Puerto Rico - Government approves 25 wind turbines capable of generating electricity for 20,000 households

Puerto Rico's government has approved a plan to build 25 wind turbines capable of generating electricity for 20,000 households in the U.S. territory.

Planning Board President Hector Morales said Wednesday the wind farm will be built by the Puerto Rico-based Windmar Renewable Energy Inc. and is designed to produce an estimated 120,000 kilowatts a year.

The Caribbean island of nearly 4 million people now gets nearly all of its electricity from oil-burning plants. The government-owned power utility is planning to boost investment in natural gas generators, wind, wave and other kinds of alternative energy, but has made little progress.

Morales said the turbines will be erected on a 45-acre (18-hectare) parcel of dry forest in the southern coastal town of Guayanilla. He said his agency had crafted a balance between sustainable development and conservation of natural resources, saying most of the developer's 290-acre (117-hectare) property will be set aside for conservation.

Roughly "83 percent of the total property will remain always in its natural state," Morales said.

But environmental activists have tried to block the project, arguing that several endangered bird species in nearby forest could lose some of their habitat. The land abuts Guanica State Forest, where endangered nightjars and other creatures breed and nest.

Francisco Saez, spokesman of the Pro Bosque Seco Ventanas Verraco Coalition, said the wind energy project belongs elsewhere and activists will try to block construction permits. "We are not going to yield," he said.

Skip Van Bloem, an assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico's Department of Agronomy and Soils who has objected to the proposal, said the island has very little native forest left. He said a better option would be to build wind turbines alongside cultivated fields.

"If this were the only viable site for wind development on the island, it might be a different story, but wind farms and agriculture are compatible land uses," Van Bloem said in an e-mail. "Better yet would be for Puerto Rico to invest in solar systems."

For more information please contact Trevor Sievert at ts@windfair.net