Land Letter Land Letter http://www.landletter.com The Premier Information Source for Professionals Who Track Environmental and Energy Policy. en-us Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 RENEWABLE ENERGY: Wind power could doom treasured American bird <div id="LL_story_image" style="width:150px;"> <img src="http://www.eenews.net/ll/photos/2008/10/02/photo_ll_01.jpg" alt="Whooping crane" name="indeximage" width="150" border="1" id="indeximage" /> Great efforts have been taken to protect and restore the number of whooping crane flapping around, and many don't want wind turbines to disturb that progress. Photo courtesy of FWS.</div> A half-century of restoration efforts have bred the world's last 15 whooping cranes to create one, and only one, viable flock of 267 wild birds. But now, that progress may be reversed in the name of another environmental cause: renewable energy. The wind whipping across the United States' Great Plains has been billed as the clean energy the nation needs to fight global warming. But for the whooping crane, those plains are irreplaceable habitat, and the turbines and power lines filling them are death traps. Meanwhile, T. Boone Pickens, an oil magnate reborn as a green-energy activist, has purchased 667 turbines -- 2.5 for every wild whooping crane in the world -- to build a 1,000 megawatt wind farm in the Texas panhandle. Plans for wind farms entail the flyway the cranes travel during biannual migrations between the Gulf of Mexico and Canada's northwest. "It's the scale of these projects that scares me," said Tom Stehn, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's national whooping crane coordinator who has worked on restoration efforts for 26 years. SPOTLIGHT Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/1 ENERGY DEVELOPMENT: Western oil shale leasing moves forward A ban on finalizing leasing regulations for oil shale development expired this week, and the Bureau of Land Management is moving quickly to outline how future exploration will occur on&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/2 RECREATION: Hanford Reach management plan balances safety, outdoor interests It has been described as one of the most toxic sites in the world, an area with nearly 200 buried tanks filled with radioactive waste that is so dangerous that&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/3 FISHERIES: NMFS's finding faults flood insurance plan for hurting salmon, orcas in Wash. The National Marine Fisheries Service released a biological opinion Monday that determined that actions taken under the National Flood Insurance Program in the Puget Sound area of Washington state are&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/4 PARKS: Yellowstone officials defend plan to limit cell phone service Yellowstone National Park managers yesterday explained plans to tear down obtrusive wireless communications towers and prevent hikers from using cell phones in most of Yellowstone's 1.9 million acres of wild&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/5 WOLVES: Reintroduction proposed for southern Rockies WildEarth Guardians is petitioning the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore wolves in four areas in the southern Rockies, arguing that wolves would help thin overpopulated elk herds and bring&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/6 OIL AND GAS: BLM approves first new well on N.M.'s Otero Mesa under three-year-old management plan The Bureau of Land Management approved an exploratory natural gas well on Otero Mesa in southern New Mexico last week, refueling controversy over drilling in the area's rare Chihuahuan grasslands.&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/7 OIL AND GAS: BLM grapples with illegal dumping of petroleum products in N.M. Within the past two weeks, unknown culprits have dumped petroleum products on the ground in one of the nation's most prolific oil and gas fields. The Bureau of Land Management&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/8 OIL AND GAS: Enviros protest BLM management plan for southwest Wyo. area Three environmental groups have filed a formal protest over a Bureau of Land Management proposed management plan for southwest Wyoming because it would be inconsistent with federal and state law&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/9 OFFSHORE DRILLING: With no leasing before 2010, projects may be a decade away A version of this article first appeared in Greenwire. Even though the bans on offshore oil and gas drilling expired earlier this week, leases will not be issued before mid-2010&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/10 ENDANGERED SPECIES: In shift, Interior proposes listings for 48 Hawaiian species This article first ran in E&ENews PM. The Interior Department plans to add 48 plants and animals -- all found on one island in Hawaii -- to the endangered species&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/11 ENDANGERED SPECIES: U.S. will review status of seabird entangled in NW timber conflicts This article first ran in E&ENews PM. The Fish and Wildlife Service said yesterday it would consider removing the protected status of a seabird that has been at the center&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/12 CLIMATE CHANGE: Researchers set to tackle ecosystem-specific data gaps This article first ran in ClimateWire. Climate researchers need to learn more about arid deserts, soggy peat bogs and other landscapes in order to develop more accurate models of how&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/13 YELLOWSTONE: NPS begins preparing new snowmobile plan for this winter This article first ran in Greenwire. A proposed rule for snowmobile use in Yellowstone this winter will be ready for public comment by early November and in place by Dec.&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/14 SHORT TAKES: Campaign 2008, Oil and Gas, Mining, Endangered Species Dems revive McCain water compact comments in bid to secure Colo. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and his campaign are resurrecting controversial comments made by Sen. John McCain concerning a&hellip; This Week's Stories Thu Oct 02 14:00:00 EDT 2008 http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/rss/2008/10/02/15