Can Wind Energy and Endangered Species Coexist?
08/07/2012
Hibernating Indiana Bats. Photo credit: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service & Ann Froschauer / CC BY 2.0
A Maryland wind farm could be the first in the Northeast to receive an approved habitat conservation plan. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service just released a draft plan, open for comment, for the 70 megawatt facility near Oakland. Conservation concerns include potential danger to the endangered Indiana bat.
Run by Criterion Power Partners, the project was Maryland’s first operating wind farm. Twenty-eight turbines generate green energy, but they’re also a significant hazard for birds and bats flying through the area.
Both bats and birds can die after colliding with turbine blades, but collisions are only part of the danger for bats. Barotrauma—when sudden drops in air pressure around moving turbine blades cause internal hemorrhaging—is also deadly.
A species of particular concern is the endangered Indiana bat, a quarter-ounce bat with mouse-like ears. Indiana bats live in the eastern United States, but during the winter they hibernate in only a few caves, many in Indiana. Placed on the Endangered Species list in 1967, they experienced rapid population decline due to disturbance of hibernation sites, pesticide use, and loss of forest habitat. White-nose syndrome now poses an additional threat to bat populations, including Indiana bats.
Under the Endangered Species Act it is illegal to kill or “take” endangered and threatened wildlife. Wind farms cause unintentional death of birds and bats, but they can do so legally with an incidental take permit. The permit makes allowances for a certain number of deaths as long as the wind farm takes steps to protect the species on site and elsewhere. The draft conservation plan for Criterion Wind allows for 14 Indiana bat deaths over 21 years of operation.
To help protect bats, Criterion plans to turn the turbine blades parallel to air flow when wind speeds are low and when bats are most likely to fly, between sunset and sunrise in late summer and early fall. They estimate that this change will save an estimated 50 percent of bats without losing significant power. Criterion will also take steps to help cave-dwelling bats elsewhere by building cave gates in eastern Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
The FWS will accept written comments on the draft environmental assessment, Criterion’s permit application, and the draft habitat conservation plan through September 28, 2012.
Related Links:
Video: Bird Collides with Wind Turbine Blade
Putting Wind Turbines Out of Wildlife's Way
Comments
I guess that it is good to
I guess that it is good to coexist for both species.
The bats and birds can live
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Hello Justine,I agree with you.Thanks for your share.
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First a couple of
First a couple of comments...
"Over the past two decades, the federal government has prosecuted hundreds of cases against oil and gas producers and electricity producers for violating some of America’s oldest wildlife-protection laws: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Eagle Protection Act. But the Obama administration — like the Bush administration before it — has never prosecuted the wind industry despite myriad examples of widespread, unpermitted bird kills by turbines. A violation of either law can result in a fine of $250,000 and/or imprisonment for two years.
But amidst all the hoopla about “clean energy” the wind industry is being allowed to continue its illegal slaughter of some of America’s most precious wildlife. Even more perverse: taxpayers — thanks to billions of dollars given to the wind industry through the production tax credit and federal stimulus package — are subsidizing that slaughter." -- Robert Bryce
"Decades of conservation efforts to recover our eagles from past threats such as overhunting and poisoning by DDT are now being countered at the behest of the wind power industry, which has pressured the government to weaken eagle protections.
In 2009, to protect wind companies that would otherwise be in violation of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (the landmark law protecting these majestic birds), the government introduced a special five-year permit scheme that allows the wind power industry and others a limited number of unintentional eagle deaths during the normal course of their business.
But wind companies have continuously flouted BGEPA and lobbied for a longer duration of the “programmatic incidental take” permit.
Incredibly, the Fish and Wildlife Service is considering granting that request with proposals to extend the permit length from five to 30 years and to weaken the standards required to obtain the permit.
Allowing energy corporations to sidestep BGEPA flies in the face of sound science and common sense and puts thousands of eagles in danger.
Wind power companies are rarely required to report the birds they kill, and many simply fail to make an adequate monitoring effort. Independent scientists are routinely refused access to wind power facilities, and data given to the government are often kept from the public. The number of birds that are publicly acknowledged as being killed therefore represents just a fraction of the true toll.
Wind power can be a valuable tool in the battle against global warming, but without transparency and accountability, and with 30-year “take” permits handed out to an industry failing on both those counts, we will only see more wind development in inappropriate places and more dead eagles." -- George Fenwick, President of the American Bird Conservancy.
Actually George has it completely wrong on "wind power can be a valuable tool in the battle against global warming. The real data shows that wind turbines do not lower carbon emissions and the emphasis on this alternative is diverting precious resources from things that might. That is why folks who have really looked at the wind energy industry objectively call it a scam. For more information, please visit http://www.windwiseradio.org and http://www.windaction.org and http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/
"They estimate that this
"They estimate that this change will save an estimated 50 percent of bats without loosing significant power."
Correction: "losing"
Thank you.
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Thank you for all you do.
peace & light
Audubon hasn't seen this
Audubon hasn't seen this bird-safe turbine yet? It looks incredible.
www.windstrument.com