[BCNnet] 1. Birds and Climate change/ 2. Test Case WTGs in IBAs

[Bjdurk at aol.com]

1.  When will  Best Science US FWS interim wind turbine siting  guidelines be 
required instead of voluntary  observance? 
supporting:      
_http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/070430_testimony.html_ 
(http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/070430_testimony.html) 
Donald  Michael Fry, PhD Director, Pesticides and Birds Program of the 
American Bird  Conservancy to Chairwoman Bordello and  distinguished members of the 
Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans Subcommittee on May  1, 2007; Oversight  
Hearing on: “Gone with the Wind: Impacts of Wind Turbines on Birds and  Bats.”  :   
   
“The  Fish and Wildlife Service developed an interim series of voluntary 
siting  guidelines in 2003, and revised them after a prolonged comment period in 
2005.  Federal guidelines must be required  rather than voluntary. The wind 
industry has provided ample evidence that  voluntary guidelines are regarded as 
unimportant and are thus summarily  dismissed” 
Subject: House  Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans Oversight 
Hearing on  "Going, Going, Gone? An  Assessment of the Global Decline in Bird  
Populations"

Held:  Thursday, July 10, 2008, at 10:00  a.m. 
Testimony (excerpt  only): 
George Wallace, PhD 
Vice President for International  Programs 
American Bird  Conservancy 
"Last year, my colleague at ABC, Dr. Michael Fry  presented testimony to the 
full Committee on the ongoing impact of commercial  wind energy production.  
While the  actual number of birds killed by wind turbines is unknown, estimates 
have been  made in the range of 30,000 to 60,000 birds per year at the 
current level of  wind development.  However, the wind  industry is prepared to 
increase the number of turbines 30 fold over the next 20  years in order to 
fulfill the President’s request that renewable energy projects  supply 20% of the 
nation’s energy needs by 2030.  At the current estimated mortality rate,  the 
wind industry will be killing 900,000 to 1.8 million birds per year.  While this 
number is a relatively small  percentage of the total number of birds 
estimated to live in North  America, many of the bird species being killed are 
already  declining for other reasons, and losses of more than a million birds per 
year  would exacerbate these declines.   
ABC recommends that any renewal of the production tax  credit by Congress 
include provisions that require minimizing bird and bat kills  by wind projects, 
and require developers to follow standard Best Management  Practices in 
avoiding and minimizing bird and wildlife impacts in order to  qualify for the full, 
taxpayer-provided subsidy."   
The Department of  the Interior and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines 
 for siting wind towers in 2003:  
"--Avoid placing turbines in documented locations of any  species of 
wildlife, fish, or plant protected under the ESA.   
-- Avoid locating turbines in known local bird-migration  pathways or in 
areas where birds are highly concentrated, unless mortality risk  is low (e.g., 
birds rarely enter the rotor-swept area). Examples of  high-concentration areas 
for birds are wetlands, state or federal refuges,  private duck clubs, staging 
areas, rookeries, roosts, riparian areas along  streams, and landfills.  
-- Avoid known daily-movement  flyways (e.g., between roosting and feeding 
areas) and areas with a high  incidence of fog, mist, low cloud ceilings, and 
low  visibility."  
2.  How will US FWS, or MMS,  reduce harm to endangered wildlife present in 
Nantucket Sound, post-construction  Cape Wind, as the technology to count bird 
carcasses caused by wind  turbines over water does not exist? 
supporting:   
April  21, 2008 USFWS provided to Dr. Cluck, Cape Wind Project Manager of 
MMS,  this comments on the Cape Wind MMS DEIS: 

"The  current framework that MMS is proposing would forgo refinement of  
pre-construction study protocols and set in motion an adaptive management  process 
that would be doomed to failure because effective techniques to perform  
post-construction monitoring simply do not exist."

CAlifornians  for Renewable Energy President-Michael Boyd:     

"The  Cape Wind project is sited over water so there is no way to quantify 
the impact  of wind turbines on avian species because we have no way to count 
bird and bat  carcases like we do in the Altamont Pass California where the 
turbines are over  land. This also means that adaptive management will not work 
since we have no  way to gage the impact of mitigation measures for these wind  
turbines."

By Chris Metinko, Inside Bay Area 4/24/07  (answering, Who is Michael Boyd?)  

"A lawsuit filed against the county in  October by the Golden Gate Audubon 
Society, Californians for Renewable  Energy and four other local Audubon 
chapters challenged the county’s  decision o renew permits for Altamont Pass wind 
turbines. A subsequent  settlement forces the wind industry to commit to a 50 
percent reduction in  raptor deaths by November 2009, and remove the deadliest 
turbines and continuing  winter shutdowns of the wind machines." [cut]   

3.  As endangered species present  in Nantucket Sound are "at the brink of 
extinction", and Adaptive Management is  "doomed to failure" according to US 
FWS, how will MMS avoid immitigable  and illegal environmental damage, 
"extinction", post-construction  Cape  Wind?

supporting:  
Cape Cod Times  4/22/08
Roseate terns: 'On the brink of  extinction'
"The  roseate tern is listed as endangered, but we believe it is on the brink 
of  extinction,"  said Jack Clarke, public policy director for the 
Massachusetts Audubon Society." Cape Cod Times 4/22/08.   
Mass Audubon's testimony on Cape Wind to the USACE:   
The President of  Mass Audubon, Laura A. Johnson, submitted Mass Audubon's 
comments on the Cape  Wind DEIS on February 23, 2005; to Ms. Karen Kirk Adams, 
the Cape Wind Energy  Project Manager U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England 
District -- Reference  File No. NAE-2004-338-1, EOEA No. 12643:  
"By utilizing other  bird mortality data provided in the DEIS, Mass Audubon 
staff scientists arrived  at avian mortalities that ranged from 2,300 to 6,600 
collision deaths per year." _http://www.massaudubon.org/PDF/CapeWindDEIS.pdf_ 
(http://www.massaudubon.org/PDF/CapeWindDEIS.pdf)    
Dr.  Fry of ABC May 1, 2007; testimony to Chairwoman Bordello  continued...
"Biological  Significance of wind turbine mortality" 
Excepts:   
"Collaborative  efforts to successfully address the impacts of wind projects 
on birds and  wildlife have been a failure” 
"While  the actual number of birds killed by wind turbines is unknown, 
estimates have  been made in the range of 30,000 to 60,000 per year at the current 
level of wind  development. The wind industry is prepared to increase the 
number of turbines 30  fold over the next 20 years, in order to fulfill the 
President’s request that  renewable energy projects supply 20% of the nation’s 
energy needs by 2030. 
At  the current estimated mortality rate, the wind industry will be killing 
900,000  to 1.8 million birds per year."  [cut]
‘From  'Selling the Wind' National Audubon, on wind tower siting:   
“The  fear is that with all the new wind farms rolling out, there is a new 
Altamont being created  today,” says Greg Butcher, National Audubon’s director 
of bird conservation.  “But because we don’t have the data, we just don’t 
know about  it."

"The  exact reasons for the improvement are a matter of debate, but 
collisions seem  far fewer when wind farms keep out of major flyways and give a wide 
berth to  rich prey sites like Altamont and attractive bird habitats such as 
wetlands.  Some researchers speculate that modern technology also helps reduce 
the risks,  since newer turbines allow the same amount of electricity to be 
generated with  far fewer turbines."

_The House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and  Oceans_ 
(http://www.abcbirds.org/policy_wind_testimony.htm)    
Testimony of Donald  Michael Fry, PhD Director, Pesticides and Birds Program
American Bird  Conservancy
May 1, 2007
Room 1324 Longworth House  Office Building. 
American Bird  Conservancy, ABC:   
Donald Michael Fry, PhD Director, Pesticides and Birds  Program
American Bird Conservancy
May 1,  2007 
"Identification of  important bird areas. These  areas should be off-limits 
to wind development unless adequate preventative  measures can be discovered to 
minimize incidental take of protected bird  species." 
"Sites requiring special scrutiny include sites that  are frequented by 
federally listed endangered species of birds and bats, in  known bird migration 
pathways, areas where birds are highly concentrated,  and areas that have 
landscape features known to attract large numbers of  raptors."  
It is important and  relevant to Cape Wind to  note:  "...the American Bird 
Conservancy has designated  Cape  Cod and  the nearby islands as an Important 
Bird Area"  'Killer Wind' by Joe Eaton.  
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=940&journalID=
82 
Altamont  CA wind tower  siting workshop:      
_http://www.altamontsrc.org/alt_workshops.php_ 
(http://www.altamontsrc.org/alt_workshops.php)  
“Altamont  Pass turbines still killing birds of prey”  
January 12,  2008
“Year-old plan to  reduce the number of birds killed by turbines isn't  
working” 
_http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080112/A_NEWS/801120316
_ 
(http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080112/A_NEWS/801120316)  
San Francisco Chronicle: January 2, 2008 page A 1: 
THE DEADLY TOLL OF WIND POWER  
“Despite yearlong effort to curb bird deaths by turbines  on the Altamont  
Pass, many still have  perished…” 
_http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/02/MNITTM9FA.DTL_
 
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/02/MNITTM9FA.DTL) 
Dr. Fry's testimony of  May 1, 2007:   
_http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/070430_testimony.html_ 
(http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/070430_testimony.html)  
THIS IS THE LEGAL  QUAGMIRE WE MUST AVOID...see 
_http://www.altamontsrc.org/alt_settlement.php_ (http://www.altamontsrc.org/alt_settlement.php)  look  on 
the left side for a copy of the settlement 
Thank You,  
Barbara Durkin  

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