This is just batty!
President Obama’s energy-independence plan to develop pollution-free wind power to replace dirty coal and oil is running into opposition from an unlikely source: bats.
Wind-energy programs in New York – including a developer’s plan to build the city’s first wind farm at Staten Island’s mothballed Fresh Kills landfill – are tied up in red tape because their projects will endanger bats, birds and other wildlife, The Post has learned.
The nocturnal flying mammals are getting slaughtered because they have a strange habit of flying into the blades of wind turbines during the warm spring and summer months, operators and wildlife advocates said.
“An energy source simply cannot be ‘green’ if it kills thousands upon thousands of bats,” said Bat Conservation International.
“We cannot support the current rush to wind development without first finding solutions to prevent bat kills that could have devastating cumulative impacts across North America.”
Obama considers wind power a key component of his green plan to cut greenhouse gases from carbon sources like coal, gas and oil. The economic stimulus program includes more than $100 billion in loans and grants for research and development of clean energy like wind power.
Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro blasted a city Parks Department report that raised objections about the proposed Fresh Kills wind farm. The study warned of “significant adverse impact to birds and bats.”
Molinaro said the city study even complained the 460-foot turbines would impact insects.
“Can you imagine that? They’re worried the turbines would kill too many mosquitoes,” he fumed. “We want to kill mosquitoes! The city spends lots of money each year to kill mosquitoes because they carry the West Nile virus.”
But the country’s foremost expert on bats, Ed Arnett, co-director of BCI, insisted that wind turbines and bats – which actually eat about 600 mosquitoes per hour – can co-exist.
He conducted a study that found that lowering the speed of wind turbines or shutting them down during “low-wind” nights reduced bat fatalities by 82 percent at a Pennsylvania facility.