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| credit: Brian Ertz |
The China Mountain Wind Project has been delayed for two years by the Bureau of Land Management to wait for the completion of environmental impact statements. The site is in Elko County, Nevada and straddles the border with Idaho. The
Brown's Bench area[photo] is sage grouse habitat, a species on the verge of being listed as endangered. Forty-two percent of the sage grouse population in a management area is within the project site. Land management agencies have been wrestling with conservationist efforts to list the bird whose habitat is rapidly disappearing in the West. A listing would have
dramatic impact on a whole range of human use proposals, most significantly energy development. A county commissioner was quoted as saying he was very concerned that "a stupid bird" could kill a project that would bring jobs to his county. The company proposing the wind farm said at a public meeting the project's first phase would provide 750 construction jobs and 50 permanent jobs.
