West Virginia Highlands Voice

The Battle Continues; Indiana Bat Joins the Fray

The Greenbrier County based group Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy and the Animal Welfare Institute have requested that construction on the Beech Ridge wind farm be halted while its lawsuit under the Endangered Species Act is pending. The suit is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Maryland.

Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy had originally filed suit in June, 2009, contending that the construction will kill and injure Indiana bats – an endangered species protected by the Endangered Species Act. The bat is known to live in caves in close proximity to the project site.

As planned, the Beech Ridge wind project will include 124 wind turbines nearly four hundred feet tall along a twenty-three mile stretch of forested ridgelines. In addition to turbine construction, Beech Ridge Energy and its parent companies also plan to install habitat-destroying roads, buildings, and transmission lines that are necessary to operate the facility.

Construction on the project began in April. Since then construction effort has been underway to clear the forest, grade roadways, and pour concrete foundations for sixty seven of the forty-story tall turbines scheduled to arrive in August.

Neither the filing of the suit nor pleas to company officials were sufficient to halt the construction. On July 10th attorneys representing Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy (MCRE) and The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) filed a request that the US District Court halt wind turbine construction by the Maryland based Beech Ridge Energy LLC.

The Plaintiffs contend that because the company decided to cut these potential roost trees in spring and summer, as opposed to winter when Indiana bats are hibernating, it is almost certain that Beech Ridge Energy’s tree clearing activities have killed or injured Indiana bats.

Given Beech Ridge Developer’s ongoing construction, including the planned erection of wind turbines beginning in August, MCRE and AWI have requested a hearing in the US District court of Maryland on this Motion during the first two weeks in August.

West Virginia Highlands Conservancy was an initial intervener when the Beech Ridge wind farm application was filed with the WV Public Service Commission (PSC). The Conservancy had issues about bat and bird mortality, and told the PSC that wind farms should “operate in such a manner as to minimize deleterious ecological effects.”

The Highlands Conservancy did not participate in evidence discovery in the Beech Ridge Case, nor did it participate in the evidentiary hearings, nor file case briefs. But WVHC did attempt to negotiate with the applicant to effect experimental wind turbine operations (called “adaptive management” techniques) in conjunction with bird and bat mortality studies- the object of which was to operate the wind farm with minimal bat and bird deaths.

The siting permit eventually issued by the PSC for Beech Ridge included provisions for, once constructed, a minimum of five years of both experimental adaptive management operations and related bat and bird mortality studies- all designed to minimize bat and bird mortality while maintaining economically viable wind farm operations.

Currently being organized is the PSC required multi-party Technical Committee to oversee those experimental operations and the mortality studies- currently scheduled to begin in the spring of 2010.