A controversial wind farm that was set to be the largest in Washington has been slashed in half. The proposed project outside the Tri-Cities has raised concerns about endangered hawks and viewsheds. However, the project developer said these new restrictions could be bad for renewable energy development in the state. .However, during a meeting Wednesday, the state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or EFSEC, limited where turbines could be built within the project site. The goal would be to curb concerns for nearby ferruginous hawk nests and wildlife corridors.
Two of President Joe Biden’s biggest priorities — conservation and the switch to clean energy — are colliding in the ocean off California’s quiet Central Coast. Located halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, Morro Bay boasts a rich ecosystem of fish, otters and migrating whales that the Indigenous Chumash people want to protect with a new marine sanctuary. But 20 miles (32 kilometers) out, developers plan some of the West Coast’s first offshore wind farms, where 1,100-foot-tall turbines (335 meters) tethered to the seabed will help California cut its carbon emissions. One US government agency appears poised to approve the sanctuary. Another already leased 376 square miles of ocean for wind development, just outside the sanctuary’s boundaries. Now, a fight is brewing over whether the scenic bay itself should be left out of the sanctuary, to give undersea power cables from the wind farms a place to come
Contact Energy has touted its planned $1 billion, 55turbine wind farm in Slopedown as potentially producing enough green power for 150,000 homes. However, the consent application for the fasttracked project, released by the Environment Protection Authority at the start of the month, also shows the company’s own consultant ecologist warning changes may be required to the project’s ‘‘footprint’’ to avoid destroying habitat for threatened longtailed bats, New Zealand falcons, fernbirds and green skinks.
Unless neighboring states are significantly affected, such checks should in most cases no longer be required for the approval and operation of turbines at sea, according to a draft law from the economy ministry seen by Bloomberg. While the government is under pressure to accelerate offshore wind expansion, the plan is likely to spark outrage from conservationists.
According to Szostek, “80 percent of the 43 wind farms that are currently operational or under construction are viewed as impacting fishing activity. The majority of fishers have had to use different fishing grounds due to wind farms, with a few choosing to change gear and one fisher leaving the industry as a result.” “So far, 57 percent of respondents have cited a negative outcome on catches and profitability, and just one person has experienced a positive outcome on catches and profitability.”