During a tour last month of Carleton College's 1.65 megawatt turbine in Northfield, Minn., project director Rob Lampa told a group of about 30 Winona County residents that the college had found no evidence of bird or bat kills in the first year of operating the 230-foot turbine [plus 135-foot blade radius], situated in a cornfield about 1 1/2 miles east of town.Lampa will have to make sure the clean-up crew does a better job before he gives the next tour!
As the group was leaving, Winona resident Marijo Reinhard pulled County Commissioner Dwayne Voegeli aside.
"Look," she said, pointing at the ground, where she had spotted a small, brown bat dead on the gravel below the slowly spinning turbine. A few feet away, she spotted another, also dead.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
