The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and the state's largest electric utility have reached an agreement to reduce the number of bats killed by a wind-power project on Lowell Mountain.
The agreement between the state and Green Mountain Power is designed to minimize the accidental killing of endangered bats at the Kingdom Community Wind plant and provide almost $18,500 a year to bolster bat conservation efforts in Vermont.
The state says bat mortalities at wind farms are most often associated with migratory bat species, not the cave-dwelling species most afflicted by white nose syndrome.
As a condition of the 2011 permit for the Kingdom Community Wind project, GMP agreed to curtail turbine activity during the summer to reduce collisions with migratory bats.
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