"A Threatened Species Complicates Power Line Plans"

"The project, which could expand wind power, was supposed to be done by 2018. The holdup? The American burying beetle."

"LOESS CANYONS, Nebraska — Colleen Rothe-Groleau shares her dead rat recipe. It’s pretty simple, really.

A good-humored wildlife biologist with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Rothe-Groleau recently was out early checking the traps — each baited with a prepared deceased rodent. Her game was the American burying beetle, a creature squished between energy production and environmental protection.

The beetle is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. It also inhabits the proposed route of a 226-mile transmission line planned by the Nebraska Public Power District — one the utility had originally planned to finish building by 2018."

Michael Doyle reports for E&E News September 24, 2024.

Source: E&E News, 09/25/2024