[BCNnet] Fwd: NJ Audubon Society's Wind Energy Policy Paper

[Evan WW Craig]

Thanks Judy.

Sierra Club just released a list of 22 peer reviewed studies showing the
health hazards of air pollution from thruways. Among them was a study
concluding that more people die from the air pollution from cars than from
traffic accidents. I bring this up to underscore the opening paragraph in the
NJ Audubon policy paper, and suggest that it has neglected to contemplate
avian mortality from conventional power sources. After all, pollution from
power plants outrank pollution from cars and trucks - each accountable for
more than 1000 human deaths annually in Illinois. So what of the canaries in
this mine?

It would be great to build in a process to help avoid and a recourse to
mitigate particularly bad citing of specific wind turbines. However, it would
be a shame if such a concern posed a roadblock to deployment of a technology
that overall poses a significantly lower environmental burden than present
technologies - which we presently have no ability to regulate on the basis of
avian welfare. 

I also noted that the authors have assumed greater collision based avian
mortality from larger wind turbines than smaller ones (Winkelman). This
contradicts my understanding that slower turning, larger turbines are less
deadly. I have not seen data or studies to support this however.

---
Evan Craig
Chair, Woods & Wetlands Group of Sierra Club
http://illinois.sierraclub.org/w&w
H:847-680-6437
... Work to Live, Live to Ride, Ride to Work!

On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Judy Pollock wrote:

The topic of the impacts of wind energy plants on birds has come up on this
listserv before - NJ Audubon has reviewed the issue for the east and has
issued
some extensive recommendations - some food for thought here..

>
> NJ Audubon Society has recently developed a position paper on wind energy
> projects.  A copy of this can be downloaded at
>
> <http://www.njaudubon.org/conservation/Opinions/07-03.html>http://www.njau
> dubon.org/conservation/Opinions/07-03.html


Judy Pollock
Evanston (Cook)
bobolnk@ix.netcom.com
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