The conservation group is using the incorrect analysis. The right question is: what is the impact on wildlife from the coal plants which are required to produce the amount of energy that the proposed wind farm would generate?

What part of stupid don't people understand?
Stupid tree hugger say they want "Green Energy" but they object to every good idea. How in the world will a windmill harm a bat and who cares?

TW: To your first question, rapid changes in air pressure in the vicinity of turbines as the blades rotate apparently cause bats' lungs to hemorrhage.

See this report: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/25/wind-turbine-bats.html

Having grown up in Cumberland, I can tell you that anything that provides a stable job in that area is good. Especially when it helps America go forward with clean and renewable energy.

Anything we do will have an environmental impact. The lost forest for this project as well as the supporting powerlines and road are indeed significant. But that is a very local impact, that can be mitigated.

Dead bats and birds are a problem regardless of how they die be it a turbine blade of an oil patch. This is a problem we can solve. Quite frankly I'd rather lose birds then soldiers and Marines off fighting for our cheap oil fix.

Spoiled views... perhaps. However to me those turbines look like jobs, technology, clean beaches, and American soldiers home with their families.

If the enviro's do not want wind energy, PLEASE tell us all just WHAT source of electric generation is acceptable to you.

TW: See response to later comment.

And once again, the left cannibalizes itself.

Let's review...These people would file suit against a nuclear power plant, they would file suit against a coal fired power plant, they would file suit over an LNG power plant and now they are filing suit over a wind farm.
These people and organizations would rather see our country in the dark and reduced to third world status. They must be put in their place by the judicial system and recognized for what they are...environmental terrorists.
The maximum penalties for the filing of frivolous lawsuits can and should be levied against this organization.

TW: Environmentalists are not monolithic. There are divisions among them over energy, just as there are in the public at large. While many favor renewable energy like solar and wind over coal, oil and nuclear, some think the renewables consume too much land, too much plant and wildlife habitat, for relatively little energy return. The Maryland Conservation Council, for instance, favors nuclear power and supports Constellation Energy's bid to build a third reactor at Calvert Cliffs.

The Endangered Species Act is an albatross around America's neck. It should be repealed.

This lawsuit is a form of indulgence bordering on moral decadence.

I will begin with a response to the first comment by Jake. Coal plants are NOT shut down because industrial wind as arrived; in fact new permits are issued for new coal plants all of the time. Due to wind variability causing intermittent electricity into the grid, coal plants must be cycled or scaled back, forcing them to operate inefficiently which causes an increased output of CO2 into the atmosphere, thereby still impacting wildlife. See link below from Institute for Energy Research:
http://www.youtube.com/ierdc#p/search/0/FpucONE7WWk
My second response if for Steve; I support green energy that is green, industrial wind is not green for numerous reasons, see links, also see link above.
http://www.stopillwind.org/lowerlevel.php?content=QuickFacts
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-03-08/news/bal-op.wind0306_1_wind-turbines-wind-technology-wind-resource
As for bats, if you’ve ever been bitten by a mosquito you should care. Bats eat millions of blood sucking insects every night, so fewer bats means an increase in pesticide use.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea//news/article/2010/05/endangered-species-hinder-some-wind-farm-development
My third response is to Geoffrey Atkinson, Garrett County’s unemployment rate remains unchanged. There have been NO new jobs created since the arrival of industrial wind. The companies working on the industrial wind project are out of Baltimore and they’ve contracted companies in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. When the project is finished there will be 4-6 jobs associated with turbine maintenance, this is hardly job creation for the area.
Bats hibernate in caves; migrate along mountain ridges, one of them being the Appalachian Mountain Ridge and roost beneath tree bark. Erecting and industrial wind facility in the middle of a bat’s migratory pathway is environmentally irresponsible and a sure way to lead to the extinction of the endangered Indiana Bat and Virginia Big Eared Bat. The industrial wind facility in West Virginia, next to Garrett County saw the largest bat kill in the nation’s history due to wind turbines, 3000 bats in just 6 weeks of operation.
Wind energy will NEVER make us independent of foreign oil, so no soldiers are dying because we don’t have enough wind turbines to save us. There is no coloration between wind and oil. The majority of US oil is imported from Canada and less than half that comes from Saudi Arabia.
To answer the anonymous question, what do we want? We want a solution that works and one that’s really green like Focus Fusion see link: http://focusfusion.org/
To the other anonymous response, the only thing cannibalizing anything are those who continue to support financing Big Energy corporations through federal subsidies, (your tax dollars), which are sent overseas, for a solution that doesn’t help the planet or reduce CO2 (see links above) but only serves to give politicians a talking point and make big energy more wealthy, and citizens feel warm and fuzzy about supporting so called green energy. Citizens are paying big energy to sell them infomercial junk marketed as “Green Energy” and they’ve bought it. These big corporations pay PR personnel very well with the citizen’s tax dollars, to make sure they continue to believe what they’ve been sold. Please educate yourself from sources OTHER than wind lobby organizations and politicians.
This response is for Mike regarding environmental terrorists and WHO they really are. Environmental, Terrorists are those responsible for raping the land like the wind industry, with no regard for the environment, the waterways, the wildlife, the migrating bats, birds and geese or the citizens residing in the area. The environmental terrorism could be broadened to include the government who’s setting RPS mandates, the lobbyist who sit as members of energy boards, and politicians who create bills to over ride laws to expedite wind projects so they can avoid environmental review and all those who support such a rape of the land for a source of power that is unreliable, has a huge energy sprawl and doesn’t do what it’s been marketed to do. See links above for more information.

Wind farms good. Coal mines baaad. Bats good too, but no worry about them - they gonna be okay.

Renewable energy good. BP very baaad! Nuclear plants expensive! Wind energy cheap!

Hope more wind farms come soon.

I have been at the large wind farm in northern NY. The birds have no problems, why should bats?????

These people are just troble makers. Just drink your kool-ade

Mountain Momma for the win. Blog post addressed contentious issue, typical uninformed, entitled, myopic reactions (environmentalists are terrorists, we need jobs, etc.) ensue, & Mountain Momma brings the Real Talk.

Mountain Mama has it right. Wind Energy is NOT the Green Panacea that we all wish it was! If you did your homework, instead of swallowing the hype, you would see that wind power is bad for the environment, destroys natural habitat, creates harmful noise pollution to animals & humans, produces MORE carbon, not less, as we need to have coal-fired plants always ready to back them up. People who support wind energy are simply living in a dream world, perpetuated by the only people who are making money from these turbines.....the people who are building them! Get you head out of the clouds & try thinking for yourself for a change, instead of just repeating the stuff you hear other people say that you want to believe. And don't fall for the crap about how we need to build wind turbines to prevent another oil drilling disaster in the Gulf. We only get 1-2 percent of our electricity from oil in this country. It's our decades use of gas guzzling cars & trucks that have caused that disaster, thanks to our governments refusal to regulate the auto & oil industries!

I would like to speak on behalf of the bats that live, roost and migrate across the Appalachian Mountains and anywhere else in the world: bats perish the most inhumane death due to wind turbines and they don’t have to be struck by the blades to die. The change in air pressure created by the wind turbine causes the blood vessels in the bat’s lungs to swell and then rupture thereby drowning the bat in its own blood. Please see link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRqu4WiLQfk

According to the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service extinction of the Indiana Bat is due to the direct or indirect environmental changes in habitat caused by humans. Man has sped up the rate of extinction by 1000 times the normal rate. The quote below indicates the USFW’s position on extinction. This is the same office where an ITP or “Incidental Take Permit” is issued.

“Endangered species are indicators of the health of our environment—an early warning
system. Their decline alerts us to the fact that the quality of some of the basic
elements of our environment—air, land, and water—are being compromised. Bats may
be more sensitive to chemicals such as pesticides, making them valuable indicators of
these toxic substances in the environment.”~ USFW

You may be wondering why you should care about bats and their migrating patterns, roosting habits and hibernation. Bats are the only major predator of flying insects and the most natural form of pest control. The Indiana Bat consumes 1,200 flying pests an hour and dines on moths, beetles, bees, wasps, flying ants and mosquitoes. Without the bats farmers would spend millions in pesticides and other pest control measures, many of which contain oil. In addition to eating flying pests, scientists have made medical advances by studying the bat such as a navigation system for the blind and new surgical techniques that involve lowering the blood pressure of human beings. Bats are so beneficial I strongly encourage everyone to build a bat house and put it up somewhere on your property for pest control; you will use less pesticide thereby reducing your oil consumption and putting less poison into the earth, the air and on the human body and that’s what I call “Going Green”

I’m sure most of you have watched “This Old House”? Here is a link from their website with complete with instructions on how to build your own bat house as a natural way to keep your yard pest free.
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20165965,00.html

What a laugh... Doesn't it begin to make you ask what the other panaceas hyped by the environmental community are also just so much hooey.... How can we believe ANYTHING an enviornmental lobbying group tells us?

If you have a home or property next to a Wind Turbine Site - be aware that your property will loose value as much as 40%.
Also if you take a close look at the ground under a Turbine you will probably notice dead birds.
As far as the power - it normally is not enough to do much - the turbine companies are making their money from the Tax Incentives not the energy.
If your a Greenie and you are hyped up on Green Energy - how much you must be struggling - Kill a beautiful mountain top and chase away the wildlife and cause all types of erosion control issues due to the clear cutting of a forest. for some non efficiant turbines that still need electricity to operate.
If you think you will get a job with the company - think again...Go to a site and you will quickly see that 98% of the cars and trucks are from out of state.
And once completed it only takes a couple of men to oversee the project.
Long term? Well a wind turbine only lasts about 25 years then it needs to be taken down because the welds weaken.
By that time how many of these companies still be around?
Now it will become the landowner problem.
Whatver helps you sleep at night ...
How will you sleep or live at night when the strobe light seeps into your bedroom?
Oh I guess you will need to buy some ecofriendly blackout blinds :-)