A key test for the wind energy industry is playing out in a West Virginia courtroom, where an environmentalist is held up a tiny endangered bat to block the installation of 122 wind turbines.
The legal case, which went on trial this week in federal court, is the first challenge to wind power under the Endangered Species Act. Its outcome could help determine whether animal advocates in other states step up to protect the birds, bats and wildlife jeopardized by wind farms.
The Indiana bat is the focus of a federal court case citing the Endangered Species Act
The nocturnal chiroptera at the heart of the case is the Indiana bat, a creature weighing about three pennies and with a wingspan of eight inches, according to the Baltimore Sun, which is following the court proceedings.
About 457,000 of the bats exist, about half as many as 40 years ago. The fear is they will fly from the limestone caves where they live to the top of Beech Ridge in Greenbrier County. It is there the 389-foot windmills will be installed along 23 miles of mountaintop.
Both sides concede the turbines will kill 130,000 bats over the next 20 years. But some experts say they won’t be Indiana bats because the ridge is too high for them to fly.
Industry supporters say by in large wind turbines are safe. They kill on average two birds a year, and though a high level of bat fatalities occurred among migratory chiroptera at a farm in Alberta, Canada, deaths elsewhere have been low, says the Canadian Wind Energy Association.
