Animal Welfare Institute v. Beech Ridge Energy LLC, Case No. RWT 09cv1519.

• Decision Date: 08 December 2009
• Docket Number: Case No. RWT 09cv1519.
• Citation: 675 F.Supp.2d 540
• Parties: ANIMAL WELFARE INSTITUTE, et al., Plaintiffs v. BEECH RIDGE ENERGY LLC, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

675 F.Supp.2d 540

ANIMAL WELFARE INSTITUTE, et al., Plaintiffs v. BEECH RIDGE ENERGY LLC, et al., Defendants.

Case No. RWT 09cv1519.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

December 8, 2009.

William K. Meyer, Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, Baltimore, MD, Eric R. Glitzenstein, Meyer Glitzenstein and Crystal, Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs.

William Stewart Eubanks, Meyer Glitzenstein and Crystal, Washington, DC.

Kirsten L. Nathanson, Clifford Zatz, Jessica Anne Hall, Joseph Michael Klise, Steven P. Quarles, Thomas R. Lundquist, Crowell and Moring LLP, Eugene Grace, American Wind Energy Association, Washington, DC, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ROGER W. TITUS, District Judge.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

                     I.  The Endangered Species Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .543
                

                    II.  The Indiana Bat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .545
                   III.  Wind Turbines and Bat Mortality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .547
                    IV.  The Beech Ridge Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .548
                     V.  The Beech Ridge Project Development History and Environmental
                           Studies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .549
                    VI.  Evidence Developed During Discovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .557
                   VII.  Jurisdiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .559
                  VIII.  Wholly-Future Violations Under the ESA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .560
                    IX.  Requisite Degree of Certainty Under the ESA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .561
                     X.  Factual Questions and Credibility of Trial Witnesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .564
                    XI.  Presence of Indiana Bats at the Beech Ridge Project Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . .667
                         A. Hibernacula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .567
                         B. Physical Characteristics of the Beech Ridge Project Site. . . . . . . . . . . . .581
                         C. Mist-Nfet Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .570
                         D. Acoustic Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .570
                         E. Indiana Bats are Present at the Beech Ridge Project Site. . . . . . . . . . . . .575
                   XII.  Likelihood of a Take of Indiana Bats at the Beech Ridge Project Sit. . . . . . . . .576
                  XIII.  Effectiveness of Discretionary Post-Construction Adaptive Management
                         Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .579
                   XIV.  Injunctive Relief. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .580
                    XV.  Conclusion. . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .581
                  CALVIN:  My report is on bats. . . . Ahem . . 
                           "Dusk! With a creepy, tingling sensation
                           you hear the fluttering of leathery
                           wings! Bats! With glowing red
                           eyes and glistening fangs, these unspeakable
                           giant bugs drop onto . . ."
                  Bill Watterson, Scientific Progress Goes "Boink"
                  A Calvin and Hobbes Collection 26 (Andrews and
                  McMeel 1991) (explaining that "Bats aren't
                  bugs!")
                

This is a case about bats, wind turbines, and two federal polices, one favoring protection of endangered species and the other encouraging development of renewable energy resources. It began on June 10, 2009, when Plaintiffs Animal Welfare Institute ("AWI"), Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy ("MCRE"), and David G. Cowan (collectively, "Plaintiffs") brought an action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against Defendants Beech Ridge Energy LLC ("Beech Ridge Energy") and Invenergy Wind LLC ("Invenergy") (collectively, "Defendants"). Plaintiffs allege that Defendants' construction and future operation of the Beech Ridge wind energy project ("Beech Ridge Project"), located in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, will "take" endangered Indiana bats, in violation of § 9 of the Endangered Species Act ("ESA"), 16 U.S.C. § 1538(a)(1)(B).

One month after this action was initiated, Defendants filed an answer and brought a counterclaim for costs. The next day, Plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction and Defendants thereafter filed an opposition. On July 14 2009, the Court conducted a telephone status conference with the parties and set a hearing on the preliminary injunction motion for August 11, 2009, but requested that the parties advise the Court by August 4, 2009 whether they would consent to treat the hearing as one on the merits, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(a)(2). On July 30, 2009, with consent of the parties, the Court consolidated the preliminary injunction hearing with a trial on the merits, rescheduled the hearing for October 21, 2009 and set an accelerated discovery and briefing schedule.¹ Defendants agreed to continue construction on only 40 of the 124 planned turbines, pending a disposition of the merits. The Court held a four-day trial on October 21-23, and 29, 2009.

I. The Endangered Species Act

Congress enacted the ESA in 1973 in response to growing concern over the extinction of animal and plant species. See Gibbs v. Babbitt, 214 F.3d 483, 487 (4th Cir.2000). The text of the Act as well as its legislative history unequivocally demonstrate that Congress intended that protection of endangered species be afforded the highest level of importance. Congress concluded that threatened and endangered species "are of esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people." 16 U.S.C. § 1531(a)(3). Accordingly, Congress passed the ESA "to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve the purposes of [certain enumerated] treaties and conventions" signed by the United States. 16 U.S.C. § 1531(b).

Not long after the passage of the Act, the Supreme Court in Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill proclaimed that the ESA represented "the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species ever enacted by any nation." 437 U.S. 153, 180, 98 S.Ct. 2279, 57 L.Ed.2d 117 (1978) (enjoining the Tennessee Valley Authority from completing the Tellico Dam because creation of the reservoir would destroy the critical habitat of the snail darter, a three-inch long endangered fish). Chief Justice Burger, writing for the majority, observed that "examination of the language, history, and structure of the legislation under review here indicates beyond doubt that Congress intended endangered species to be afforded the highest of priorities," id. at 174, 98 S.Ct. 2279, and that Congress' purpose "was to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost," id. at 184, 98 S.Ct. 2279. More recently, the Fourth Circuit has similarly opined that the "overall federal scheme [of the ESA is] to protect, preserve, and rehabilitate endangered species, thereby conserving valuable wildlife resources important to the welfare of our country." Gibbs, 214 F.3d at 492 (upholding the constitutionality of a regulation that limited the taking of red wolves on private land).

Section 9 of the ESA, the cornerstone of the Act, makes it unlawful for any person to "take any [endangered] species within the United States." 16 U.S.C. § 1538(a)(1)(B). The ESA defines the term "take" as "to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct." 16 U.S.C. § 1532(19).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ("FWS" or the "Service") has passed regulations implementing the ESA that further refine what activities constitute an impermissible "take." The regulations define the term "harass" as:

an intentional or negligent act or omission which creates the likelihood of injury to wildlife by annoying it to such an extent as to significantly disrupt normal behavioral patterns which include, but are not limited to, breeding, feeding, or sheltering.

50 C.F.R. § 17.3. The regulations also define the term "harm" as:

an act which actually kills or injures wildlife. Such act may include significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding or sheltering.

Id. In 1981, the FWS added to its definition of the term "harm" the "word `actually' before the words `kills or injures' . . . to clarify that a standard of actual, adverse effects applies to section 9 takings." 46 Fed.Reg. 54,748, 54,750 (Nov. 4, 1981). See also Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Or., 515 U.S. 687, 703, 115 S.Ct. 2407, 132 L.Ed.2d 597 (1995) (rejecting a facial challenge to invalidate the regulation and concluding that the Secretary's definition of harm to include habitat modification was consistent with "Congress' clear expression of the ESA's broad purpose to protect endangered and threatened wildlife").

Anyone who knowingly "takes" an endangered species in violation of § 9 is subject to significant civil and criminal penalties. 16 U.S.C. § 1540(a) (authorizing civil fines of up to $25,000 per violation); § 1540(b) (authorizing criminal fines of up to $50,000 and imprisonment for one year). In order to provide a safe harbor from these penalties, Congress amended the ESA in 1982 to establish an incidental take permit ("ITP") process that allows a person or other entity to obtain a permit to lawfully take an endangered species, without fear of incurring civil and criminal penalties, "if such taking is incidental to, and not the purpose of, the carrying out of an otherwise lawful activity." § 1539(a)(1)(B). Congress established this process to reduce conflicts between...