Legalectric

A wind energy company has pleaded guilty after killing at least 150 eagles

What’s really odd about this is that most of the projects that I’ve been dealing with in permitting have secured eagle take permits — I thought. In this case, NextEra seems as a policy not to have take permits. HUH?

I am remembering resistance to developers answering questions about eagle take permits, and I think that it comes down to whether USFWS requires them to get one.

Here’s USFWS info on eagle permits here in the Midwest – it appears that there are only three eagle take permits issued for Minnesota wind projects, Red Pine, Getty/Black Oak, and Pleasant Valley/Grand Meadow:

Midwest Region- NEPA Documents for Eagle Permits

This seems to say that there are only FIVE eagle take permits? Here’s the application for one project that I’d worked on:

Black Oak/Getty Wind Farm Eagle Take Permit Application

For the Freeborn Wind project, we entered information about locations of nests and photos of eagles foraging, nests and foraging territory being, supposedly, two criteria examined in siting of wind projects and consideration of need for take permits:

See Freeborn Wind ALJ Recommendation, and search for “eagle” in the Recommendation.

Methinks this will have significant impact, but sentencing a company to probation — but how does that work?