20-year power purchase and operating agreement with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority for the sale of 75 megawatts produced at the future Aeolic energy project. “This action accelerates the construction . . . Complete story »
Windmar: complicidad y crimen ambiental en Guayanilla
Los trabajos que esta realizando la empresa proponente del parque eólico en Guayanilla, Windmar Renewable Energy están provocando un desastre ambiental de grandes proporciones en Punta Ventana, Cerro Toro, Punta Verraco y el Bosque Seco. Es reprochable la aptitud asumida por el Secretario del DRNA Daniel Galán Kercadó ya que se ha hecho de la vista larga y no toma acción para detener este nefasto proyecto. Los daños causados por la maquinaria estan dejando una estela de desolación y destrucción . . . Complete story »
Destrucción y crimen ambiental en Cerro Toro y Punta Verraco en Guayanilla, Puerto Rico
Guayanilla – La empresa Windmar, proponente para construir un parque eólico en Punta Ventana, Cerro Toro y Punta Verraco aledaños al Bosque Seco, esta realizando trabajos de construcción mediante los cuales esta causando graves daños al bosque y a las especies que alli habitan. Estan deforestando la zona, removiendo corteza terrestre, destruyendo yazimientos arqueológicos, fragmentando el bosque e impactando adversamente las lagunas. No podemos permitir que siguan destruyendo nuestro Patrimonio Natural. La zona del Karso del Sur esta bajo amenaza . . . Complete story »
Environmentalists declare war on developers
Despite laws which make it a crime to demonstrate against such projects, the Ventanas Dry Forest Coalition will not let up in its attempt to stop the development of a coastal wind park here. Coalition spokesman Francisco Sáez Cintrón attacked the members of the Legislature who approved the new Permit Law, known as the Tito Kayak Law, which makes it a crime to obstruct and shut down works in progress. “This is an attempt against freedom of expression and we . . . Complete story »
Wind farm opponents plan civil disobedience campaign
The local mayor and members of the Coalition for the Ventanas Verraco Dry Forest said Tuesday if the government continues with its plans to establish a wind farm on the coast of Guayanilla that they would have no other option but to begin a civil disobedience campaign. During a press conference, Guayanilla Mayor Edgardo Arlequín Vélez and about 30 environmental activists reaffirmed their opposition to the Windmar Project, which gained Planning Board approval last week. “We are not going to . . . Complete story »
Activists protest proposal to build windmills in Puerto Rico
Plans to build 25 windmills near a protected forest in southern Puerto Rico are drawing outrage from activists who warn several endangered bird species will be stripped of their pristine habitats. The wind farm, to be built by the Puerto Rican-based company Windmar to produce electricity, would sit atop three isolated mountains in the coastal town of Guayanilla, home to the sprawling Guanica State Forest, where endangered nightjars and other birds breed and nest. Windmar president Victor Gonzalez said the . . . Complete story »
Wind farm: eyesore or godsend?
“Block Island could become the first totally green municipality in the nation,” says Danny Mendelsohn, a member of the team that conducted the Rhode Island Wind Siting Study. Mendelsohn, who works for Applied Technology and Management in Newport, Steve Weisman, of the Peregrine Energy Group, and Rhode Island Commissioner of Energy Resources Andy Dzykewicz visited the island Thursday, November 8, and Saturday, November 10, at the request of Town Council member Peter Baute. They answered questions about the state’s proposal . . . Complete story »
Bird lovers balk at windmills in Puerto Rico
Biologist Miguel Canals gazed over the majestic cliffs at Guayanilla Bay with a child’s delight, pointing out trees hundreds of years old and rare birds whose songs only resonate in this corner of Puerto Rico. Landowner Víctor González looks at that same scenic shoreline, feels the gusts of coastal wind and envisions the answer to a global crisis: renewable energy. Where Canals, manager of the nearby Guánica State Forest, and other local environmentalists want to extend a nature reserve, González . . . Complete story »
Guayanilla Windfarm EIS: species-area relationships
The proposal by WindMar RE to build a windfarm at Punta Verraco, Cerro Toro and Punta Ventanas in southwestern Puerto Rico has generated controversy (see my first post on the issue) on a number of issues. One of the things that bothers me most is the sloppy Environmental Impact Statement. I have not read the whole thing, but the biological aspects are disturbingly bad. One of the most fundamental issues in ecology is the species-area curve. Species richness increases with . . . Complete story »
Guayanilla Windfarm
As power generation schemes go, I have mixed feelings about wind farms. Obviously they have huge advantages over fossil fuel-powered plants. They also don’t involve damming rivers. But they are not without impacts – they tend to be death traps for birds, and they are visually unappealing. There will always be trade-offs, and given how serious an issue climate change is I am probably willing to tolerate compromises that I would otherwise consider totally unacceptable (nuclear power being one such). . . . Complete story »
