Better Plan, Wisconsin

Click on the image above to watch Wisconsin Public Television report on bats and wind turbines

WIND TURBINES THREATEN WISCONSIN BATS

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Green Bay Press-Gazette, www.greenbaypressgazette.com

May 15, 2011

by Tony Walter,

Wind turbine industry reports filed with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin indicate that a significant number of bats fall victim to the turbine blades every night, which could mean crop losses.

The rate of bat mortality has a major impact on the agricultural industry, according to a U.S. Geological study recently published in Science Magazine.

The study, conducted by Boston University’s biology department, estimated that insect-eating bats save the agricultural industry at least $3 billion a year.

“Because the agricultural value of bats in the Northeast is small compared with other parts of the country, such losses could be even more substantial in the extensive agricultural regions in the Midwest and the Great Plains where wind-energy development is booming and the fungus responsible for white-nose syndrome was recently detected,” said Tom Kunz, an ecology professor at Boston University and co-author of the study.

White nose syndrome is a disease believed to kill and sicken bats, which first was noticed in Albany, N.Y., in 2006, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The source of the condition remains unclear, the agency said.

According to studies by Current Biology, National Geographic and Science Daily, bats can be killed without being struck by a turbine blade. The studies concluded that air in low-pressure areas near the tips of the blades ruptures the bats’ lungs and causes internal hemorrhaging.

In PSC reports obtained by the Green Bay Press-Gazette, a post-construction bat mortality study of the Wisconsin Power and Light Company’s Cedar Ridge Wind Farm in Fond du Lac County, conducted by the power company, showed that 50 bats are killed annually by each of the project’s 41 turbines — about 2,050 each year.

Similarly, reports show that the 88 turbines in the Blue Sky Green Field Wind Energy Center in Fond du Lac County each kill an estimated 41 bats per year, which is a little more than 3,600 each year, according to the Wind Energy Center’s post-construction study.

Each turbine in the state kills about 41 bats each year, according to estimates compiled by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

“I can verify that bats are good natural predators of insects and definitely benefit agriculture,” said Mark Hagedorn, agricultural agent for the UW-Extension.

The largest known area for hibernating bats in Wisconsin is the Neda Mine State Natural Area in Dodge County, where a census found 143,000 bats, according to the DNR.

The construction of wind turbines in Brown County has been a controversial subject for years, but most of the complaints focused on the safety and health impact on humans. The impact on bats has not been part of the debate over wind turbine construction in Brown County.

Recently, Invenergy Inc. abandoned its plans to build a 100-turbine wind farm in four southern Brown County municipalities. The town of Glenmore last month approved permits for Cenergy to build eight turbines in the town.



BATS ON THE BRINK:

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: WISCONSIN TRAILS

By Jennifer L.W. Fink

Three wind farms – Butler Ridge Wind Farm in the town of Herman, Cedar Ridge Wind Farm in Fond du Lac County and another near Byron – have gone up within miles of the hibernaculum, and preliminary data suggest the wind towers may be responsible for the deaths of migrating bats. “We’re seeing some of the highest fatality numbers in the U.S.,” Redell says.

A century ago, Neda was an iron town. Hardy miners worked deep beneath the earth’s surface, digging out precious iron ore with picks and shovels. Now the miners are just a memory, and the tunnels are dark and damp – but far from empty.

Each fall, the fluttering of wings breaks the still silence of the mine as thousands of bats migrate hundreds of miles to hibernate in the old mineshafts. Today, the old iron mine, located just south of Iron Ridge in Dodge County, is one of North America’s largest bat hibernacula. 

“Most people don’t realize that Wisconsin is such an important area for hibernating bats,” says Dave Redell, a bat ecologist with the Bureau of Endangered Resources. More than 140,000 bats, including little brown bats, northern long-eared bats, eastern pipistrelle bats and big brown bats, hibernate at Neda each winter.

Why Neda? “The old mine is big enough to host a large number of bats,” Redell says, “and the four miles of underground tunnels provide perfect hibernating conditions.” Hibernating bats require stable temperatures (41 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal), high humidity, good airflow and a private, undisturbed place. Any disturbances can awaken hibernating bats, causing them to prematurely deplete the fat stores they need to make it through the winter.

But while Neda has provided a safe haven for bats for many years, ecologists such as Redell are worried about the bats’ survival. Three wind farms – Butler Ridge Wind Farm in the town of Herman, Cedar Ridge Wind Farm in Fond du Lac County and another near Byron – have gone up within miles of the hibernaculum, and preliminary data suggest the wind towers may be responsible for the deaths of migrating bats. “We’re seeing some of the highest fatality numbers in the U.S.,” Redell says.

A new and deadly disease also has begun attacking hibernating bats, mainly in the northeastern United States. White-nose syndrome, a disease unprecedented in its ability to kill, was first identified in New York State in 2006 and has already killed more than 1 million bats. “Scientists are seeing anywhere from 90 to 100% mortality at affected hibernacula,” Redell says. While the fungal disease has not yet arrived in Wisconsin, experts believe it’s just a matter of time. “White-nose syndrome spread over 500 miles this year,” Redell says. “It’s now about 250 miles from Wisconsin.”

Scientists such as Redell are working feverishly to learn as much as possible about the disease and the state’s bats in the little time they have left. “We know that bat-to-bat transmission occurs, and now we’re trying to see if the environment remains infected,” Redell says.

Nestled deep within the earth, the mines at Neda are a world apart. For years, bats have wintered in their depths, undisturbed. Now experts can only hope that the bats don’t go the way of the miners before them.

Jennifer L.W. Fink grew up hearing stories about the bats at Neda but didn’t visit the mines until 2000. She currently lives in Mayville.

ADVICE FROM A PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRM:

READ THE ENTIRE SERIES AT THE SOURCE: NIMBY Wars: The Politics of Land Use.

Guide to Leadership, Effectiveness and Activities for Citizen Groups Pt 5

(by Robert J. Flavell. Flavell is vice chairman of The Saint Consulting Group and co-author of NIMBY Wars: The Politics of Land Use. This concludes the series begun last month)

Once the developer has identified natural supporters, outreach efforts will be needed to contact, recruit, and organize them. For that, you’ll need to find a citizen leader in the community, usually a natural supporter who has leadership abilities and feels strongly that the community needs the project.

It’s important that a local resident lead the citizen group to provide credibility and assure effectiveness. Clearly, the developer cannot manage the group, or its members will be branded as dupes and the group will lack credibility and influence.

An outsider won’t do to manage the group for much the same reason: lack of credibility and influence. Local residents will mistrust a stranger who suddenly appears in town just in time to accept leadership of the pro-development citizens group.

But a local resident who has longstanding community ties and legitimate personal reasons for supporting the project will be accepted at face value, and has the credibility to round up community support. The best way to find such a leader is to look among your natural supporters for a person with leadership skills who has the time and enthusiasm to do the job right.

You may well need to quietly fund the support group, but their expenses should be small—the cost of flyers and urns of coffee. Remember that a group seen as bought will also be seen as hirelings.

The group needs to appear independent of you and your company, which means that they may disagree with you on some points, or may have different ideas of what constitutes adequate mitigation. Taking their suggestions seriously and treating them with respect will win you points in the community.

Citizen Group Effectiveness and Activities

The effort to get a project approved and permitted organizes natural supporters to carry the issue, works to neutralize or marginalize opponents whose efforts can damage the chances of approval, and stresses the benefits to the community not through a public relations or marketing program but through the citizen advocates organized for the purpose.

Those advocates will express their support in their own words and from their own point of view, a much more effective approach than using a canned list of talking points.

Ardent supporters will also sway others who know and respect them—relatives, neighbors, co-workers, friends—will deter those who might have reservations about the project but don’t want to offend a neighbor or old friend, and can dissuade, neutralize or turn at least some opponents because they clearly speak from their own viewpoint and not as agents of the developer.

Make sure your group has a Web site and email address so that people tempted to support your project can easily join up.

Once it has a leader, the group can begin engaging in political support activities, forming coalitions with other groups, calling public officials to express support, writing letters to the editor, managing a website, starting a blog, printing flyers, and attending meetings and hearings, for example.

They can also hold fundraisers and seek donations to offset their expenses, and stage a site cleanup to dramatize the improvement your project will bring to the area. One particularly effective activity is the citizen petition drive, in which your group members collect signatures of local voters who favor the project, or at least are not opposed to it.

A stack of signed citizen petitions makes a nice prop for your lawyer to present to the licensing authority at the big hearing to bolster your claim of widespread public support.

 

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: According to numbers in a previous bird and bat post construction mortality study paid for by Invenergy for the Forward Wind project located near the Horicon Marsh, the turbine related bat-kill numbers are staggering: it appears that well over 10,000 bats have been killed in just three years of the Forward project's operation.

The turbine related bat kill rate in Wisconsin is ten times higher than the national average and the second highest in North America. Yet nothing is being done about it. In fact, the Public Service Commission can't even get Invenergy to submit a long-past-due required mortality report.

Who ya' gonna call?

Better Plan has contacted the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Society, Bat Conservation International and a multitude of journalists with this information but so far no one has moved to look more closely into this story.

Meanwhile, bats are being slaughtered by the thousands in Wisconsin wind projects. Horton may hear a Who but at the moment environmentalists and media aren't taking any calls from Horton.

 Next Story

DEAR EMPEROR OF INVENERGY, STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE: THE PSC WANTS TO KNOW WHY YOU WON'T RELEASE YOUR LATEST POST CONSTRUCTION BIRD AND BAT MORTALITY STUDY

"Agency staff has repeatedly requested the required reports. To date, no satisfactory explanation has been received for their delay nor a firm date established for their submission. At minimum, submittal of the final report is required to comply with the requirements of the Commission’s Final Decision for this docket. Please submit the required reports."

-PSC's letter to Invenergy dated 3/25/2011

FROM: DAN SAGE at the PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF WISCONSIN

TO: MIKE COLLINS, INVENERGY LLC, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

DATE: MARCH 25th, 2011

Dear Mr. Collins:

In the Commission’s Final Decision on July 14, 2005, Forward Energy LLC (Forward) was required to conduct post-construction bird and bat studies in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Data collected from these studies were to be submitted to agency staff on a quarterly basis. In addition, Forward was required to conduct a population viability analysis with associated sensitivity analyses for bat populations.

As a means of complying with the Commission’s Final Decision, three study plans were reviewed and approved by agency staff. These studies included a bird use, a bat use, and a bird/bat mortality study. Within each of these plans was an agreed-to timetable for field study and report submittal.

Forward initiated field studies in July 2008. The bat use and bird use studies ended in November 2009. Data collection for the mortality study ended in May 2010. The last report received from Forward summarized data collected through February 1, 2010. Forward has not submitted a report summarizing the data collected during the period of April through May of 2010.

Additionally, the final report has not been submitted. The final report is required to contain at a minimum the following items:

Summary of all field data collected during the years of 2008, 2009, and 2010;

Comparison of pre-construction and post-construction relative abundance and diversity of birds;

Impact gradient analysis of bird use and behavioral data relative to the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge;

Analysis of the changes in pre-construction versus post-construction avian habitat;

Analysis of the type and number of bats that use the Forward airspace compared to the bat fatality estimates resulting from the wind turbines;

Mortality estimates incorporating scavenger and searcher efficiency rates using the best available estimation formulas and reported as avian and bat fatalities per megawatt per year and per turbine per year;

Additional analyses including comparing the mortality at control sites to the mortality at turbine sites and correlation analyses between mortality and weather, turbine locations, turbine operating status, and bird and bat activity.

Agency staff has repeatedly requested the required reports.

To date, no satisfactory explanation has been received for their delay nor a firm date established for their submission. At minimum, submittal of the final report is required to comply with the requirements of the Commission’s Final Decision for this docket. Please submit the required reports.

If you have questions regarding this matter, please contact Marilyn M. Weiss by telephone at (608) 241-0084 or by e-mail at marilyn.weiss@wisconsin.gov.
Sincerely,
/s/ Dan Sage
Dan Sage
Assistant Administrator
Gas and Energy Division

NOTE: Click on the image below to watch a video about Invenergy's Forward Project wind turbines alongside Wisconsin's famed Horicon Marsh and near the Neda Mines, home to the largest bat population in the state.

 

NEXT STORY

BATS WORTH BILLIONS TO AGRICULTURE:

PEST-CONTROL SERVICES AT RISK

SOURCE: PRNEWSWIRE

April 1, 2011

BOSTON, -- Thomas Kunz, Warren Distinguished Professor in Boston University's Department of Biology, has coauthored an analysis published this week in the journal Science that shows how declines of bat populations caused by a new wildlife disease and fatalities at industrial-scale wind turbines could lead to substantial economic losses on the farm.

Natural pest-control services provided by insect-eating bats in the United States likely save the U.S. agricultural industry at least $3 billion a year, and yet insectivorous bats are among the most overlooked economically important, non-domesticated animals in North America, noted the study's authors, scientists from the University of Pretoria (South Africa), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the University of Tennessee, and Boston University.

"People often ask why we should care about bats," said Paul Cryan, a USGS research scientist at the Fort Collins Science Center and one of the study's authors. "This analysis suggests that bats are saving us big bucks by gobbling up insects that eat or damage our crops. It is obviously beneficial that insectivorous bats are patrolling the skies at night above our fields and forests—these bats deserve help."

The value of the pest-control services to agriculture provided by bats in the U.S. alone range from a low of $3.7 billion to a high of $53 billion a year, the authors estimated. They also warned that noticeable economic losses to North American agriculture could well occur in the next 4 to 5 years because of the double-whammy effect of bat losses due to the emerging disease white-nose syndrome and fatalities of certain migratory bats at wind-energy facilities. In the Northeast, however, where white-nose syndrome has killed more than one million bats in the past few years, the effects could be evident sooner.

"Bats eat tremendous quantities of flying pest insects, so the loss of bats is likely to have long-term effects on agricultural and ecological systems," said Justin Boyles, a researcher with the University of Pretoria and the lead author of the study. "Consequently, not only is the conservation of bats important for the well-being of ecosystems, but it is also in the best interest of national and international economies."

A single little brown bat, which has a body no bigger than an adult human thumb, can eat 4 to 8 grams (the weight of about a grape or two) of insects each night, the authors note. Although this may not sound like much, it adds up—the loss of one million bats in the Northeast has probably resulted in between 660 and 1,320 metric tons of insects no longer being eaten each year by bats in the region.

"Additionally, because the agricultural value of bats in the Northeast is small compared with other parts of the country, such losses could be even more substantial in the extensive agricultural regions in the Midwest and the Great Plains, where wind-energy development is booming and the fungus responsible for white-nose syndrome was recently detected," said Kunz.

Although these estimates include the costs of pesticide applications that are not needed because of the pest-control services bats provide, Boyles and his colleagues said they did not account for the detrimental effects of pesticides on ecosystems or the economic benefits of bats suppressing pest insects in forests, both of which may be considerable.

The loss of bats to white-nose syndrome has largely occurred during the past 4 years, after the disease first appeared in upstate New York. Since then, the fungus thought to cause white-nose syndrome has spread southward and westward and has now been found in 15 states and in eastern Canada. Bat declines in the Northeast, the most severely affected region in the U.S. thus far, have exceeded 70 percent. Populations of at least one species, the little brown bat, have declined so precipitously that scientists expect the species to disappear from the region within the next 20 years.

The losses of bats at wind-power facilities, however, pose a different kind of problem, according to the authors. Although several species of migratory tree-dwelling bats are particularly susceptible to wind turbines, continental-scale monitoring programs are not in place and reasons for the particular susceptibility of some bat species to turbines remain a mystery, Cryan said.

By one estimate, published by Kunz and colleagues in 2007, about 33,000 to 111,000 bats will die each year by 2020 just in the mountainous region of the Mid-Atlantic Highlands from direct collisions with wind turbines as well from lung damage caused by pressure changes bats experience when flying near moving turbine blades. In addition, surprisingly large numbers of bats are dying at wind-energy facilities in other regions of North America.

"We hope that our analysis gets people thinking more about the value of bats and why their conservation is important," said Gary McCracken, a University of Tennessee professor and co-author of the analysis. "The bottom line is that the natural pest-control services provided by bats save farmers a lot of money."

The authors conclude that solutions to reduce the impacts of white-nose syndrome and fatalities from wind turbines may be possible in the coming years, but that such work is most likely to be driven by public support that will require a wider awareness of the benefits of insectivorous bats.

The article, "Economic importance of bats in agriculture," appears in the April 1 edition of Science. Authors are J.G. Boyles, P. Cryan, G. McCracken and T. Kunz.

 NEXT STORY: WHERE ARE THE WIND DEVELOPERS PROSPECTING IN WISCONSIN?

Wisconsin wind project locations: proposed, existing and being built:

WIND DEVELOPERS HAVE BEEN SPOTTED IN:

ADAMS COUNTY

Town of Lincoln

ASHLAND COUNTY

Madeline Island

BAYFIELD COUNTY

Town of Bayfield

BROWN COUNTY

Towns Glenmore, Greenleaf, Holland, Morrison, Wrightstown

Invenergy's Ledge Wind project (currently on hold)

Emerging Energy's Shirley Wind project (Town of Glenmore. Now under construction)

For the latest information, visit the Brown County Citizens for Responsible Renewable Energy website (bccrwe.com)

BUFFALO COUNTY

CALUMET COUNTY

Towns of Brothertown, Charlesburg, Chilton, New Holstein, Rantoul, Stockbridge

COLUMBIA COUNTY

We Energies Glacier Hills project (under construction)

Towns of Arlington, Cambria, Leeds, Randolph and Scott.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD GLACIER HILLS  TURBINE LOCATION MAP

CRAWFORD COUNTY

Invenergy is prospecting south of Prairie Du Chien

DANE COUNTY

Town of Springfield

EcoEnergy developed the project, then sold it to WAVE WIND LLC 

According to news stories, Wave Wind was looking for a contract with WPPI to buy the power. The outcome of negotiations between these two parties is unknown as of September 2010

News stories:

Dane County's wind farm fate rests with WPPI

DODGE COUNTY
Towns of Herman and Rubicon

DOOR COUNTY
Town of Clay Banks

Download Clay Banks Wind ordinance

FOND DU LAC COUNTY

Towns of Ashford, Brownsville, Byron, Eden, Empire

GRANT COUNTY

Cuba City, Towns of Hazel Green, Paris, Plattville, Smelser, Patch Grove, Mt. Hope

GREEN LAKE COUNTY

Town of Green Lake

IOWA COUNTY

Town of Montfort

KEWAUNEE COUNTY
Town of Casco

LAFAYETTE COUNTY
Towns of Belmont and Seymour

MANITOWOC COUNTY
Towns of Mishicot, Two Creeks, Two Rivers

 Town of Centerville  Developer: Spanish company www.urielwind.com

For the latest information on Manitowoc County projects visit Windcows.com

MONROE COUNTY
Towns of Ridgeville and Wilton

OUTGAMIE COUNTY
Town of Kaukauna

OZAUKEE COUNTY
Town of Freedonia

ROCK COUNTY
Towns of Center, Janesville, Spring Valley, Magnolia, Union

Landowner contracts in the Towns of Magnolia and Union originally secured by EcoEnergy have been sold to Spanish wind giant Acciona . Acciona says it has suspended the project because of low wind resource. However, they still own the project and can sell it.

SHEBOYGAN COUNTY

Town of Rhine

ST CROIX COUNTY

Town of Forest

TREMPEALEAU COUNTY

Town of Arcadia

Town of Ettrick

Download Trempealeau County wind ordinance

VERNON COUNTY
Town of Westby

WASHINGTON COUNTY

Towns of Addison, Nabob, and West Bend

Click on the image above to see what an industrial wind project looks like after the sun goes down. People are often surprised to find out that all of the lights blink in unison. Why? These are FAA lights and red lights blinking in unison are the best way to get a pilot's attention. Red lights in the entire wind project area, which is sometimes thousands of acres, flash on and off all night long to keep aircraft from colliding with turbine blades.

Click on the image above to hear noise from the closest turbine to the home of Larry Wunsch who lives in the Invenergy wind project near the Town of Byron in Fond du Lac County.

This noise is the reason the Wunsch family decided to sell their home. However, after two years they've had no offers. Wunsch says that buyers who come to see the house don't even make it up the driveway. They turn around once they see the turbines surrounding his home.

This video was recorded from the front door of the Wunsch home with a video camera microphone not suited for noise such as this, nevertheless, the pulsing character of wind turbine noise is clear.

Larry Wunsch is a fire fighter and served on the Wind Siting Council. He testified at the Capitol yesterday, asking for a suspension of the PSC wind siting rules because they are not protective enough. Wunsch testified that while on the Wind Siting Council, he wanted to play his recording of turbine noise to help council members understand the problem but he was not allowed to do so.

Below, video of shadow flicker in another Fond du Lac county home at 6:30 AM

 

Above, shadow flicker in homes located in the Invenergy Forward Energy project, filmed by resident Gerry Meyer who also testified at the Capitol hearing.

WIND SITING RULES GET CAPITOL HEARING

Source: Wisconsin Radio Network

February 10, 2010

By Bob Hague

Lawmakers weighed the balance of wind energy in Wisconsin at the Capitol on Wednesday, with developers of wind turbine farms pitted against property owners and local governments who argue the massive turbines decrease property values and cause health problems.

Governor Scott Walker had proposed a special session bill which would have increased the setback for wind turbines from 1250 feet from a property line, to 1850 feet. That bill failed to advance, so now the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules is taking second look at the Public Service Commission rules which are scheduled to go into effect next month.

As the day long hearing got underway, committee members commented on the lengthy process of public hearings held by the PSC as the rules were being developed.

“I know it was a difficult task,” said Representative Dan Meyer (R-Eagle River). “But I have a feeling a lot of these people feel this is just going to be rammed down their throat. They may not want windmills in their backyard, but there going to get them, because the state of Wisconsin says ‘you’re going to have them.’”

State Senator Lena Tayler (D-Milwaukee) responded to Meyer’s comment. “There isn’t ramming going on here . . . 2009 to now is not ramming.”

Larry Wunsch is a landowner near Brownsville in south Fond du Lac county. Wunsch told the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules that a wind

farm near his property – and a turbine 1250 feet from his home – have changed his life. “When you put a device so close to my land that it drives me out of my property, I do have a say on that,” Wunsch told committee members. “We should be protecting Wisconsinites here.

Wunsch, who served on the Public Service Commission’s Wind Siting Council and signed onto its Minority Report, said he’s been unable to sell his property. Wunsch testified against the rules with another member of the Wind Siting Council who signed the Minority Report, Doug Zweizig from the Town of Union in Rock County. “The rules as written will not protect the health safety and welfare of impacted Wisconsin residents and communities,” said Zweizig, who serves on the Union Town Board, which had written its own ordinance on wind siting. Those impacts include sleep deprivation for a significant percentage of people living near turbines, according to Green Bay physician, Dr. Herb Cousins. “We make outstanding guidelines and rules for peanut allergies in school, when less than one percent or so of the population is affected by that,” Cousins said. “In this circumstance, up to fifty percent or more at this 1200 foot range will be affected.”

But Jeff Anthony with the American Wind Energy Association said if lawmakers decide to suspend the PSC rules, they’ll throw wind development projects around the state into chaos – and cost Wisconsin jobs. “The $1.8 million of investment in future wind projects that are currently on the books and planned for Wisconsin, will not happen. Two million construction job hours to build those projects, will not happen in this state,” said Anthony. “Farther down the road, you could have an impact on the manufacturing sector.”

The rules were drafted as a response to an uncertain landscape for wind development in Wisconsin, as local governments such as Doug Zweizig’s town board drafted their own – sometimes restrictive – wind siting ordinances. But Bob Welch, a former state lawmaker who now lobbies on behalf of a coalition of opponents, said the PSC rules go too far. “What the PSC rules want to do is say ‘you don’t get to decide what goes in your community. You have nothing, absolutely nothing to say about it’ if these rules are in place. They’re going to decide what goes in your community, not you. I don’t think that’s the Wisconsin way.”

Landowners who have wind turbines sited within a half mile of their property lines are eligible for ‘good neighbor’ payments. But apparently not all are interested in getting the money. “I have two of them within that parameter, so I would make a thousand dollars a year,” Larry Wunsch told the committee. “Personally I think it’s dirty money, it’s bribe money and I’ve never taken it, I don’t plan to take it. If they want to make it right with me, buy my house. Let me get out of there.”

AUDIO: Larry Wunsch, Doug Zweizig (7:00)

AUDIO: Jeff Anthony (6:00)

PSCs Final Wind Siting Council Report (PDF)

Click on the images below to watch short videos of the Wind Siting Council in action

 

WISCONSIN RULE ON TURBINE BUFFERS HIT CLOSE TO HOME FOR SOME

Source: The Badger Herald

February 10, 2011

By Andrew Averill

A legislative joint committee heard over nine hours of passionate testimony Wednesday from several hundred citizens and wind energy developers on a rule that would standardize the buffer distance between a wind turbine and surrounding structures across the state.

The Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules heard testimony on a wind siting rule proposed by the Public Services Commission. The rule specifies the restrictions a city, village, town or county could impose on wind energy systems. While wind developers mainly agreed with the PSC, a large portion of citizen testifiers opposed the rules, Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, said.

“The majority of [testifiers] I’d say were people who didn’t want the rules,” Risser said. “When you get down to it, they didn’t want windmills.”

The rule would require turbine setback distances for non-participatory properties to equal three times the maximum length of the turbine blade. Turbines only have to be one blade length away from the property hosting it. 

Most citizens testified the distances are not far enough away and have caused unwanted effects. 

Joan Lagerman from Malone, located on the east side of Lake Winnebago, told the committee she had stories that realized the fears other testifiers brought up. Her son, an otherwise healthy 17-year-old, recorded systolic blood pressure as high as 160, which she attributes to the turbine near her house, she said.

Another man with three turbines near his property recalled coming home to take care of his wife who was sick with the flu. He returned at night expecting his wife to be resting in bed, but saw her writhing on the floor in the middle of the hallway squeezing blankets and pillows against her ears trying to dampen the sound from the turbines.

Other opponents of the rule spoke of developer’s “time-share hustling” property owners with 28-page contracts, persistent radio interference, deteriorating health of farm animals due to stray voltage and constant low frequency humming.

Hearing loss can occur with noise levels over 85 decibels, according to a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study. The PSC rule requires turbines to be no louder than 50 db, but one citizen in Fond du Lac County said he measured the turbine at a constant 63 db.

However direct the citizen testimony, Risser said the question the committee must ask in deciding whether to uphold, modify or suspend the PSC’s rule is what is best for the state, and there are people who feel very strongly the state should pursue wind energy and the jobs it would provide Wisconsin.

Chris Deschane, speaking on behalf of wind developer Michels Corporation located an hour northeast of Madison in Fond du Lac, said he supported the PSC rule and elaborated on the jobs that Michels could create if the committee voted in favor of the rule.

“For each 100 megawatts in Wisconsin, it will generate 125 immediate jobs that last for one or two years and several dozen recurring jobs,” Deschane said. “Each of these jobs are well compensated and we provide exceptional health benefits.”

Another developer, David Vander Leest of Prelude LLC Wind Farms, said if the rule is not passed and the setback distance between a wind turbine and the nearest structure is increased as a result, Wisconsin might as well give the wind industry of “time of death.”

Although Risser said both developers and citizens gave strong arguments, he suspects the committee would vote to suspend the rule sometime before March 1, when the rule would begin to take effect.



BIRD DEATHS FROM WIND FARMS TO CONTINUE UNDER NEW FEDERAL VOLUNTARY INDUSTRY GUIDELINES

SOURCE: American Bird Conservancy

February 10, 2011

By Robert Johns

(Washington, D.C.) Draft voluntary federal guidelines issued today by the Interior Department that focus on the wildlife impacts of wind energy will result in continued increases in bird deaths and habitat loss from wind farms across the country, says American Bird Conservancy (ABC), the nation’s leading bird conservation organization. Members of the public will have 90 days to provide comments on the proposed guidelines to the Secretary of the Interior prior to a final version being concluded.

“We had hoped that at the end of this multi-year, Interior Department process, we would see mandatory regulations that would provide a reasonable measure of restraint and control on a potentially very green energy source, but instead we get voluntary guidelines,” said ABC Vice-President Mike Parr.

“Bird deaths from wind power are the new inconvenient truth. The total number of birds killed and the amount of bird habitat lost will dramatically increase as wind power build-out continues across the country in a rush to meet federal renewable energy targets,” Parr said.

“We fast-tracked dams in the first half of the last century at the expense of America’s rivers. Now we’re having to tear many of them down. Let’s not fast track wind energy at the expense of America’s birds. Just a few small changes need to be made to make wind bird-smart, but without these, wind power simply can’t be considered a green technology” Parr said.

“This action did not have to result in voluntary guidelines. DOI has the authority under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to enact regulations protecting migratory birds. Further, it is troubling that this announcement was made without the final documents being available that would enable a review of exactly what is being proposed,” Parr said.

Some of the most iconic and vulnerable American birds are at risk from wind industry expansion unless this expansion is carefully planned and implemented. Onshore, these include Golden Eagles, Whooping Cranes, sage-grouse, prairie-chickens, and many migratory songbirds. Offshore, Brown Pelicans, Northern Gannets, sea ducks, loons, and terns are among the birds at risk.

“Federal government estimates indicate that 22,000 wind turbines in operation in 2009 were killing 440,000 birds per year. We are very concerned that with Federal plans to produce 20 percent of the nation’s electricity from wind by 2030, those numbers will mushroom. To meet the 2030 goal, the nation will need to produce about 12 times more wind energy than in 2009.” he added.

“The guidelines ask the wind industry to do the right things, but there is no reason to believe that any will happen with any consistency. The poster child for the wind industry’s environmental track record is the Altamont Pass Wind Farm in California. Despite years of concern voiced by many in the wildlife community about large numbers of eagles and other raptors being killed at Altamont, it took a lawsuit to get the industry to respond,” Parr said.

“Birds continue to be killed at Altamont and other wind farms in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act,” he added.

American Bird Conservancy supports wind power when it is bird-smart, and believes that birds and wind power can co-exist if the industry is held to mandatory standards that protect birds. ABC has established a petition for concerned members of the public to lend their support to the campaign for bird-smart wind.

Onshore bird-smart wind power implements siting considerations, operational and construction mitigation, bird monitoring, and compensation, to redress unavoidable bird mortality and habitat loss. Although offshore wind power is not yet operational in the U.S., an analogous set of siting, operating, and compensatory measures needs to be developed to make it bird-smart.

All wind farms should have an Avian Protection Plan that includes ABC’s bird-smart principles and a means of implementing it and tracking and reporting on its implementation. Wind farms should also comply with relevant state and federal wildlife protection laws such as the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and National Environmental Policy Act.

NOTE: American Bird Conservancy conserves native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas by safeguarding the rarest species, protecting and restoring habitats, and reducing threats while building capacity of the bird conservation movement. For moreinformation, visit, www.abcbirds.org

WANT TO HELP?

PLEASE SIGN THE AMERICAN BIRD CONSERVANCY PETITION TO PROTECT BIRDS FROM POORLY SITED WIND TURBINES BY CLICKING HERE

 How many bats are dying in Wisconsin wind projects?

Three recent reports indicate the bat kill rates in Wisconsin wind projects are ten times the national average and the second highest in North America.

According to a recent post construction mortality report from We Energies  the 88 turbines that make up the Blue Sky/ Green Field project have killed 7,000 bats during the first two years of operation.

Kill rates were the same in Dodge County's Cedar Ridge project and slightly higher in the Fond du lac County's Invenergy Forward project which is located alongside a national wildlife refuge.

Why Wisconsin bat mortality rates are so high in comparison to other parts of North America is unknown.

HOPE FOR STEMMING WIND ENERGY’S TOLL ON BATS

SOURCE: National Geographic News, news.nationalgeographic.com    

September 15, 2010

By Andrew Curry,

Windmills—clean, quiet, simple and endlessly renewable—may be the ultimate icons of green energy. But after sundown, their whirling blades have an unintended consequence that researchers are just beginning to understand: They kill bats by the thousands.

Their greatest impact may be on the few species of bats that migrate. Bat experts say that the problem, which peaks during migration season from July to late September, may be worse than we know—but there’s cautious optimism, too. Proposed solutions include installing speakers that blast ultrasound to drive bats away and selectively shutting off windmills when bats are most active.

Killed by the Thousands

The first hint that wind farms were killing bats came from the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center on Backbone Mountain on the ridge of the Alleghenies near Thomas, West Virginia (map). Biologists looking for birds killed by the windmills in 2003 found nearly 400 dead hoary bats and eastern red-tailed bats. They soon concluded that the West Virginia site alone was killing between 1,400 and 4,000 bats a year.

In the years since, bat experts have raised the same alarm at other wind farms in the United States and Europe. Although there have also been concerns about windmills killing birds, the problem might be more severe for bats. For reasons no one fully understands, bat species that migrate over long distances seem to be attracted to the tall windmill towers. Perhaps they mistake them for trees, or want to hunt the insects that swarm around the tall, white structures. Maybe they’re simply curious.

When they fly too close, the nocturnal creatures are often killed by windmill blades, which, at the tips, can reach speeds of more than 200 mph. These massive wing-like blades strike some of the bats, while other bats are killed when they get sucked into the low-pressure zone behind the spinning blades. The low pressure can rupture bats’ tiny lungs and hearts.

As more and more wind energy installations are built, researchers are finding proportionately more dead bats. But one problem in gauging the full scope of the carnage is that researchers have almost no idea how many bats there are. Since they fly in the dark, it’s hard to count them the way that researchers count birds. Migratory bats tend to be solitary creatures, roosting in trees and crevices, so they can’t be counted easily when they’re asleep. And they’re too small—many weigh less than an ounce—to be tracked as birds sometimes are, with tags that can pinpoint their whereabouts through the use of GPS, or global positioning system.

“No one’s ever been able to actively track these bats. Before they started showing up under wind turbines, they were very infrequently observed,” says Paul Cryan, a bat expert working for the U.S. Geological Survey in Fort Collins, Colorado. “The logistics of following animals at night without knowing where they’re going and where they’re going to land is tremendously difficult.”

That uncertainty makes it difficult to tell what kind of impact windmills are having on the overall population—and how effective efforts to reduce the number of bat kills are. “We don’t know if we’ve mitigated the effect of the kills, or if we’re just delaying a population crash for 10 or 15 years,” says Ed Arnett, director of programs at Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas. “But if you start adding it up over time, there’s just no way the animals can sustain this.”

Indeed, the many new wind projects across the United States—enough new windmills to power 2.4 million homes were installed last year—couldn’t have come at a worse time for bats.

Biologists are already overwhelmed trying to unravel a mysterious fungus known as white-nose syndrome that’s killing hundreds of thousands of cave-dwelling bats up and down the East Coast, with no cure in sight. “Those of us charged with the well-being of bats have really had the ground fall out from under us in the last 10 years,” Cryan says.

Renewable Energy Coexistence

But new research suggests that there may be hope on the horizon for protecting the migratory bats from windmill blades, at least. New methods for reducing bat kills are being tested in the field, and initial results are promising. One option is installing speaker systems on windmills to confuse and irritate bats with ultrasound noise, a frequency too high for human hearing. “It jams them, basically,” Arnett says. “We’re flooding them with white noise, which makes it uncomfortable and disorienting airspace to be in.”

So far, experimental speaker systems have reduced the number of bat fatalities 20 to 53 percent. But there are at least two problems with ultrasound systems, which cost $20,000 per experimental unit. First, modern windmill blades cover an area the length of a football field, too far to effectively project sound at that frequency. And the long-term consequences to bats and other wildlife of constant ultrasound are unclear.

Arnett has also experimented with an obvious solution: Turn off the windmills when bats are most active. For the past two years, Arnett has been working with Iberdrola Renewables, a large Spanish-owned wind energy provider, to selectively “feather,” or shut down, wind turbine at a wind farm in Garrett, Pennsylvania (map), when wind speeds are low. “It’s a time when we are not generating a whole lot of electricity to begin with,” says Iberdrola spokeswoman Jan Johnson.

In a forthcoming study, Arnett reports that during peak migration season, turning off windmills on the warm, late-summer nights bats like best—nights that don’t have that much wind to harness for energy, anyway—reduced annual bat fatalities by between 44 and 93 percent. Best of all, Arnett estimated that turning off windmills on the nights when bats were most active cost only .3 percent of the wind farm’s total annual power production. “We think there are ways to refine it so there are minimal impacts on the economics,” says John Anderson, siting policy director for the American Wind Energy Association.

The idea is gaining currency. Wind energy company Invenergy earlier this year agreed to time-of-year operating restrictions as part of a plan to protect the endangered migratory Indiana bat at a project it is now building in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. A federal judge temporarily blocked that project in response to a lawsuit by environmentalists; similar action over the risk to bats has been threatened over a new wind project in Maryland.

USGS bat expert Cryan says the Iberdrola study results are a relief to those who love the embattled bats. “Curtailment offers a great hope of minimizing bat fatalities,” he says. “Finally, this is something where we can come up with a solution to the problem.”

Note from the BPWI Research Nerd: The only reliable way to stop turbines from killing bats is to shut down the turbines at night.



 

Turbines along the Horicon Marsh 2008 photo by wind farm resident, Gerry Meyer

Water Woes, Wind Turbines, Threatening Horicon Marsh, Report Says

June 20, 2009

Wisconsin State Journal [click here to read at source]

Nearby wind turbines, declining water quality and decreasing water levels at Horicon National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Wisconsin earned the popular birders’ destination the dubious distinction of being ranked the third most imperiled refuge in the nation, according to a list compiled by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Released every year and based on interviews with refuge staff, the list ranks the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and the Hawaii Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex as the first and second most threatened refuges. PEER is a national alliance of local, state and federal natural resource professionals.

Located about 40 miles northeast of Madison, the 23,375-acre Horicon refuge is famous as one of the largest freshwater cattail marshes in the U.S. It’s an important migratory stopover in the spring for migratory waterfowl and has long been noted for the huge numbers of Canada geese — as many as 300,000 in the spring — that make the marsh a noisy place during their migrations.

But, according to the PEER report, pollution from the Rock River, which both feeds the marsh and drains large agricultural areas upstream, is poisoning the marsh with silt, phosphorus and agricultural chemicals. Silt carried by the river is clogging ditches and carrying nutrients that promote weed growth and cause cattail mats to grow out of control.

“In effect,” the report said, “the marsh is filling from the bottom up.”

A relative new issue for the marsh is the nearby construction of hundreds of wind turbines that may pose a threat to migrating birds. A company called Forward Energy received final permission from the Wisconsin Public Service Commission in 2005 to erect 133 wind turbines on the edges of the marsh. The turbines, 86 of which are already in operation, are 390 feet high from the base to the tip of their blades.

The uncertain impact of the wind turbines prompted another organization, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, to name Horicon one of the nation’s most endangered refuges in a list released four years ago.

Laura Miner, who oversees the turbines for Forward Energy, said the company is midway through a two-year mortality study at Horicon. So far, the results are “not alarming,” she said. During a four-month period last fall, researchers recovered less than 10 bird carcasses and about 70 bat carcasses near the turbines.

“We think the bird number is relatively low, and we have found no carcasses of federally protected species,” Miner said.

Diane Kitchen, assistant refuge manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said many refuges across the nation are facing water issues, both related to quality and quantity. “We have trials, like every refuge does,” she said.

As for the wind farms, Kitchen said it is too soon to determine whether the huge turbines pose a real threat to migrating birds.

The PEER report called for the following actions to lessen the threats to the refuge:

• Existing cooperation with farmers and agricultural agencies should be expanded to reduce water pollution problems.
• A 21st century marsh-management plan should be developed, funded and staffed.
• Scientific reviews should be conducted to help plan its future. Such studies should include research on wind turbines, which is already underway, and studies of hydrological problems by the U.S. Geological Survey.

— State Journal reporter Doug Erickson contributed to this report.

By Ron Seely

Wisconsin State Journal

20 June 2009

Click on the image above to learn more about Wisconsin's Horicon Marsh, the largest cattail marsh in the U.S, and about the Forward Energy wind farm sited alongside it. [You can also see the video by clicking here]

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE BIRD AND BAT MORTALITY STUDY:

The developer wanted to site turbines just 1.2 miles from the marsh.

Environmental groups asked for setbacks of at least four miles.

In its final decision, the PSC chose two miles as the setback and agreed to reconsider the 1.2 mile set-back some time in the future.

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, it its decision to allow Invenergy's Forward energy project to be sited just 2 miles from the marsh, acknowledged studies which confirmed that "birds visit the wind farm site very heavily during migration seasons, and that the proximity to the marsh could cause greater than average avian mortality." (Docket 9300-CE-100 PSC Ref#37618, p.16)

But the financial concerns of the wind developer trumped the protection of birds and bats, citing the wind developer's fast-approching production tax credit deadline and concluding that more comprehensive pre-construction avian studies were not necessary or in the public interest. (Docket 9300-CE-100 PSC Ref#37618, P. 17)

The PSC also gave the developers a pass on bat studies, though one of the largest bat hibernacula in the state is located not far from the marsh.

The wind developer's paid witness, testified that pre-construction bat studies had not been required elsewhere, but at the Buffalo Ridge project in Minnesota no relationship between bat activity and mortality could be observed. (p.21)

The PSC agreed, and no pre-construction bat surveys were done. Instead, the PSC offered this trade off:

"The commission... finds that post-construction mortality research will advance scientific knowledge about the potential impacts of wind farms upon bat poplulations"

They now a have plenty of dead Wisconsin bats to work with.

Here are some of the protocols of this study:

(We thank the concerned party who passed this document to us for consideration. Download complete document by clicking here)

The search area around a turbine is defined by a 525 ft by 525 ft square, in which the turbine constitutes the center of the square.--

In other words, only carcasses found 260.5 feet in any direction from the turbine are considered.

The turbine's blade span is approximately 260.5 feet.

The tip speed averages over 100 mph.

A bird or a bat hit by a blade going 100 mph and knocked out of this search area would not be considered.

The people employed to search for caracsses are instructed to "Store the plastic zip-loc containing the carcass in the freezer at the wind company building upon completing searches for the day"

(Emphasis added) SCROLL DOWN to read the entire carcass collecting protocol sheet.

NOTE FROM THE BPRC RESEARCH NERD: It's hard not to have concerns about the wisdom of simply dropping off the carcasses at the 'wind company building'. It seems that an independently maintained site would be more a reliable depository.

(CLICK HERE FOR MARCH 7th 2009 news story)

LOOKING FOR A GREEN JOB?

In August of 2008, one of the 'green jobs' to be had involved walking six acres around five industrial scale wind turbines in the Forward Energy wind farm, looking for dead bats and birds.

The job paid $10.00 an hour plus mileage.

Click on the image above to see a video shot by some one who has this green job, telling us what her mornings near turbines were like, and gives us an candid look at just how post-construction avian and bat mortality studies are being conducted.

UPDATE: Since we posted this, the video has been pulled. Transcript of video below

The video is called, "What has been keeping me busy?" and does not appear to anything but an amiable personal video intended to update friends and interested parties. The dull roaring in the background is the turbine sound. It is sometimes faint, but always present.

The image below is the site map of the project. The two blue circles are the locations of specific turbines she mentions.

TRANSCRIPT:

"Good Morning.
It is now five am.
I'm going to show you what I've been doing lately that I haven't been on line. It's been awhile since I've been here, but I want to show you what I'm doing so you'll understand.

I don't know if you can hear the noise behind me but I am at..... I will show you... hold on a minute... we're going to go up, and we're going to go up, and we're going to go up, and you see those blades?

I am at the wind turbines.

There's one over there you can see a little better. And I am looking for dead birds and bats. And they've been finding bats lately. So we got some areas to walk and check for dead birds. And, let's go.

There's more wind turbines. More wind turbines. I'm checking the roads to see if there's any dead birds or bats. The sunrise is starting to come. Pretty.

But I get up at three thirty, every morning. Seven days a week. Get paid ten dollars an hour plus mileage. Let's look over here. Let's see if we can see those wind turbines over there. Just fields and fields of them.

So let's start looking. And if I find anything, I'll let you know.

There's a turbine I am checking. And what we have to do is, they have plowed or mowed areas for us to walk and we check both sides, and they go -- oh, four or five of them that we have to walk down and check for the birds. They have been finding a lot of bats. So that's what we're looking for.

Look at the sunrise. Beautiful. So peaceful out here in the morning.

Well we didn't find anything here, so we head to our next turbine. See you when we get there.

All right. We are at wind turbine 83. That last one we were at was 96. So we're going to check around here and see what we can find. And there's a lot more turbines up in this area so I can show you those.

They're going to build a hundred and thirty-six turbines...... the hill is just filled with them here....
there's one there, a whole field of them over there.

We're going to be looking in corn this time. Last time we were looking in soy. So let's head to the cornfields.

That turbine is pretty close to this one. Look at those blades. We're right under them. Yes, we're right in the middle of a corn field. This is sweet corn.
You can tell by tassels on top. They're whiter. Field corn is a darker brown. So this is sweet corn we're in. And you can hear the birds chirping.

And there's the wind turbine I'm checking right now.

I got to walk all the way down there. Actually at each turbine, you're walking six acres. Getting a lot of exercise.

There's my next turbine.

I know I look a mess. It's 95 percent humidity out there and right now it's 84 degrees. And with my hat on I was sweating up a storm. But I need to call Steve. He's a gentleman from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. And he's the one that hired me. They're doing a study for bats and birds by the wind turbines.

And we're also working with Forward Wind Project. And they're really nice guys.

OK I got a couple of more turbines to check-- and I'm going to say good-bye now and unless I find something I'll see you later. Buteverybody have a great day and we'll talk to all of you later. Bye.

(Later)

Good morning everyone..... I'm out doing another search this morning, and I'm actually having a lot of fun. Getting a lot of exercise. Walking six acres each turbine, times five, it's 30 acres I'm walking. So I'm getting a lot of exercise and I'm enjoying it.

I got a bat yesterday but my camera battery was dead so, sorry, couldn't get it to you. But, um, the wind turbines do not hit the bats with the blades.
If you're squeamish, and don't like to hear things happening to animals, skip the next 30 seconds.

[She pauses]


What's happening to the bats is they are getting sucked in and their insides are imploding. So. Yeah.

They are not getting hit by the turbines, they are getting sucked in by them and their insides just explode... imploding. So that's what's happening to those bats.

I haven't found any regular birds yet, but when I do they'll check those out too. They'll autopsy those.

The gentleman I'm working for, Steve, is working on his masters at the University of Madison. And his roommate who he's living with now is also going to school for wildlife...... preservation.

And he's doing a study on bats, so he's the one who did the autopsies on the bats and told us what is happening, actually. He is not finding any blade marks on them.

They kind of figured that's what's happening, because of what's happening, they found out they are imploding when they did the autopsy.

Yeah. How weird.

They are just getting sucked in and the pressure is so much that that's what's happening.

So I am on my way to my next turbine, and if I do find anything today, I'll show you.

Researchers say a pressure drop created by turbines can cause bats' lungs to burst
March 1, 2009 by Gerry Smith in Chicago Tribune
The mystery was alarming to wildlife experts: large numbers of dead bats appearing at wind farms, often with no visible signs of injury.

Researchers now think they know one reason: Wind turbines cause bats' lungs to explode. More specifically, a sudden drop in air pressure created by the blades can cause fatal internal hemorrhaging, researchers at the University of Calgary said in a study.

The toll taken on bats highlights a delicate balance facing the wind industry-how to be "green" without causing other unintended environmental consequences.

Some of the best sources of wind-coastlines and mountaintops-also happen to be in the path of migratory birds. Wind farms installed on mountain ridges also have triggered fears over soil erosion, and some environmental groups-citing land use laws designed to keep Mother Nature unspoiled-have fought proposed wind farms.

With the deaths causing a stir among wildlife advocates, an unusual partnership called the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative is seeking ways to strike a delicate balance between protecting the bat population and meeting the nation's growing demand for renewable energy.

"We support the development of clean energy, but to make it 'green' we have to do everything we can to minimize the environmental impacts," said Ed Arnett, project coordinator for the cooperative.

Some wind experts dismiss fears over turbines' impact on wildlife. They point to a 2007 study by the National Academy of Sciences that concluded far more birds and bats have been killed in collisions with vehicles and buildings than in collisions with turbines.

But wildlife experts are particularly protective of bats because the mammals have low reproductive rates, meaning even small numbers of fatalities can affect their populations.

"Once you start taking a small number of bats out of the general population, the risk of endangerment or extinction vastly increases," said Joseph Kath, the endangered species project manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Thus far, there have been no reports of endangered or threatened bat species being killed at wind farms in North America. Most bats felled by turbines have been migrating species like hoary bats, eastern red bats and silver-haired bats.

The concern over bats is fairly recent. Since the 1980s, when wind farms were in their infancy, wildlife biologists have been more worried about protecting birds from spinning turbines. Bat deaths at wind farms largely went unnoticed.

Then in 2003, researchers stumbled upon an estimated 1,400 to 4,000 bat carcasses at the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center in West Virginia and recorded extensive bat fatalities at wind farms in Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Wildlife experts were taken by surprise.

"These are unforeseen circumstances," Arnett said. "Most of us didn't anticipate this being a problem."

Since then, the chorus of voices calling for greater protection for bats at wind farms has grown louder. Last summer, the American Society of Mammalogists called for wind farms to avoid "bat hibernation, breeding and maternity colonies."

Still, the explanation for why bats with no external signs of injury were being found dead at wind farms was largely a mystery until August.

That's when researchers at the University of Calgary reported that 90 percent of bats felled near one wind farm showed signs of barotrauma, or fatal internal hemorrhaging, of the lungs that occurred because of drops in air pressure near the spinning blades.

The condition affects bats more than birds because bird lungs are more rigid and can withstand sudden changes in air pressure, according to the study, which was published in the journal Current Biology.

The study may explain why bat fatalities often outnumber bird fatalities at wind farms. In Illinois, it is estimated three times as many bats (93) as birds (31) died during a year at the 33-turbine Crescent Ridge Wind Farm in Bureau County, a consulting firm reported last year.

The firm, Curry & Kerlinger, deemed the findings "small and not likely to be biologically significant."

But given a decline in several bat species in the eastern United States, "the possibility of population effects, especially with increased numbers of turbines, is significant," the National Academy of Sciences study stated.

Illinois is expected to increase the number of wind farms dramatically in coming years. The state has mandated that 25 percent of its electricity be generated by renewable resources by 2025, with about 75 percent of that renewable energy coming from wind. Illinois has 915 megawatts of capacity installed with the capacity to build 9,000 megawatts.

Arnett said the cooperative doesn't discount the Calgary study but has conducted studies of its own, using night-vision cameras, that found bats also have been killed by collisions with turbine blades.

There are several theories as to why bats might be flying close to turbines. Some think bats might confuse turbines with large, dead trees because many species found dead use such trees to roost. Others hypothesize that turbines may attract insects, which attract hungry bats.

The cooperative has been looking for ways to bring down the death toll, including studies of the effectiveness of ultrasonic sounds that would deter bats and curtailing the spinning of turbines until it's too windy for bats to fly.

Arnett said the latter step may have some economic consequences. But he expressed confidence that the wind industry can continue to grow without harming bat populations.

"It's not choosing one or the other," Arnett said. "It's finding a balance, and I'm convinced we can solve this problem."

Web link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/g...

EXTRA CREDIT:

Here's how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website describes the Horicon Marsh:

"At over 32,000 acres in size, Horicon Marsh is the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States. The marsh provides habitat for endangered species and is a critical rest stop for thousands of migrating ducks and Canada geese. It is recognized as a Wetland of International Importance, as both Globally and State Important Bird Areas and is also a unit of the Ice Age Scientific Reserve."

The Wisconsin DNR says:

"While this marsh in renown for its migrant flocks of Canada geese, it is also home to more than 290 kinds of birds which have been sighted over the years. Due to its importance to wildlife, Horicon Marsh has been designated as a "Wetland of International Importance" and a "Globally Important Bird Area." Horicon Marsh is both a state wildlife area and national wildlife refuge"

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, it its decision to allow Invenergy's Forward energy project to be sited just 2 miles from the marsh, acknowledged studies

Here's the complete protocol for the bird and bat mortality data for the Forward Energy wind farm along the Horicon Marsh:

I. Defining the Search Area:

A. The search area around the turbines is defined by a 525 ft by 525 ft square, in which the turbine constitutes the center of the square.

All of the plots are located within active agricultural fields throughout northern Dodge and Southern Fond Du Lac counties.

The total area of the plot is equivalent to 6.3 acres; the corners of the square are marked by 6 foot bamboo stakes with iridescent marking tape.

The transects cut into the square represent the 1.1 acre search area searchers are responsible for. Plots that are not at the proper vegetation height to be cut will contain two bamboo stakes 15 feet apart on both sides of the square.

These stakes create a lane in which searches should take place; these lanes will later be mowed when the vegetation height is at the proper level.

There are a total of five mowed transects within the plot, and the sixth transect is made up of the access road leading up to the turbine and an extension of this access road mowed in the plot.

The transects are approximately 525 feet long. Each segment born perpendicularly from the access road and its extension are half the length of the transect, or 262.5 feet.

Maps will be provided on the back of the data sheet with significant land marks, property lines, crop types, and the search transects and the access road with its mowed extension denoted.

While most of the transects are cut perpendicular to the access road and the access road extension, exceptions will be noted on the map for the specific turbine.

II. Data Collection: Pre-Search
1. Searcher: Record your name, including first and last name
2. # of Searchers: Record number of searchers, if alone record “1”
3. Turbine #: Record proper turbine number
4. Date: Record date
5. Start Time, End Time & Total Time: Record the time at which you start and finish the search, then subtract to determine total
6. Wind Condition: Record the wind condition on site, choosing from three codes
a.Calm (C) : Air is still, no vegetation movement, no feeling of a breeze
b.Light (L) : Slight breeze, approximately 1 - 15 mph, vegetation waving
c. Strong (S) : Obvious stronger winds, pre-storm weather conditions, 15 mph and up, heavy gusts of wind
4. Cloud Cover: Determine and record cloud cover, choosing from three codes
3a. Clear (CL) : No visible clouds in sky, “blue” skies
b.Partly Cloudy (PC) : Some clouds, not stormy but simply cloudy, some sunshine
c. Overcast (O) : Many clouds in sky, often grey, pre-storm or pre-rain weather conditions
*Do not confuse morning fog with clouds, skies may not necessarily be overcast when fog is present
5. Is the top of the turbine visible?
a. Circle “YES” if the top of the turbine is visible (no low-lying fog)
b. Circle “NO” if the top of the turbine is not visible (fog is at least 200 feet off the ground, generally foggy at ground level
6. Precipitation
a. Circle “YES” if there is precipitation of any degree
b. Circle “NO” if there is no precipitation
III. Searching
A. The searcher is to walk the 6 transects, consisting of 5 mowed or staked transects and the access road and its extension. While walking the transects, search the ground covering the entire 15 foot wide transect for dead birds and bats. Keep an eye out for abnormalities in shape and color on the ground substrate.
B. Walk at a pace conducive to the likelihood of finding carcasses, approximately 15 to 30 minutes per turbine depending on plot design.
IV.Collecting
A. Upon locating a carcass, record the Carcass Condition Rating
1. Carcass Condition Rating

a. Fresh (1) : The bird or bat appears to have recently expired, limited decomposition or scavenger impact, relatively decent condition

b. One to 2 days old (2) : Partially scavenged, usually by insects and their larvae, slightly decomposed but still in reasonably good condition

c. Decomposed (3) : The carcass has obviously been on the ground for a while, often decomposed down to fur/feathers and bones

d. Canʼt Be Determined (4) : The rating of the carcass can not be determined due to factors such as heavy rains, flooding, human interference, etc...

B. If camera is available, take a picture of carcass where it lies as well as a picture with the wind turbine in the background and the carcass in the foreground for estimating distance

C. Indicate the approximate position of the carcass in relation to the turbine by placing the number of the carcass in a square on the grey scale transect, each representing 15 feet, at the estimated distance from the turbine (Refer to Fig.1)

D. Next place the carcass in a zip-loc plastic bag and label the bag with the Carcass ID

1. Carcass ID

a. The Carcass ID consists of a single number composed of the turbine #, the date, and the # of the carcass in order of carcasses found that day. The count for carcasses
are renewed each day. For example, if 2 bats are found on the same day, at turbine 37 on August 2, 2008, the Carcass IDs would appear like so:
37-8/2/2008-1
37-8/2/2008-2

E. Store the plastic zip-loc containing the carcass in the freezer at the wind company building upon completing searches for the day (Be sure to label all bags properly
before placing in freezer)

V. Data Collection: Post Search

A. Vegetation/Visibility Scale

1. Good (1) : Transects do not need mowing, carcasses visible, easily found

2. Needs mowing in a few days (2) : Carcasses becoming harder to find, level of vegetation impairing (usually with hay, grass, and alfalfa)

3. Needs mowing ASAP (3) : Carcasses underneath vegetation, vegetation height higher than 6 inches, dense vegetation

PROTOCOL SUBJECT TO CHANGE AMENDMENTS WILL BE MADE AND SEARCHERS WILL BE PROPERLY NOTIFIED AND TRAINED, AS THE STUDY EXISTS IN AN ADAPTIVE PROGRESSION

For more information: Refer to Data Sheet Example

Store the plastic zip-loc containing the carcass in the freezer at the wind company building upon completing searches for the day (Be sure to label all bags properly
before placing in freezer)