Windmill farms are wreaking havoc on wildlife and people who live near them, causing a growing division among environmentalists about them.
That’s the view of Ben Lieberman, senior fellow of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who recently told The Epoch Times that the federal government allows wind farms to desecrate the environment because it profits hugely from them and uses them as an excuse not to tap into domestic oil reserves.
“It’s a long litany of incentives that make it very profitable and attractive to the government,” said Lieberman, “even if the wind energy isn’t very viable” and even if isn’t generated very efficiently.
And “even if there are things like bird kills which, under any other circumstances, environmental activities would be up in arms over.”
The largest wind farm operator in America has had to pay $35 million for killing 150 endangered American bald eagles. Teri Virbickis/Shutterstock
Last month, the largest operator of windmill farms in the United States was ordered to pay $35 million in fines, mitigation measures, and restitution fees for killing 150 endangered American bald eagles.
As part of a plea deal, ESI Energy, a subsidiary of electric utility giant NextEra, dodged federal criminal charges and instead was convicted of misdemeanors for killing bald eagles in eight states—Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, North Dakota, and Michigan.
The company entered its guilty plea on April 5, the same day it was sentenced.
The charges, which include three counts of criminal liability, were brought against the Florida-based company by the U.S. Department of Justice under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
However, Lieberman said it wasn’t for killing the eagles, but for failing to get the proper permits to do so.
“[ESI Energy] reaped federal production tax credits for generating electricity from wind power at facilities that it operated,“ while killing multiple eagles ”without legal authorization“ and without ”paying restitution or compensatory mitigation,” the DOJ stated in its lawsuit against the company.
Offshore wind farms have also been blamed for killing marine life.
North Atlantic right whales. Jolinne Surrette, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Residents on Nantucket, an island in Massachusetts, are currently in court battling a 2,000-wind turbine farm slated to be constructed in the breeding area of 400 endangered North Atlantic right whales.
The residents filed the suit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for approving the offshore wind farm.
In January, Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), which represents the fishing industry, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Interior Department and other federal agencies for approving the construction of thousands of offshore wind turbine towers on 65,000 acres of federal waters off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, a nearby island. The group mostly represents the fishing industry.
“The fishing industry supports strong action on climate change, but not at the expense of the ocean, its inhabitants, and sustainable domestic seafood,” said Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based group.
Lori Lerner, founder of New Hampshire Wind Watch, told The Epoch Times that the government has shown a transparent bias in favor of wind farms even when they’re blatantly breaking the law.
When it was proven that a 1,700-acre wind farm in Antrim, New Hampshire, was violating noise limits, the governor-appointed board charged with ensuring compliance of wind farms allowed TransAlta, owners of the wind farm, to switch to average decibel readings instead of holding them to the maximum threshold alliance under state law.
The board, a subcommittee of New Hampshire’s Site Evaluation Committee, is made up of government officials from the state’s Public Utilities Commission, Department of Transportation, and Department of Environmental Services.
It also allowed the operators of the wind farm to bypass state aesthetic impact regulations by eliminating just one of the 10 wind turbines that now sits atop what Lerner said used to be a picturesque vista overlooking Newfound Lake.
Lerner said every time the blades of a wind turbine cycle, “it’s similar to a sneaker in the dryer.”
“Every time it hits that cycle it makes a big bang, only with wind turbines, it’s 24 hours a day.”
She said wind turbines constructed too close to homes also cause what’s called shadow flicker, a strobe-like effect that occurs when the sun hits the blade of the turning blades of a turbine and reflects into people’s homes.
Lerner said that when residents express concerns about the noise levels and light reflections of wind turbines they’re told to “pull down their shades, close their windows, and get an air conditioner to drown out the noise.”
A group of residents in Hawaii recently lost their long battle in the Supreme Court to stop a giant wind farm from being erected off the coast of the island state.
The group, which calls itself Save the North Country, said the wind farm would lead to the death of a number of protected wildlife species, including the endangered Hawaiian petrel shorebird and hoary bat.
In opening statements in the case, Lance Collins, attorney for the Hawaiian group, also blamed the state government for failing to ensure wind turbines were compliant with the law.
“It’s not about how much carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced compared to power generated by burning imported oil,” Collins said, “this case is about an administrative agency failing to follow the standards set by the legislature regarding the protection of endangered species.”
An epic legal battle over wind turbines has taken center stage in Long Island Sound where the Biden administration recently sealed the record-breaking deal of a 500,000-acre land lease off the coast of New York and New Jersey for what is expected to be the largest wind farm in the United States.
The epic wind farm is slated to add thousands of wind turbines to the already 68,000 wind turbines that exist across the United States.
According to American Clean Power, which promotes wind farms, wind power is the fourth-largest source of electricity—producing 135 gigawatts—enough to power 42 million American homes.
The organization says wind farms are key in reducing U.S. dependence on foreign imported oil.
On the other side of the table is a growing list of environmental groups, such as Stop These Things.
The global organization’s motto is “We’re not here to debate the wind industry, we’re here to destroy it.”
