WILDLIFE & ENVIRONMENT

MAP-BASED REPOWERING OF THE ALTAMONT PASS WIND RESOURCE AREA BASED ON BURROWING OWL BURROWS, RAPTOR FLIGHTS, AND COLLISIONS WITH WIND TURBINES
Prepared By: K. Shawn Smallwood and Lee Neher
PIER FINAL PROJECT REPORT
Prepared For: California Energy Commission
Public Interest Energy Research Program

Supporting Documents:  Altamont Pass Turbine Comparison / Repowering Altamont Pass with Smoke and Mirrors

Here is a letter sent from a local resident who has first hand experience from the wind farm at Altamont Pass.  Please read:


Whoooosh….whoooosh….whoooosh…AAWWWKKKKK-SPLAT.  What is that sound?   If you are lucky enough you will hear the not so rare sound of a giant Wind Turbine blade colliding with a Bald Eagle.
 
What have you people on the Left done now?  You bow down to nature and Bald Eagles but now your fool hardy Renewable Energy Mandates are going to murder Red Wings Eagles.  Don't you know that your actions have consequences?

I was with the Wind Industry from the start in the 1980's and worked as a R&D Technician on the worlds largest Wind Turbines in California's Altamont Pass.  While there, I personally transported two injured Golden Eagles to the Raptor Rehab Center in Sacramento.  One of them lived but minus a wing.  I counted many others including Red Tail Hawks, rare Burrowing Owls, Falcons, and Kites etc. that didn't make it.  

I personally liked the Golden Eagle Flambé.  That is when a Golden Eagle cross phases it's self on a 12,000 volt power line and falls to the ground in a flaming ball, fully cooked. There is a nesting pair of Bald Eagles out by Belle Creek, their flight path is right in line with these new turbines.  I hope they make it.

I was working R&D on the first generation of Giant Wind Turbines.  I was the first in the world to set blades on the biggest privately owned wind turbines yet developed.  I was there, done all that and learned a lot.  The three biggest things I learned are:

1)  Giant Wind Farms are not feasible and will not work (I could write a book)
2)  Renewable Energy is light years away in development for it to take the place of clean coal, natural gas, oil and Nuclear Power.  Not EVEN close.
3)  Wind Energy and other Renewable Energies will work if you look outside the box.
 
It is a shame that the citizens of the area worked tirelessly trying to save their homes and their lives.  Fighting Windmills with broken lances.   Neighbor now hates neighbor after living together for 150 years.  100 good reasons were given for the Wind Turbines not to be here and the Government could not give one why they should other than to fulfill a Left Wing ideology and put money into General Electric's pockets.  By the way, Obama says we should hate rich people.  The people at General Electric are rich and General Electric pays ZERO taxes in America.
 
In 1982, the Renewable Energy Students from the Red Wing Energy Education Center (I was a student) erected an anemometer at a farm in the Vasa area to measure for the feasibility of a wind generator.  Our study showed that the wind was slightly above borderline.  THERE IS NOT EVEN ENOUGH WIND HERE TO HAVE AN EFFECIANT OUTPUT AND FINANCIAL RETURN!!!  The only reason they are here is because of the existing grid and a left wing ideology that is putting the wrong kind of Change in America.

If any one would want these to work, it would be me because they have been a big part of my life.  Facts are facts and Don Quixote I am not.
 
The Bald Eagle; America's symbol; ground into the dirt like America itself.
 
Ed Nobach
Sunrise Alternatives

Leading bird conservation group formally petitions feds to regulate wind industry
December 14, 2011 by Ted Williams in Fly Rod and Reel

Petition presents a viable alternative to inadequate, unenforceable voluntary guidelines drafted by the government

(Washington, D.C., December 14, 2011) American Bird Conservancy (ABC), the nation’s leading bird conservation organization, today formally petitioned the U.S. Department of the Interior to protect millions of birds from the negative impacts of wind energy by developing regulations that will safeguard wildlife and reward responsible wind energy development.

The nearly 100-page petition for rulemaking, prepared by ABC and the Washington, D.C.-based public interest law firm of Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal (MGC), urges the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to issue regulations establishing a mandatory permitting system for the operation of wind energy projects and mitigation of their impacts on migratory birds. The proposal would provide industry with legal certainty that wind developers in compliance with a permit would not be subject to criminal or civil penalties for violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA).
 
The government estimates that a minimum of 440,000 birds are currently killed each year by collisions with wind turbines. In the absence of clear, legally enforceable regulations, the massive expansion of wind power in the United States will likely result in the deaths of more than one million birds each year by 2020. Further, wind energy projects are also expected to adversely impact almost 20,000 square miles of terrestrial habitat, and another 4,000 square miles of marine habitat.

The petition highlights the particular threat from unregulated wind power to species of conservation concern and demonstrates the legal authority that FWS possesses to enforce MBTA regulations and grant take permits under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The petition also provides specific regulatory language that would accomplish the petition’s objectives, identifying the factors that would be considered in evaluating a permit for approval, including the extent to which a given project will result in adverse impacts to birds of conservation concern and species that are under consideration for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Read full article.

Environmental groups fight N.C. wind farm Some fear migratory bird kills at planned Beaufort County facility.
By John Murawski Posted: Saturday, Dec. 03, 2011

Thousands of snow geese winter each year at the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern North Carolina, near the site of a proposed wind farm. Lisa Lauck - 2005 NEWS & OBSERVER FILE PHOTO More Information Birds at risk: Bald eagles Tundra swans Snow geese Ducks and other waterfowl Numerous songbirds and raptors Eastern red bat Eastern big-eared bat Tricolored bat Source: N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission An 11,000-acre wind energy farm proposed near a wildlife refuge in northeastern North Carolina is facing concerns about the fate of thousands of migrating swans and geese that would share air space with giant spinning turbines.

Read more here.

GOODHUE, MN EAGLES

Please take two minutes and watch the slideshow on this YouTube site.  These are a small percentage of the photos that have been taken on the eagles using the proposed project footprint for T. Boone Pickens' AWA Goodhue LWECS development in Goodhue County, MN.   The photos were taken at several different locations, representing just a few hours of time.  AWA's pre-construction avian assessment stated that "no eagle flight paths were observed in the project footprint."  It is nearly impossible to travel through the project area without seeing at least one eagle, so I question whether or not they spent any time actually surveying for eagles prior to the drafting of that report.  

I have spent more hours and time walking the land in Goodhue County, recording Important Eagle Use Areas than AWA's hired biologists.  The contours of the land, coupled with the numerous spring-fed creeks and streams have created a habitat that allows agricultural production without disruption to critical wildlife habitat.  If the AWA Goodhue project is allowed to be sited as planned, which I feel ignores the recommendations of both the DNR and USFWS, we will be allowing destruction of one of the richest and most diverse ecosystems in SE Minnesota.   The state of Minnesota has one of the largest nesting populations of american bald eagles in the lower 48 states.  The caretaking of these birds, which were pushed to the brink of extinction once in my lifetime, is a sacred trust and we owe it to the citizens of this country to do what is necessary to protect them and their habitat from disruption.   

There are some places in this country where LWECS are completely inappropriate.  I beliefe this is one of those places....  Please take the time to contact the Mn Department of Commerce to ask them why they are allowing a project that the MPUC determined is not needed to move forward despite the fact that it will undoubtedly negatively impact nesting and over-wintering bald eagles.  Mr. Pickens may have money to buy a lot of things, but not even Mr. Pickens can pay to replace what will be lost if we allow this poorly sited, poorly planned, and improperly permitted project to move forward.

Thank you,
Mary Hartman

 

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Windfarms threaten many bird species with extinction

STEI's president, Mark Duchamp, objects to the wind industry comparing bird mortality at windfarms to that from other causes related to human activities. These other threats have already reduced bird populations worldwide, he said, and are continuing to do so. "But mortality caused by windfarms and their power lines is new and additional," he adds.

March 29, 2011 by Mark Duchamp in Save The Eagles Foundation

Save the Eagles International (STEI) wishes to warn the international community about the threat that windfarms and their power lines represent for biodiversity. Unlike cars, buildings, and domestic cats, wind turbine blades and high tension lines often kill protected or endangered birds like eagles, cranes, storks, etc. Cumulatively and over the long term, 3.5 million wind turbines to be installed worldwide will cause the extinction of many bird species, some of them emblematic.

STEI's president, Mark Duchamp, objects to the wind industry comparing bird mortality at windfarms to that from other causes related to human activities. These other threats have already reduced bird populations worldwide, he said, and are continuing to do so. "But mortality caused by windfarms and their power lines is new and additional", he adds, "and like the proverbial last drop that spills the glass, its effects will be upsetting. To wit the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle, which has been condemned to extinction by the construction of 7 windfarms in its habitat" (1).

Another important difference, says Duchamp, is that the other threats can't be easily stopped, whereas poorly-sited windfarm projects can. The Spanish Ornithological Society (SEO/Birdlife) recommended this month that windfarms no longer be built in natural areas, but in urban and industrial areas instead (2).

One week later, SEO/Birdlife revealed that bird mortality caused by windfarms and power lines was much higher than previously thought. For the Spanish region of Castilla La Mancha, they estimate it to be "1.3 million birds a year, many of them in danger of extinction like the Imperial Eagle, the Bonelli´s Eagle or the Lesser Kestrel". And they added: "(this is) a considerable number which proves that windfarms have a great capacity for killing birds". (3)

"This is what I have been claiming for 9 years", says Duchamp, "but only this month did SEO recognize the danger. During all that time I have been treated as a heretic, and was banned from ornithology forums where my whistle-blowing was causing discomfort in the profession." The French naturalist, who lives in Spain, has been vindicated at last. He praises the American Bird Conservancy, Birdlife Bulgaria, and SEO for their firm stand against improperly sited windfarms, but laments that it will take more years before the most prominent bird societies do likewise. Conflicts of interests are at the root of the problem, he says.

STEI warns that, if we are to save our emblematic bird species from this new threat, it is urgent to impose a moratorium on windfarm construction and to call for a really independent commission to investigate the whole windfarm matter, starting with the effectiveness of this intermittent, unreliable, and ruinous form of energy.

Duchamp founded Save the Eagles International in 2009, to raise awareness and to publish inconvenient bird mortality statistics that most bird societies fail to make available to the public. He has launched today the STEI website where these numbers and their sources can be found:

REFERENCES
(1) - Wind farms: suspicious error by consultant condemns Tasmanian eagle to extinction.

(2) - SEO Birdlife: " Castilla-La Mancha "debe abandonar el viejo modelo de grandes centrales de generación eléctrica situadas en plena naturaleza y alejadas de los puntos de consumo y fomentar la generación eléctrica en suelo urbano e industrial".

Translation: "Castilla-La Mancha "must abandon the old model of large power plants located in natural habitats, far away from where the energy is consumed, and promote electrical generation in urban and industrial zones."

(3) - SEO Birdlife: "1,3 millones de aves al año... un número considerable con el que se demuestra que los parques eólicos tienen «una gran capacidad para matar aves»."

Translation: "1.3 millon birds a year... a considerable number which proves that windfarms have a great capacity for killing birds "
Web link: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/34953

Are Wind Turbines Impacting Weather Patterns in South Texas?
by Carl Caton

"Very little research has been done on the cause and effect relationship between wind turbines and their effect on regional weather patterns. This research is in its infancy. We have only just begun to understand how wind turbines effect weather. I'm greatly disturbed to think how little we know about all this as we march forward in the great experiment we call wind generation."

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