"Ohio yesterday [Thursday] unanimously approved the Icebreaker wind farm, North America's first offshore freshwater project, planned for just off the Cleveland shore in Lake Erie.
The ruling by Ohio's Power Siting Board came a decade after plans for the project began to take shape and is contingent on a series of nearly three dozen conditions to be satisfied before, during and after construction. Included is a requirement that the project go silent for months of the year to protect birds and bats.
The order also is a turning point for Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. (LEEDCo), a Cleveland-based public-private partnership that's developing the project with partner and investor Fred. Olsen Renewables of Norway. But LEEDCo's president said the condition to stop turbines from March through October could ultimately be fatal to the project."
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