State windmill plan causing quite a flap

Foes say spinning turbines endanger bats and birds

The Pennsylvania Biological Survey has gone to bat for the bats in a swirling policy debate over whether commercial wind power development should be permitted in state forests.

The debate pits advocates of wind power as an alternative energy source against those who fear that windmills are harmful to bats and birds.
The Biological Survey last week objected to the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ planned adoption of voluntary guidelines for new commercial windmill development now being considered for the first time in publicly owned forests.

The organization said the guidelines — originally developed by the Pennsylvania Game Commission to guide wind development on private land — are not based on the best science, don’t include siting guidelines and do nothing to mitigate the harmful impacts of commercial wind turbines on bats.

“To continue to promote and use such a protocol would be to put the interest of the wind industry before the interest of the Commonwealth,” Michael Gannon, chairman of the Biological Survey’s Wind Energy and Bats Subcommittee, said in a letter to DCNR Secretary Michael DiBerardinis last week.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette