Better Plan, Wisconsin

From New York State

RESIDENTS IN WIND-TURBINE SHADOW SEEK NOISE, OTHER RELIEF

Source: LittleFallsTimes.com

September 7, 2011

By Linda Kellett

Fairfield, N.Y. —

“I don’t know how long my wife and I can stand it. It’s on and off. You can never get used to it.

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From Michigan

RESIDENTS VOICE CONCERNS OVER WIND FARM NEWS

SOURCE:Connect Mid Michigan

September 7, 2011

SAGINAW COUNTY -- The Blumfield Township Planning voted Tuesday night to amend an ordinance banning a company from building a wind turbine within 500 ft. to 1400 ft. of a residential home.

Several wind turbines could be built in Blumfield Township. They are part of $250 million dollar project by NextEra Energy Resources that would span over Bay, Tuscola and Saginaw counties.

Several dozen residents turned out for a 7:00 p.m. meeting at the Blumfield Township Hall.

Many residents told NBC25 they attended the meeting in hopes of finding out more information on the project and to voice their concerns.

"I'm not against wind farm energy but I think the township should study alternatives before they make any decisions," said Emil Muellar, who owns property in Blumfield Township.

"I am concerned about the wind noise. We need to know how safe they are. How does it affect us and if it will affect our property values," said Roseanna DuRussel.

"There's a lot of questions. There's more questions thatn there are answers," said Blumfield Township resident Don Wendland.

Blumfield Township Planning Commission Board Chairman Bruce Landskroener said Tuesday's meeting was just to approve an ordinance amendment banning a company from building a wind turbine within 500 ft. to 1400 ft. of a residential home. They board voted to approve the change. Landskroener said the Planning Commission would recommend to the Blumfield Township board to bring in experts to answer any questions residents have.

"I think they need to do a little more research. I think everyone was disappointed they didn't have any answers, said DuRussel.

Note from the BPWI Research Nerd: This map shows the Golden Eagle range map, including a section in our state of Wisconsin where wind development is planned.

WIND POWER TURBINES AT ALTAMONT PASS THREATEN PROTECTED BIRDS

Read entire story at the source: Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com

June 6, 2011

By Louis Sahagun

“It would take 167 pairs of local nesting golden eagles to produce enough young to compensate for their mortality rate related to wind energy production,” said field biologist Doug Bell, manager of East Bay Regional Park District’s wildlife program. “We only have 60 pairs.”

Scores of protected golden eagles have been dying each year after colliding with the blades of about 5,000 wind turbines along the ridgelines of the Bay Area’s Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, raising troubling questions about the state’s push for alternative power sources.

The death count, averaging 67 a year for three decades, worries field biologists because the turbines, which have been providing thousands of homes with emissions-free electricity since the 1980s, lie within a region of rolling grasslands and riparian canyons containing one of the highest densities of nesting golden eagles in the United States.

“It would take 167 pairs of local nesting golden eagles to produce enough young to compensate for their mortality rate related to wind energy production,” said field biologist Doug Bell, manager of East Bay Regional Park District’s wildlife program. “We only have 60 pairs.”

The fate of the Bay Area’s golden eagles highlights the complex issues facing wildlife authorities, wind turbine companies and regulatory agencies as they promote renewable energy development in the Altamont Pass and across the nation and adds urgency to efforts to make the technology safer for wildlife, including bats, thousands of which are killed each year by wind turbines.

Gov. Jerry Brown in April signed into law a mandate that a third of the electricity used in California come from renewable sources, including wind and solar, by 2020. The new law is the most aggressive of any state.

The development and delivery of renewable energy is also one of the highest priorities of the Interior Department, which recently proposed voluntary guidelines for the sighting and operation of wind farms. Environmental organizations led by the American Bird Conservancy had called for mandatory standards.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authorizes limited incidental mortality and disturbance of eagles at wind facilities, provided the operators take measures to mitigate the losses by replacing older turbines with newer models that are meant to be less hazardous to birds, removing turbines located in the paths of hunting raptors and turning off certain turbines during periods of heavy bird migration. So far, no wind energy company has been prosecuted by federal wildlife authorities in connection with the death of birds protected by the Migratory Bird Act, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act or the federal Endangered Species Act.

The survival of the Bay Area’s golden eagles may depend on data gathered by trapping and banding and then monitoring their behavior in the wilds and in wind farms.

On a recent weekday, Bell shinnied up the gnarled branches of an old oak to a bathtub-sized golden eagle nest overlooking a canyon about 25 miles south of Altamont Pass.

Two fluffy white and black chicks, blinked and hissed nervously as he scooped them up and placed them into cloth sacks. He attached the sacks to a rope and delicately lowered them 45 feet to the ground.

“As adults, these birds could eventually wind up anywhere in the Western United States or Mexico — that is, if they live that long,” Bell said.

With field biologist Joe DiDonato, he banded the birds’ legs and recorded their vital statistics in a journal that chronicles more than a decade of raptor research in the region. The message is a grim one.

Each year, about 2,000 raptors are killed in the Altamont Pass by wind turbines, according to on-site surveys conducted by field biologists. The toll, however, could be higher because bird carcasses are quickly removed by scavengers.

Environmentalists have persuaded the energy industry and federal authorities — often through litigation — to modify the size, shape and placement of wind turbines. Last year, five local Audubon chapters, the California attorney general’s office and Californians for Renewable Energy reached an agreement with NextEra Energy Resources to expedite the replacement of its old wind turbines in the Altamont Pass with new, taller models less likely to harm birds such as golden eagles and burrowing owls that tend to fly low.

The neighboring Buena Vista Wind Energy Project recently replaced 179 aging wind turbines with 38 newer and more powerful 1-megawatt turbines. That repowering effort has reduced fatality rates by 79% for all raptor species and 50% for golden eagles, according to a study by Shawn Smallwood, an expert on raptor ecology in wind farms.

It remains unclear, however, whether such mega-turbines would produce similar results elsewhere, or reduce fatalities among bats.

Nationwide, about 440,000 birds are killed at wind farms each year, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The American Wind Energy Assn., an industry lobbying group, points out that far more birds are killed each year by collisions with radio towers, tall buildings, airplanes, vehicles and in encounters with hungry household cats.

And while “there’s quite a bit of growth to come in wind energy development, it won’t be popping up everywhere,” said attorney Allan Marks, who specializes in the development of renewable energy projects. “That is because you can only build these machines where the wind is blowing. So a lot of the new development will be replacing old facilities in areas such as Cabazon, the Tehachapi Mountains and Altamont Pass.”

Nonetheless, the generating facilities will continue to threaten federally protected species such as eagles and California condors, a successfully recovered species that is expanding its range into existing and proposed wind farms in Kern and Fresno counties.

NextEra Energy’s proposed North Sky River Project calls for 102 wind turbines across 12,582 acres on the east flank of the Piute Mountains, about 17 miles northeast of the Tehachapis. A risk assessment of that project warned that condors spend considerable time soaring within the potential rotor-swept heights of modern wind turbines, which are more than 200 feet tall. It also pointed out that condor roosts are as close as 25 miles away.

“We taxpayers have spent millions of dollars saving the California condor from extinction,” said Gary George, spokesman for Audubon California. “How’s the public going to feel about wind energy if a condor hits the turbines?”

In the meantime, raptors such as golden eagles, American kestrels, red-tail hawks and prairie falcons continue to compete with wind turbines for their share of the winds blowing from the southwest through the Altamont Pass.

Golden eagles weigh about 14 pounds, stand up to 40 inches tall and are equipped with large hooked bills and ice-pick talons. Their flight behavior and size make it difficult for them to maneuver through forests of wind turbine towers, especially when distracted by the sight of prey animals such as ground squirrels and rabbits.

“The eagles usually die of blunt-force trauma injuries,” Bell said. “Once, I discovered a wounded golden eagle hobbling through tall grass, about a quarter mile from the turbine blades that had clipped its flight feathers.”

As he spoke, an adult male golden eagle glided a few yards above the contours of Buena Vista’s sloped grasslands, prowling for prey. It floated up and over a rise, narrowly evading turbine blades as it followed the tantalizing sight of a ground squirrel scurrying through the brush.

Bell sighed with relief. “A wind farm owner once told me that if there were no witnesses, it would be impossible to prove a bird had been killed by a wind turbine blade,” he said. “My response was this: If you see a golden eagle sliced in half in a wind farm, what other explanation is there?”

Click on the images below to view the Latest video from "Our Life with DeKalb Turbines", a website documenting this famiy's life in a NextEra wind project in Illinois.

While wind lobbyists claim that uncertainty about wind siting rules in our state is drivng away the wind business, NextEra is currently prospecting for wind leases in Wisconsin.

FROM PENNSYLVANIA

Note from the BPWI Research Nerd: The wind turbine related bird and bat kill rates in Pennsylvania have made news several times in the past few years with numbers considered to be shockingly high.

Sadly these numbers are far less than the turbine related kill rates in the state of Wisconsin

In a recent Green Bay Press Gazette Article , turbine related bat kills in Wisconsin were reported to be as high as 50 per turbine per year, a number that is not not only ten times what the wind companies say is the national average, but it is considered to be unsustainable. To the best of our knowledge the bat kill rates from wind turbines in our state are the hightest in North America. And to the best of our knowledge no one is doing anything about it.

BLOWING' IN THE WIND

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Outdoor Trails, Staff Writer, lancasteronline.com

May 16, 2011

By AD CRABLE,

Since 2007, 73 percent of the owners of wind projects in the state have signed the Wind Energy Voluntary Cooperation Agreement.

Among the notable exceptions is Florida Power & Light and its subsidiaries, which have the most turbines in the state. High bat mortality has been found at some of them.

Are proliferating wind turbines killing a large number of birds in Lancaster County and Pennsylvania? No, say the Game Commission and power companies. You’ll have to take their word for it.

Every other day since March 1, a searcher has walked a grid pattern under the two new wind turbines on Turkey Hill, looking for the carcasses of birds that may have been killed by the turning blades.

So, have there been any bats, tundra swans, birds of prey or endangered songbirds unfortunately whacked by the 135-foot-long blades?

Project owner PPL Renewable Energy and the Pennsylvania Game Commission know, but they’re not telling.

Certainly there is no reason to think many birds are being sliced and diced at the Manor Township site.

But shouldn’t the public be allowed to know if there are? After all, the turbines were partially built with federal stimulus funds, your tax dollars.

How about bird scientists with the Pennsylvania Biological Survey, the Game Commission’s independent scientific advisers who monitor the state’s bird populations? Should they be privy to the mortality rate at Pennsylvania’s proliferating wind turbines?

The group certainly thinks so, but the body count is not shared with them, either.

Instead, the Game Commission, apparently to gain turbine owners’ participation, agree to share information with each other but not anyone else.

The agreement states, “It is understood between the parties that information resulting from the cooperator’s compliance with this agreement shall be treated with the highest affordable level of confidentiality available unless otherwise agreed to in writing by both parties.”

When I requested the results of dead bird searches at the Turkey Hill project, PPL said it “was following the Game Commission’s protocol in keeping it in confidence.”

This is the questionable state of affairs several years into wind energy taking hold in Pennsylvania.

The Game Commission is responsible for the state’s birds and mammals.

As wind technology advanced like a sudden gust of wind several years ago, it became clear there were no comprehensive regulations in place to protect wildlife.

Working with energy companies — and at least initially independent advisers such as the PBS — the Game Commission fashioned a voluntary agreement designed to avoid, minimize and mitigate impacts on wild animals.

Mainly, we’re talking about birds, and especially bats, which seem to be most prone to running into turbine blades.

Since 2007, 73 percent of the owners of wind projects in the state have signed the Wind Energy Voluntary Cooperation Agreement.

Among the notable exceptions is Florida Power & Light and its subsidiaries, which have the most turbines in the state. High bat mortality has been found at some of them.

In addition to working with the Game Commission to reduce effects on birds, wind companies agree to do pre-construction surveys of birds and animals at proposed sites, and to count any mortality from turbines for two years after startup.

That advance scouting of bird habits and pooling of information has been effective, according to the Game Commission.

Turbines have been moved, bat-roosting locations have been pinpointed and protected, and even a few turbine sites have been abandoned, the agency says.

Indeed, at Turkey Hill, the number of turbines was reduced from four to two, the two turbines that were built were set back farther from the Susquehanna, vegetation is kept close-cropped so as not to attract predators and electrical lines were buried to discourage perching birds near the turbines — all because of pre-construction wildlife surveys, points out Steven Gabrielle of PPL.

“We’re not required to do this. We’re spending a lot of time and money to do this because we respect preserving the environment,” Gabrielle says.

Then why not prove it by making available the results of all those commendable approaches, I say.

Another who is very unhappy with the no-tell approach is George Gannon, a professor of biology and ecology at Penn State-Altoona who worked with the Game Commission in setting up the wind energy cooperative agreement on behalf of the PBS.

He voices this complaint, “There is no independent scientific peer review of anything submitted by the wind companies, as these data are not permitted to be seen by anyone else.

“This is contrary to the very basic premise of how good science works.”

He mentions a 2009 case in West Virginia where a federal court found that a wind company’s hired bat consultants reached a conclusion favorable to the client, but turned out to be inaccurate when the actual data was reviewed.

“It was Ronald Reagan who said ‘trust but verify,’ ” continues Gannon. “Unfortunately, with the system in place, the PGC cannot verify the work submitted by wind developers and the people of Pennsylvania cannot verify either the developers or the PGC.”

In 2007, a PBS wind energy and bats subcommittee accused the Game Commission of “side-stepping” input and review from the PBS in developing the cooperative agreement with wind energy developers.

The group, which included two PGC biologists, unanimously urged the agency to abandon the protocol used in evaluating bats and bat mortality at wind turbine sites and to “develop a more realistic, more meaningful, and more scientifically sound protocol.”

The current agreement “puts the interests of the wind industry before the interests of the Commonwealth,” the PBS group said.

The Game Commission recently issued its second wind energy summary report that includes 150 wildlife surveys and research under the voluntary agreement from 2007 through June 30, 2010.

Among the tidbits (no names, of course):

The number of bat deaths comes out to 24.6 per turbine per year.

Among birds, the average death rate was 3.9 per turbine per year.

Three state-endangered birds were killed: two blackpoll warblers and one yellow-bellied flycatcher. All three were deemed to be migrants passing through and not from local breeding populations.

No large mortality events were recorded, defined as more than 50 carcasses found in a single day.

Surveys conducted as part of the agreement have located new locations of state- and federally-listed bats.

As part of the cooperative agreement, the Game Commission has said it will not pursue liability against cooperating wind turbine companies that kill birds, as long as they comply with the conditions of the agreement.

The agency is proud of its efforts.

“The Cooperative Agreement has allowed Pennsylvania to become one of the national leaders for determining and addressing wildlife impacts from wind energy development, as well as providing critical data needed to address future wind energy project proposals,” said William Capouillez, director of the agency’s Bureau of Wildlife Habitat Management.

With some transparency on behalf of the Game Commission and wind turbine operators, maybe the public would come to the same conclusion.

FROM NORTH DAKOTA

IBERDROLA SAYS FALLING SUZILON BLADES WERE A ONE-TIME ACCIDENT

READ THE WHOLE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Bloomberg, www.bloomberg.com

May 18, 2011

By Natalie Obiko Pearson,

Iberdrola SA (IBE), the world’s biggest renewable energy producer, has found that falling blades from a Suzlon Energy Ltd. (SUEL) generator at a U.S. wind farm was a one-off accident unrelated to the turbine’s history of cracked blades.

“This type of failure is a singular event,” said an Iberdrola report, a copy of which was mailed by Suzlon to Bloomberg News, on a joint investigation by the two companies into the incident.

Iberdrola suspended operations at the 150-megawatt wind farm in Rugby, North Dakota after blades from a Suzlon S88 turbine fell from their mount, the company said on March 21. The same model suffered cracked blades starting in 2007, which had prompted a $100 million global retrofit program by India’s largest maker of windmills for power production.

The accident at Rugby was caused by the failure of a bolt connecting the rotor assembly to the nacelle, the report said. Stress may have been put on the bolt because of a misalignment of the connecting surfaces between the rotor hub and mainshaft flange, it said.

All 70 turbines and 3,360 bolts were inspected and seven bolts replaced as a precaution before Iberdrola and Suzlon agreed the site was safe to return to service, it said.

“Suzlon, who is permanently onsite, will perform additional checks in conjunction with regular maintenance activities,” it said.

Suzlon has more than 2,000 sets of S88 turbines operating worldwide and its global fleet are performing above industry standards, spending only 3 percent in downtime for maintenance, the company said in an e-mail.

Suzlon shares plummeted 83 percent between the time it announced the defect in January 2008 and completed retrofitting in October 2009 as customers, including Rosemead, California- based Edison International (EIX), canceled orders.