The National Audubon Society hosted a news conference in September 1999 to denounce Enron Wind Corp.’s plans to build a wind farm near the town of Gorman in Southern California, with enough capacity to power 40,000 homes. “It is hard to imagine a worse idea than putting a condor Cuisinart next door to critical condor habitat,” said Audubon Vice Pres. Daniel Beard.
Condor Cuisinarts?
Photo: Warren Gretz, NREL/PIX.
Many environmentalists are touting wind energy as the wave of the future, the technology most likely to help us steer away from the path to climate disaster. Wind power is the fastest growing energy source in the world, and the U.S. just set an all-time one-year record for installations between June of 1998 and 1999. But wind farms also stir up heated controversies within the environmental community, often centered around the issue of potential bird fatalities.
After an expensive and high-profile federal reintroduction effort, the California condor population in the wild now totals 49 birds, with 20 living in Southern California in the region where Enron was considering constructing ... Read more
