Fish and Wildlife Service Evaluates Landmark Wind Energy Corridor from Canada to Gulf of Mexico
-Public Comment Sought-
As part of Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s “Smart from the Start” initiative to accelerate the responsible development of wind energy projects across the nation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has begun to evaluate the environmental impacts of wind energy development across a 200-mile wide corridor stretching from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico on the Texas coast. This innovative approach to wind energy development, the first of this scope, will apply to non-federal lands.
“Wind energy is crucial to our nation’s future economic and environmental security. We will do our part to facilitate development of wind energy resources, while ensuring that they are sited and designed in ways that minimize and avoid negative impacts to fish and wildlife,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. “This EIS process gives us an opportunity to evaluate impacts to dozens of imperiled species at a landscape level to ensure that wind energy development occurs in the right places in the right way.”
Great Plains Wind Energy HCP Plan area map, click HERE to open larger version (.pdf)