GREENBELT (AP) — Work on a West Virginia wind power project has been halted by a federal judge who sided with environmentalists’ claim that the project would harm an endangered bat.
U.S. District Judge Roger Titus issued the order Tuesday, citing potential harm to the federally endangered Indiana bat.
John Stroud, co-chairman of one of the environmental groups that filed the lawsuit, Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy, said group members were “really delighted with the ruling.”
The Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute and the Williamsburg, W.Va.-based Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy sued Rockville-based Beech Ridge Energy and its parent, Invenergy LLC. The plaintiffs claimed the 119-turbine Beech Ridge project in Greenbrier County, W.Va., violated the federal Endangered Species Act because the wind farm was likely to kill and injure endangered Indiana bats and the developers had not obtained an incidental take permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Such permits are required when landowners, companies, state or local governments build projects that might harm wildlife that is listed as endangered or threatened.
