The Obama administration got slammed by a federal judge Thursday for approving a large wind project in Oregon without accounting for the protected sage grouse population in the area.
The Bureau of Land Management said the 100-megawatt wind farm was good to go, until environmentalists cried foul, suing the agency in federal court for approving the facility in an area needed by the protected bird for sustenance in the winter.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the environmental concerns, creating huge uncertainty for the future of the renewable energy project.
Energy project developers, both fossil and renewables, have been hindered by endangered species rules, with the protection of the sage grouse becoming of particular concern. The case demonstrates that wind energy projects, even those approved by the federal government, are not immune to the protections.
The February sighting of sage grouses near the facility contradicts the Bureau of Land Management’s conclusion that no species would be affected by the wind project, the court found.
“And with the impacts on sage grouses not properly established, the BLM did not know what impacts to mitigate, or whether the mitigation proposed would be adequate to offset damage to wintering sage grouses,” the court’s opinion said.
Judge Marsha Berzon, who wrote the opinion, found the agency’s assumption that no sage grouses would be impacted “arbitrary and capricious.” She said a “fundamental flaw infects this reasoning.”
“The inaccurate information and unsupported assumption materially impeded informed decision-making and public participation,” she wrote.
The wind farm would be built on private land, but the transmission lines needed to move its electricity to the market required federal approval. The court action has forced one of the customers of the wind farm’s electricity to pull out of a purchase agreement, according to reports.
