South Dakota still twenty years behind the times

The wind farms north of this blogger's home town are eyesores of continental proportions.

South Dakota's climate science-denying earth hater governor is touting his reliance on out of state investments in his red moocher state.

Wind power has contributed more than $2 billion in capital investment to our state for the construction and maintenance of the 14 wind projects now in operation. Wind farms now pay approximately $5 million each year in lease payments, creating a new, drought-resistant revenue stream that can help family farmers and ranchers expand their operations or withstand market fluctuations in crop prices. [press release, some Daugaard staffer]

One Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks study determined a single wind farm kills between 120 to 397 bats annually or about nine bats per turbine.

But some progressive states are resisting efforts by Minnesota-based Xcel Energy to build more bird and bat killing wind farms.

Xcel's proposed New Mexico wind farm is directly in the path of Sandhill crane migrations something South Dakota Game, Fish and Plunder doesn't care about.

Meanwhile, lesser prairie chicken advocates have expressed anxiety about the proposal’s proximity to the habitat of the vulnerable grouse, whose regional range has been shrunk and degraded by industry and grazing. The lesser prairie chicken has an aversion to vertical structures, associating them with predator perches, said Robert Findling of the New Mexico Nature Conservancy. Such structures threaten to further fragment their habitat, he said.

Get the story here.

In a related story: after a pipeline leaked 210,000 gallons of diluted bitumen in South Dakota the state's Public Utilities Commission is pondering legal action against a wind farm developer.