Wind energy company pleads guilty to eagle deaths

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Wind energy company pleads guilty to eagle deaths

AP foreign, Saturday November 23 2013

DINA CAPPIELLO

Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) - The government for the first time has enforced environmental laws protecting birds against wind energy facilities, winning a $1 million settlement Friday from a power company that pleaded guilty to killing 14 eagles and 149 other birds at two Wyoming wind farms.

The Obama administration has championed pollution-free wind power and used the same law against oil companies and power companies for drowning and electrocuting birds. The case against Duke Energy Corp. and its renewable energy arm was the first prosecuted under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act against a wind energy company.

"In this plea agreement, Duke Energy Renewables acknowledges that it constructed these wind projects in a manner it knew beforehand would likely result in avian deaths," Robert G. Dreher, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement Friday.

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Until Friday's announcement, not a single wind energy company had been prosecuted for a death of an eagle or other protected bird - even though each death is a violation of federal law, unless a company has a federal permit. Not a single wind energy facility has obtained a permit.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/feedarticle/11079982

[CFLDem]

1. Seriously?

Although I guess it's good in that it will force them to find ways to coexist with the Eagle... and bats... and whatever else gets chopped by these things.