Better Plan, Wisconsin

August 18, 2011,  

A Republican Shout-Out for Wind Energy

SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES

By JIM WITKIN

Newt Gingrich, who supports a tax credit for wind energy, signing a turbine blade in Iowa.

In The New York Times on Thursday, John M. Broder writes about a blood sport that has become quite popular among the field of Republican presidential candidates: attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency. Yet the candidates recently found time to rally behind clean wind energy, a topic some voters identify with a somewhat more liberal agenda.

At the Saturday straw poll in Iowa, the G.O.P. contenders Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Thaddeus McCotter autographed a giant 130-foot wind turbine blade to show their support for Iowa’s burgeoning wind industry as a source of home-grown job creation.

TPI Composites, based in Newton, Iowa, manufactured the blade and currently employs 700 workers at a former Maytag plant, according to its chief executive, Steve Lockard. The American Wind Energy Association, a trade association and lobbying group, sponsored the event on Saturday.

It was one of about 30 such displays set up by organizations and political action committees on the Iowa State University campus.

Michele Bachman, the top vote-getter in the straw poll, was not present at the signing, although according to Peter Kelley, the wind energy association’s vice president for public affairs, her staff members had conveyed her interest in attending.

Texas is the leading state in installed wind capacity with 10,085 megawatts, while Iowa is second with 3,675 megawatts, accounting for almost 20 percent of the state’s electricity generation in the first quarter of 2011.

Over 200 companies are now involved in Iowa’s wind industry. Since the state adopted a renewable energy standard in 1983, the industry has generated almost $5 billion in investment, according to estimates from the wind energy association.

Iowa’s wind generation capacity will soon get a boost when the MidAmerican Energy Company, one of the country’s largest wind project developers, completes the 444-megawatt Rolling Hills site this year in southwestern Iowa.

But while Mr. Lockard expects demand for his wind turbines to remain strong through 2012, he expressed concern during Saturday’s event about 2013 and beyond because of the impending expiration of the so-called production tax credit. This incentive provides a per-kilowatt-hour tax credit for companies generating electricity from renewable sources.

The credit has faced expiration before but has then been renewed and expanded several times since its enactment in 1992 as part of the Energy Policy Act. In 2009, the Recovery Act sweetened the incentive by allowing developers to receive a grant from the Treasury Department in lieu of the tax credit, meaning the government would finance 30 percent of the project cost.

According to Mr. Kelley of the wind energy association, the production tax credit has been the single most important piece of legislation allowing wind to compete with other sources of energy like coal.

At Saturday’s event, Mr. Pawlenty, who has since withdrawn from the race, and Mr. Gingrich spoke in favor of extending tax incentives in the form of production tax credits. Where the other candidates stand on the issue is less clear as the topic was not discussed during the debate preceding the straw poll .

Mr. Romney does not specifically address the issue on his Web site. Ron Paul is generally opposed to tax breaks for any energy producer. Both he and Ms. Bachmann have previously voted against tax incentives for renewable energy production.

“Uncertainty over whether the P.T.C. will be extended has already caused layoffs and bankruptcies in the wind energy supply chain,” Mr. Kelley said. Ensuring that the credit is renewed “will be our top legislative priority in Congress this session,” he said.

SOURCE: NBC NEWS :FEDS INVESTIGATE GOLDEN EAGLE DEATHS

Below: Why bats and wind turbine don't mix

SOURCE: KCTS-TV, OREGON

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON BATS AND WIND TURBINES FROM U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY (USGS)

Bat Fatalities at Wind Turbines: Investigating the Causes and Consequences:

"Dead bats are turning up beneath wind turbines all over the world. Bat fatalities have now been documented at nearly every wind facility in North America where adequate surveys for bats have been conducted, and several of these sites are estimated to cause the deaths of thousands of bats per year.'

Overview of issues related to bats and wind energy

 Wind energy: A scare for bats and birds [audio podcast]

 Economic importance of bats in agriculture

ENERGY IN AMERICA: SACRIFICE OF PROTECTED BIRDS UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE OF WIND POWER DEVELOPMENT

SOURCE www.foxnews.com

17 August 2011

As California attempts to divorce itself from fossil-fueled electricity, it may be trading one environmental sin for another — although you don’t hear state officials admitting it.

Wind power is the fastest growing component in the state’s green energy portfolio, but wildlife advocates say the marriage has an unintended consequence: dead birds, including protected species of eagles, hawks and owls.

“The cumulative impacts are huge,” said Shawn Smallwood, one of the few recognized experts studying the impact of wind farms on migratory birds. “It is not inconceivable to me that we could reduce golden eagle populations by a great deal, if not wipe them out.”

California supports roughly 2,500 golden eagles. The state’s largest wind farms kill, on average, more than 80 eagles per year. But the state is set to triple wind capacity in the coming years as it tries to become the first state in the nation to generate 33 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources by 2020.

“We would like to have no bird deaths and no bird injuries. But, once again, we have to balance all the needs of society. All the people who want to flip their switch and have electricity in their homes,” said Lorelei Oviatt, Kern County planning commissioner.

Kern County has identified some 225,000 acres just north of Los Angeles as a prime wind resource area. Unfortunately, the area’s rolling hills and mountains are prime hunting grounds for raptors and a layover spot for migratory birds traveling between Canada and Mexico. The updrafts enjoyed by birds of prey are ideal for generating power.

“I’m not against wind power — it is a viable form of energy generation — but it needs to be developed more carefully,” Smallwood said.

Case in point: In the Bay Area, when activists in the 1980s demanded a cleaner planet, the state responded with the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area. The state-approved wind farm, built with federal tax credits, kills 4,700 birds annually, including 1,300 raptors, among them 70 golden eagles, according to biological reports generated on behalf of the owners.

Smallwood said replacing the small, older turbines with larger blades has cut some species fatalities roughly in half.

Oviatt said Kern County is trying to learn from Altamont’s mistakes.

“We’re requiring full environmental impact reports, which take at least 12 to 18 months,” Oviatt said. “Can I promise that a bird will never be injured or killed? I can’t. But again, we have this tradeoff in society, between the things we need to function as an economy and the fact that we wanna make sure we have an environment for future generations.”

Pine Tree is one of the wind farms in Kern County and is operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. According to an internal DWP bird and bat mortality report for the year ending June 2010, bird fatality rates were “relatively high” at Pine Tree compared to 45 other wind facilities nationwide. The facility’s annual death rate per turbine is three times higher for golden eagles than at Altamont.

“Politics plays a huge role here,” Smallwood said. “Our leaders want this power source so they’re giving, for a time being, a pass to the wind industry. If you or I killed an eagle, we’re looking at major consequences.”

Smallwood and others say it is almost inconceivable the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, hasn’t acted.

“There’s a big, big hypocrisy here,” Sue Hammer of Tehachapi Wildlife Rehab in Kern County said. “If I shoot an eagle, it’s a $10,000 fine and/or a vacation of one to five years in a federal pen of my choice.”

She’s not far off from the reality.

In 2009, Exxon pleaded guilty to causing the deaths of about 85 migratory birds in five states that came into contact with crude oil in uncovered waste tanks. The fine for this was $600,000.

Likewise, PacifiCorp, an Oregon utility, owed $10.5 million in fines, restitution and improvements to their equipment after 232 eagles were killed by running into power lines in Wyoming.

And in 2005, the owner of a fish hatchery was ordered to serve six months in a federal halfway house and pay a $65,000 fine for shooting an eagle that was feeding at his uncovered hatchery.

Wind power in the U.S. generates 41,400 megawatts of electricity. California represents just a fraction of that total, suggesting the number of raptor kills is considerably higher nationwide. Yet according to records, USFWS has not prosecuted a single company for violating one of the many statutes protecting threatened and endangered birds.

BATS AND BIRDS FACE SERIOUS THREATS FROM GROWTH OF WIND ENERGY

SOURCE: New York Times

August 8, 2009

By Umair Irfan

Spinning blades and fluttering wings are clashing more frequently as greater numbers of wind turbines are installed throughout the United States and the world. The generators can top 400 feet tall, have blades turning at 160 miles per hour and can number in the dozens over hundreds of acres. They are part of America’s expanding renewable energy portfolio.

But the same breezes that push the blades are the playground of hundreds of species of birds and bats, and to them, the turbines are giant horizontal blenders.

With wind being one of the fastest-growing energy sources in the world, turbines are generating electricity along with friction between different environmental interests as advocates seek a compromise between the demand for clean renewable energy and the safety of animals.

Wind provides 198 gigawatts of electricity worldwide, with 39 GW of new capacity added just last year, according to the Renewables 2011 Global Status Report (GSR) by REN21, an international renewable energy proponent. “Commercial wind power now operates in at least 83 countries, up from just a handful of countries in the 1990s,” said Janet Sawin, research director and lead author of the GSR, in an email.

The report notes that for the first time, wind power is growing more in developing countries than industrialized nations, led by emerging markets like China, which accounted for half of the global capacity increase last year. In addition, the European Wind Energy Association projects that wind energy employment will double by 2020 in the European Union.

However, the rapid growth and expansion of wind farms has had an increasingly significant effect on birds and bats, especially since, according to the GSR, the average wind turbine size has increased. The American Bird Conservancy (ABC), an avian conservation group, observes that upward of 14 birds per megawatt of wind energy are killed each year, numbering more than 440,000. The organization projects the number will rise substantially as wind energy production increases.

Killing mechanisms are different

Yet it’s hard to determine how bird populations will respond to turbines. “It’s very difficult to say what the impact on birds is … particularly migratory birds,” said David Cottingham, senior adviser to the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Thus, the economic and environmental fallout may not be seen right away, said Cottingham.

According to FWS, birds are killed when they collide directly with turbine blades. Statistics show more birds are killed by cats and windows, to the tune of hundreds of millions. But turbines pose a unique threat to all birds, including endangered species, like whooping cranes, and raptors, like eagles, hawks and falcons.

Electrical infrastructure around turbines, like power lines, also poses hazards to birds, said FWS in a report on bird mortality.

Bats, on the other hand, face different problems around wind farms. “Many more bats than birds are killed by wind turbines, and they are killed in two ways: simply by being hit by the blades, and some are killed by pressure changes due to the sweep of the blades without even being hit,” said John Whitaker Jr., a professor of biology and director of the Center for North American Bat Research and Conservation at Indiana State University, in an email.

Because bats use sound to navigate and can detect moving objects, like insects, exceptionally well, many are better able than birds to avoid striking the blades. However, they can’t detect the invisible swath of low pressure left behind turning blades. Bats then fly into this area, and their internal airways rapidly expand, causing internal bleeding.

This phenomenon, known as barotrauma, accounts for more than half of all turbine-related fatalities in bats, according to a 2008 paper in the journal Current Biology.

The die-off is troubling because bat populations are already under stress from white nose syndrome, a spreading epidemic fungal infection that kills more than a million bats annually. This is exacerbated by bats’ slow reproductive rate and decades-long life expectancy, meaning populations are slow to recover.

“The hibernating bats are being killed by white nose syndrome, whereas it is the migratory bats — red, hoary and silver-haired bats — that are being killed by wind farms,” said Whitaker. “The kill of these bats is going to be huge.”

Bat die-off costly to farmers

Bat deaths also carry substantial economic consequences. Because of their voracious appetite for insects, bats are excellent for natural pest control. A paper published in the journal Science in March said bats typically save farmers $74 per acre, and the study projects that bat deaths can cost $3.7 billion annually in crop losses.

The solutions, according to FWS, are planning, mitigation and offsets. “We’re trying to figure out how to work with industry so you can have both renewable energy and do it in a way to protect birds, particularly those birds that are endangered species,” said Jerome Ford, director for the migratory birds program at FWS.

Ford said substantial conflicts can be avoided if wind farms are placed away from flying animals by studying wind and migration patterns.

Active deterrence, using tools like radar, is also being studied, but it can create other potential issues. “You want the birds to avoid the area to avoid injury, but you don’t want them to avoid the areas if it leads to habitat fragmentation,” said Cottingham. The FWS is also investigating vertical axis turbines, which take up less airspace and are potentially less harmful to birds and bats.

Cottingham and Ford did acknowledge that despite their best efforts, wildlife will still be at risk, including endangered species. The FWS has allowed wind energy companies to “take” a certain number of endangered animals without fines or penalties, provided they offset the harm with habitat restoration. “Take” is defined as maiming or killing under the Endangered Species Act.

Feathers fly over new guidelines

Last month, FWS released another draft of its wind energy guidelines. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), a wind industry advocacy group, expressed approval for the new document. Tom Vinson, AWEA’s senior director of federal regulatory affairs, described it as an “extraordinary achievement.”

The ABC, on the other hand, was aghast. The revised guidelines removed much of the previous language about protecting birds as well as other suggested measures to protect wildlife, and what little remained is voluntary, said Bob Johns, director of public relations for the ABC.

“What’s difficult to overlook is the number of times the word ‘should’ is used,” said Johns. “There is no reference to ‘must’ and ‘shall.’”

However, the ABC is still in favor of wind power. “We are a supporter of wind,” said Johns. “We think it has the potential to be very green. All we’re saying is do it right. It’s not hard to do. There are a limited number of sites where [harm to wildlife] would be an issue.”

Through working with the government and industry groups, the ABC hopes it is not just tilting at windmills, but that eventually there will be binding regulations to protect bald eagles and little brown bats while reducing American dependence on fossil fuels.

Read more: http://greenanswers.com/news/255300/rising-bird-death-rates-wind-energy-really-sustainable#ixzz1UPUe5bh1

House near the Town of Bryron in Fond du Lac County, Invenergy wind project

FROM ILLINOIS

TURBINES, MONEY AND NEIGHBORS

SOURCE Bureau County Republican, www.bcrnews.com

August 5, 2011

By Barb Kromphardt,

WALNUT — Following a three-hour meeting before a standing room only audience, the Walnut Planning Commission decided to postpone any decision on wind turbines outside the village limits.

“We need to be educated ourselves,” said Commissioner Gary Sarver. “I would just like to have a little more information.”

Walnut thought it had the issue settled on July 5 when the board approved an ordinance that would have banned wind turbines within one mile beyond the corporate boundaries, and required special approval for any between 1 and 1.5 miles of the village.

However, the approval was voided because the ordinance first needed to go before the planning commission for a public hearing and consideration.

On Wednesday, about 60 people crammed into the meeting room for the hearing; wind turbine supporters clustered on one side of the room, and objectors gathered on the other.

Village Attorney Rob LeSage recapped recent events regarding the ordinance and told the commissioners their options. If they recommended approval of the ordinance, it would go back to the board for a simple majority vote. It they didn’t recommend approval, the board would need to approve it by a three-fourths majority, or six of the seven trustees.

Rick Porter, attorney for the 37 Bureau County residents who have filed suit against Walnut Ridge and the Bureau County Board, said he had reviewed the ordinance and had grave concerns. Porter said the ordinance had no provisions for property value protection, and no shadow flicker or noise studies.

Walnut resident Tom Broeren said he was not pro-wind, but pro-county. Although he didn’t like the looks of the turbines, he said the money they would bring in was important. If the turbines were banned within the 1.5 mile limit, it would take more than $136,638 away from the Bureau Valley School District every year.

Marcia Magnuson then spoke of the need to protect the village. She said the income from the 12 turbines wouldn’t be lost because the company would simply move them outside the 1.5 mile limit.

Magnuson said letting turbines in closer would take away any room for the village to develop.

“Who’s going to want to come to a town that’s surrounded by wind turbines?” she said.

Jeff Wagenknecht lives two miles from the Big Sky turbines, and said the noise was so loud they should be called wind factories instead of wind farms. Wagenknecht said he filed a complaint when Walnut Ridge was trying to get its conditional use permits extended, and the company was extremely helpful.

“Now, after the vote, I can’t get a phone call returned,” he said.

James Schoff said he would have no problem living around wind turbines. He said many businesses are noisy and said he’s adapted to the noise from the Sunset Ridge motorcycle track because it brings in revenue.

Steve Hardy, Walnut Township highway commissioner, also was thinking about money, and said the 12 turbines would provide $14,000 per year for the fire department and more for all of the other taxing bodies.

Hardy said he didn’t know if the wind turbines were the best solution.

“But they’re the only solution,” he said.

Ron Bohm said he’s enjoying raising his children in Walnut but is scared of the economic issues facing the village without the turbines.

“We’re hoping that our children have the opportunity to come back here,” he said. “I don’t think we’re selling ourselves to the devil.”

Marcia Thompson was concerned that the focus was on money.

“There are a lot of people who are suffering because of your want of money,” she told the supporters.

After two hours of statements and rebuttals, LeSage said it was obvious no one liked the ordinance. Supporters didn’t want the turbines banned, and those in opposition wanted a total ban.

But LeSage didn’t think a total ban was possible, despite what Porter said.

“Walnut can regulate wind farms,” he said. “But the power to regulate is not the power to prohibit.”

LeSage said he and the lawyers he works with reviewed the same legal cases as Porter but came to a different conclusion about the legality of a ban.

“Looking at me and shrugging isn’t going to change my mind,” LeSage said to one objector.

Sarver and several board members said they weren’t prepared to decide immediately.

“I don’t want to hurt the school, but I don’t want to hurt the town either,” Sarver said.

The commissioners asked for expert testimony on both sides of the issue. LeSage said he was sure the wind turbine company would be happy to send someone, but Porter warned expert testimony against the turbines would be expensive.

The commissioners agreed to table the issue and reconvene on Aug. 17.

“If we make a mistake, it’s a long-term mistake,” Commissioner Joanne Stiver said.

A LETTER FROM SAVE THE EAGLES INTERNATIONAL

Re: USFWS revised draft Land-based Wind Energy Guidelines

Dear Sirs,

These are the comments of Save the Eagles International (STEI) regarding the above subject.

A) - We believe the proposed Guidelines are replacing the precautionary principle with “adaptive management”, which in essence means: build first and deal with real impacts on biodiversity later. This will have catastrophic consequences for many bird and bat species. But perhaps it already has, for this lax policy is not new to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

To wit the now doomed Whooping Crane. In your issue paper on that critically endangered species, we read that 2,433 wind turbines - and their power lines which are so deadly to these birds - have been erected in the United States portion of the Whooping Crane migrating corridor, and that thousands more are to come (1).

With so many deadly obstacles in their path, no amount of “compensation” as recommended in the Guidelines will save the flock that flies this corridor.  It is currently composed of 247 Whooping Cranes, and is the only viable flock of this species in the world (1). It is surprising that the FWS would have been lax enough to permit such a crime.

Knowing as we do the dedication and commitment to wildlife exhibited by so many FWS employees, we can only surmise that this biodiversity disaster in the making is a reflection of the degree of political pressure that is being wielded on the Service. The composition of the Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) in charge of steering the revision of the Guidelines is eloquent: it is so heavily loaded in favor of the windfarm industry that the bird and bat species of concern won’t stand a chance.

STEI thinks that existing and planned windfarm developments have already condemned the Whooping Crane and the California Condor to survival in captivity. The next species to disappear from US skies could be the golden eagle.

B) - Much of the effort of the Guidelines is to provide for mitigation and “compensation”, while providing for the issue of “take permits”, i.e. licenses to kill species of concern. As someone said about the windfarm invasion of Maine’s eagle habitat, this amounts to “killing the babies here, and building an orphanage there”. - It won’t wash.

Mitigation and compensation never succeeded in the past - to wit the windfarms of Altamont Pass (California), Smola (Norway), Woolnorth (Tasmania), etc. Nothing permits to say they will succeed in the future. The precautionary principle should be applied here, but conservation wisdom seems to have disappeared from the philosophy of the Fish and Wildlife Service, at least where windfarms are concerned.

Windfarms are erected in the most windy spots, which are also sought by raptors for added lift. So they kill a great many of these birds. Trying to compensate by protecting raptor habitat elsewhere, generally in areas less attractive to raptors, is a fool’s bargain.

C) - The Guidelines have done away with another sound principle of conservation, which is to consider cumulative impacts. They adopt a case-by-case, salami-slicing approach that makes a mockery of that principle. The words “cumulative effects” do appear in the Guidelines, but in a lip-service fashion.

D) - The Guidelines are, in our opinion, useless where biodiversity protection is concerned, because they continue to rely on environmental impact assessments commissioned and controlled by wind farm developers. Asking businessmen to evaluate the risk that their projects will represent for birds and bats is not just absurd: it is laughable. There are many consultants willing to manipulate and deceive, predicting very low mortality provided the money is good. Effectively, windfarm developers have been quick to find the most complacent among them, whose names keep coming in front of our eyes over and over again. STEI has been denouncing these worthless studies many times, be they pre-construction of post construction. A notable exception has been those by Dr Shawn Smallwood, and a few other researchers while not in the employ of wind farm operators or other constraining sponsors.

E) - The Guidelines pave the way for the routine deliverance of licenses to kill protected or endangered species (in bureaucratic jargon, a “take permit”). A new name was even coined to allow the killing of an undetermined number of eagles by a single windfarm: the “programmatic take permit” (1). In STEI’s opinion, this spells the doom of the golden eagle in the US, and a notable decline in bald eagle populations.

F) - STEI opines that the Guidelines, actually, constitute a road-map showing windfarm developers how to proceed to site their projects anywhere they please, even where they will kill Eagles or Whooping Cranes. If they use the bureaucratic jargon, follow the bureaucratic steps described in the “Decision Framework Using a Tiered Approach”, and talk to the Service, they will be judged with leniency if their windfarms end up having serious adverse effects on the environment. The Guidelines themselves say so:

“The Service urges voluntary adherence to the guidelines and communication with the Service when planning and operating a facility. In the context of voluntary guidelines, it is not possible to absolve individuals or companies from MBTA or BGEPA liability, but the Service will regard such voluntary adherence and communication as evidence of due care with respect to avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating significant adverse impacts to species protected under the MBTA and BGEPA, and will take such adherence and communication fully into account when exercising its discretion with respect to any potential referral for prosecution related to the death of or injury to any such species.”

Note: the 5-tier assessment process proposed by the Guidelines has no value if the developers themselves or their consultants do the footwork, which is the case.

G) - However lax and inefficient are the proposed Guidelines, making them voluntary is yet another concession to the FAC, i.e. to windfarm developers, and against bird and bat species of concern.

Conclusion

It boggles the mind that, at a time where all attempts have failed to adequately mitigate and compensate for the carnage of raptors at Altamont Pass, Guidelines would be proposed that rely basically on mitigation and compensation, and pave the way for more eagle and other mortality through the issuance of take permits.

Having criticised the proposed Guidelines, STEI wishes to propose some positive measures that would help reduce the ill-siting of wind turbines in areas where they will kill eagles and other threatened species.

1) - STEI recommends that no windfarms be allowed within 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) of eagle nests. This is what the Spanish Ornithological Society recommended in its first version of their current guidelines. They then rapidly published a new version in which their recommendation had been watered down into a warning that there may be a risk to eagles if windfarms were installed within 15 km of their nests. Obviously, pressure had been applied upon the bird society, which is member of Birdlife International. But the idea remains the same: within 15 km, breeding eagles may be killed.

As for young roaming eagles, they may be killed anywhere, especially on hilltops and mountain ridges. Indeed this is where eagles fly to get added lift from deflected winds, and where most windfarms are located for their prevailing windy conditions.

Eagles and windfarms are therefore on a collision course. The great birds’ future is very bleak.

2) - STEI recommends that environmental impact assessments should be conducted by independent experts neither chosen, paid, or controlled by windfarm interests. To finance these studies, we propose that developers pay $300,000 to $500,000 upfront when applying for a permit to build any windfarm, the exact amount depending on the sensitiveness of the area. The experts would be chosen jointly by USFWS and NGO’s renowned for not supporting blindly the wind industry (e.g. the American Bird Conservancy or STEI). We also recommend that these studies be made over 3 years pre-construction, by at least two qualified ornithologists. Any excess monies should be pooled by FWS and used to finance other independent studies to help understand the lethal relationship birds/bats/windfarms.

STEI doesn’t receive any money at all. We are all volunteers. This allows us to say what we think, which is that biodiversity is in grave peril, and that windfarms are the cause. Cats and windows don’t kill eagles and whooping cranes. Windfarms and their power lines do.

Mark Duchamp    
President, Save the Eagles International
http://www.savetheeaglesinternational.org

References:

(1) - WHOOPING CRANES AND WIND DEVELOPMENT - AN ISSUE PAPER
By Regions 2 and 6, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service - April 2009