Judge halts W.Va. wind farm due to endangered bats

AP on SFGate.com ^ | 12/9/09 | AP

[NormsRevenge]

Work on a West Virginia wind power project has been halted by a federal judge who sided with environmentalists' claim that the project would harm an endangered bat.

U.S. District Judge Roger Titus issued the order Tuesday, citing potential harm to the federally endangered Indiana bat.

John Stroud, co-chairman of one of the environmental groups that filed the lawsuit, Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy, said group members were "really delighted with the ruling."

"We've been working on this for a while and the judge saw things our way, and we're really pleased," said Stroud, a rare book dealer who owns a farm a mile and a half from the wind power site.

[christianhomeschoolmommaof3]

To the headline... It’s abbreviated WV. Why do ppl not know this?! Sorry pet peeve. Also I have met lots of ppl who don’t know that WV is a state. They think it is western Virginia. Lol!

[christianhomeschoolmommaof3]

“Just how endangered can some of these species be? It seems like they are eveywhere anybody wants to build something.”

Nominated for post of the day! LOL!

[RedMDer]

The big tent is paralyzed.

[Mount Athos]

This is really funny

[WVKayaker]

The windmills have been popping up like mushrooms on the mountains around here. GE has good friends in WV. I am with the greenies on this, but for a different reason.

First, they are noisy. Second, they are inefficient. Third, they are contributing to the wealth of GE, a big friend of Hussein and Co... but only at the expense of everybody else. sound familiar?

[Lakeshark]

And most important, they are inconsistent; the wind doesn’t blow hard enough sometimes............

[calex59]

Bats don't fly into things unless there is something the matter with the bat.

Toss a bat into a cage, one that has bars far enough apart that the bat can go through with its wings folded but not with them extended. The bat will fly around the cage a couple times, head straight for the bars, fold its wings and somersault through the bars and start flying again once it has gained its freedom. I have witnessed this and it is amazing.

The bats sonar,or radar if you will, tells him where things are, such as the cage bars and windmill blades. They would never run into a windmill. This is just BS. I am not an advocate of windmills BTW, but this is just another example of how greenies don't want any power transmission to take place.

[NormsRevenge]

back in Minnesota, many a farm had windmills and such.. maybe not huge like some out there today but..
in the right spots they can tap energy cheap .. and did before rural electricity arrived

[Carry_Okie]

Besides MCRE, the Animal Welfare Institute was a party to the suit. I looked but don't know where the money came from.

[stormer]

The issue isn't bats running into the blades - they're able to avoid them just fine. What kills the bats is the air pressure differential when they fly through the vortex created by the spinning blades. Depending on the their direction relative to the blades, their lungs either collapse or explode. It's been pretty well researched.

[Lakeshark]

Actually the old windmills pumped water into ponds, or storage tanks. They didn’t generate electricity. They aren’t consistent enough or capable of being relied on for that, even today.

[NormsRevenge]

Founded 1951
http://www.awionline.org/

They battled for humane slaughter of animals, fowl , bats is a new one I think, have a few bucks in investments and such, etc..

What do Rockefeller and Byrd have to say ? lol

[Edgewood Pilot]

Those really spoil a peaceful view.

[NormsRevenge]

the wind turned the shaft that turned the diaphragm thingy and water got sucked up or something I thought ..

I agree you need a lot of wind for consistent energy to do muhc with but in some spots it fits well with the lay of the land and did years ago.

[Carry_Okie]

Methinks they want to pour oil on that coal fire, irrespectively, with carpin' crud-its as a sweetener.

[WVKayaker]

They do serve a purpose, but the built a string of them along the mountains next to a coal plant. They can't tell if they are getting much benefit, after a year, but the contracts are in place for more. The maintenance is horrendous, and as I said, they are NOISY!

I am a solar energy guy, but thermal, not PV. You can make hot water cheaply, and save $$$ off your energy bills. You can heat your home, or take a long shower, with only the cost of pumping and circulating. The application of PV and batteries can only add expense with little return as long as the grid is available.

If there is no other power source, I say windmills are better than PV, but they're both far from perfect replacements for what we already have aplenty.

[Mike Darancette]

First, they are noisy. Second, they are inefficient. Third, they are contributing to the wealth of GE, a big friend of Hussein and Co... but only at the expense of everybody else. sound familiar?

Forth they are probably made in China.

[JimRed]

Bats navigate at night and find insects for food with a radar-like system, but these morons think that they won’t be able to avoid a big, slow moving wind turbine blade!

[nolib1776]

I respectfully disagree. W.Va. is the traditional abbreviation and is correct, except for postal addresses which were shortened for zip code usage.

[ApplegateRanch]

Besides, what is an Indiana bat doing in W. Virginia in the first place?

Anthropogenic Global Warming, combined with eating food contaminated with Artificial Chemical Pesticide Residues addled its internal GPS, creating Wrong Way Syndrome, AKA "Should Have Made A Left At Albuquerque Disease".

It is a Perfect Storm that is fast becoming a Serious Epidemic in critters.