"CLEVELAND — The nation's first wind energy project on fresh water has big ambitions. It also has big bird problems.

Known as Icebreaker Wind, it aspires to position as many as several hundred turbines on Lake Erie, where strong winds, shallow depths and the proximity of power stations would seem to be a winning trifecta. According to the project’s developer, the potential could meet 10 percent of the nation’s electricity needs by 2030.

But a pilot with six turbines is facing strenuous opposition from wildlife activists and others because of the risk they say it would pose to the millions of warblers and waterfowl that migrate over this Great Lake every spring and fall.

In a classic chicken-or-the-egg conundrum, the project’s supporters are having a hard time fighting back. They need data that can’t be collected until a minimal number of blades are up and turning."

Zachary Lewis reports for the Washington Post June 21, 2020. [2]