Entries in Wind farm birds (29)
7/30/10 Wind Turbine troubles North of the border AND Like a bad neighbor (especially in Rock County, Wisconsin) Acciona is there AND The moon is made of green cheese, economic recovery is made of green jobs
Dr. McMurtry on wind turbine concerns.
Click on the image above to hear why this Canadian doctor is concerned about the current state of wind turbine siting regulation.
NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD:
Contracts signed by local landowners in Rock County were sold when Acciona bought the rights to develop an industrial scale wind project from fledgling wind developer, EcoEnergy.
EcoEnergy did not disclose how much profit they made from selling local contracts to the Spanish wind industry giant, but local landowners will not see a higher payout as a result, or an option to get out of the contract.
Five continguous Rock County townships have adopted ordinances that require wind developers to site turbines at least 2640 feet from non-participating homes.
In a matter of weeks, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin will issue wind siting rules that will overturn those ordinances along with those of many other Wisconsin Towns and Counties.
Better Plan Wisconsin [BPWI], has repreatedly asked Acciona about its plans for the wind project in Rock County which at one time included siting 67 industrial scale wind turbines in the Town of Magnolia's 36 square miles.
Acciona has thus far failed to respond.
Landowners who signed contracts with EcoEnergy early on are now angered to find that the offer of a reported $4,000 per turbine per year is far below the going rate being offered to farmers in other communities in our state.
Some have expressed a desire to get out of those contracts and renegotiate something on par with what other wind developers are offering. Others want out because they have witnessed the damage and fragmentation of farm fields left behind by wind development in other parts of our state and want no part of it.
Still others have seen their families and communities torn apart by this issue and no longer feel that it is worth it.
However, landowners in Brown and Columbia Counties are finding out just how hard it is to get out of the contracts they signed at the kitchen table with the once 'friendly' wind developer.
Doing business on a handshake has long been the tradition in rural Wisconsin.
It was something that worked well before out-of-state wind developers began to show up at farmsteads with big promises and iron clad contracts.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, like a bad neighbor, Acciona is there too.
The Dean Report
(Posted July 28, 2010)
Within weeks of the towers first being turned on, Noel Dean began suffering adverse health effects. Australian newspapers quoted Dean this way: "I was waking up two days in a row with headaches, I'd have to take Panadol but they'd be gone by dinner time.
When the wind is blowing north I got a thumping headache, like someone belted me over the head with a plank of wood and I didn't know whether to go to the hospital or what to do. You couldn't really work."
Other symptoms he and his wife experienced included general malaise, nausea, sleeplessness and general uneasiness.
By July, the Deans had packed up and left their farm.
Around the same time, an investigation of wind farm noise complaints was underway in New Zealand. Residents living near the towers in New Zealand were filing complaints of sleep disturbance, annoyance, anxiety and nausea. As more people in both Australia and New Zealand became comfortable in talking about their health concerns a picture began to emerge that researchers found unusual. There were compelling similarities between experiences in two totally different countries, totally different environments and totally different turbines.
Audible wind farm sound and consequential sleep disturbance, annoyance and anxiety responses were similar for people in both countries. These effects were also experienced even under situations of near inaudible wind turbine sound.
The concerns of the Deans and others living within 3500 meters of operational wind farms triggered more than twelve months of intensive study by a group of 4 qualified researchers.
The result is The Dean Report, a detailed peer-reviewed analysis of the sound levels near the Dean's properties and the potential adverse effects of wind farm activity on human health.
Dr. Robert Thorne PhD[1], who authored the report, based his findings and conclusions on extensive field work, personal investigations, case studies and the development of sound analysis methodologies. He told Windaction.org that "the Dean Report, in its various forms, has been placed in evidence subject to cross-examination before a Board of Inquiry and formal wind farm hearings for the purposes of peer-review and critique. A hypothesis as to cause and effect for adverse health effects from wind farm activity is presented."
In news reports today, wind farm operator, Acciona Energy, insisted "there is already enough existing credible evidence proving there are no health effects from wind farm noise."
We respectfully disagree. The Dean Report makes clear we are only just beginning to understand problem.
[1] Dr. Thorne is a principal of Noise Measurement Services Pty Ltd in Australia. He holds a PhD in Health Science from Massey University, New Zealand. His professional background is the measurement of low background sound levels and the assessment of noise as it affects people.
Windaction.org wishes to express its thanks to Dr. Thorne and Mr. Dean for sharing the Dean Report with us and permitting us to provide its content to our readers.
SECOND FEATURE:
“It’s easier to make the case” about jobs, Viard said, “than it is to say ‘Is wind energy or offshore oil drilling what we should be doing?’”
“The jobs argument is very popular,” Viard added. “It is very annoying to economists.”
As the Senate rushes toward a vote on oil spill legislation, those seeking changes in the bill are loading their arguments with a potent political word: jobs.
The oil and natural gas industry warns that aggressive regulation of oil drilling could kill industry jobs and those beyond the petroleum sector. Renewable power advocates argue that omitting needed climate policies from the Senate bill threatens existing green jobs and fails to bolster those that could be created.
“People want jobs, and all the more so in a situation like this,” with an ongoing recession, said Alan Viard, an economist who is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “It naturally has a political resonance.”
But Viard and other economists warn that the jobs arguments is flawed. Industries tend to look only at a policy’s impact on one sector, ignoring the broader economic impact. And they avoid a tough examination of other factors that should dictate policy decisions, such as whether something is worthwhile and what are all the costs.
“It’s easier to make the case” about jobs, Viard said, “than it is to say ‘Is wind energy or offshore oil drilling what we should be doing?’”
“The jobs argument is very popular,” Viard added. “It is very annoying to economists.”
Jobs arguments long have been made to buttress and condemn many proposed policies and became more impassioned with the recession and high unemployment. The 2009 stimulus bill passed on promises it would create jobs. It included grants, loan guarantees and other incentives meant to drive job creation, particularly in the clean energy arena.
President Obama earlier this month promoted his policies as having helped workers. While the White House has not estimated how many clean-energy jobs its policies have spawned or protected, it said that overall the Recovery Act has saved or created 2.5 million to 3.6 million jobs (Greenwire, July 15).
Democrats, renewable energy sectors and environmental groups promote the potential for “green job” creation as one of the reasons passage of climate legislation is crucial. Climate legislation now appears dead for this session, but as the oil spill bill moves forward, the jobs argument thrives.
Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, on Tuesday decried Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plan to omit from the bill a renewable electricity standard, a national mandate requiring utilities to use some green power(Greenwire, July 27).
“We are going to see jobs lost,” Bode said. “We are going to see manufacturing facilities not built in the United States. For 85,000 people employed by the wind sector,” she said, “this is about survival as an industry.”
Clean Energy Works, an alliance of about 60 groups that want climate legislation, on Tuesday sent an e-mail to reporters with the subject line “CEOs: Obstruction of Climate Bill Sends Jobs to China, Dollars to Enemies, Increases Pollution at Home.”
The fossil fuel industry also is talking jobs, asserting that over-regulation of the sector could be devastating for workers.
“This would cut domestic production, kill American jobs, slow economic growth and cost billions in federal oil and natural gas revenues,” said Jack Gerard, American Petroleum Institute president and CEO, about a proposal to lift limits on petroleum company liability for oil spill damages (Greenwire, July 27).
“Majority Leader Reid suggests his bill will create 150,000 new jobs,” Gerard added, “but our analysis indicates that failing to develop in the deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico will cost more than that — 175,000 jobs, the majority of them in already hard-hit Gulf Coast communities.”
Any new jobs?
The reality, economists said, is that although a recession can temporarily shrink the number of jobs, there are roughly the same number of people working at any given time. Government policies can shift where those jobs exist, but for the most part not eliminate or create them, they said.
“Arguments about … the job-creating or job-destroying effects of climate legislation, those sort of miss the point,” said Chad Stone, chief economist at the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “A transformation to a green economy would change the composition of jobs in the economy, not the aggregate number of jobs.”
Wind’s trade group argues that an renewable electricity standard would provide long-term stability for the industry and encourage private investment, leading to job growth. But that fails to acknowledge that policy could hurt jobs elsewhere, like in the coal industry, said Adele Morris, policy director for climate and energy economics at the Brookings Institution.
“The wind people, they want to focus on the gross jobs in their industry, not the net jobs across the economy,” Morris said. There may be other reasons to want wind versus coal jobs, she said, but that is a different argument.
The wind group disagreed.
“There are differences from one technology to another, and renewables tend to be more job-intensive energy sources,” AWEA said. “A critical portion of the jobs we are talking about here are manufacturing jobs, to make the 8,000 components that go into a modern wind turbine, and to create a U.S. supply chain here in the U.S. for wind and other renewable energy manufacturing.
“If those manufacturing jobs aren’t created here, they will go in Europe or China,” AWEA added. “Winning the clean energy manufacturing race is the critical opportunity right now with the RES.”
For environmental goals to succeed, Morris said, the power made from green sources has to be as inexpensive as possible. That means making the technology in the least expensive place possible. She did not say where that might be.
“Any policy that’s designed to drive manufacturing toward more expensive locations is ultimately going to undermine the environmental goal,” Morris said.
When government policies eliminate some jobs, over the long run the labor market adjusts, Morris said.
“The people who are employed in that industry eventually migrate to other sectors,” Morris said.
Larger effect
Over the short term, however, economists acknowledge adjustments can be painful to some workers and regions. The extent of that impact is open to some debate.
The American Petroleum Institute argues that an extended moratorium on deepwater oil drilling, or changes in tax law that make drilling less profitable, will eliminate jobs in the oil industry and well beyond it.
A report released Tuesday by the industry trade group says that more than 175,000 jobs would be affected annually by those kind of policies. It looked at the period from 2013 through 2035.
API reaches that number in its report by combining workers in three groups. It said that 30,183 oil company jobs would be at risk with a long-term moratorium. The analysis then adds in jobs indirectly connected to the industry, like workers with companies that make a product used in oil drilling or who work for a support company, like operators of contracted drilling rigs. That is another 63,207 positions, API said.
But the API report sees the affected employment pool as even bigger than those groups. The API study also includes all of the jobs that are affected by how oil company and ancillary business workers spend their wages. Those workers eat in a nearby restaurant, for example, and the report counts the job of the cook as also being relevant, said Kyle Isakower, API’s vice president of regulatory and economic policy. Those jobs, called the “induced effect,” total 82,051.
“Contrary to popular belief, the benefits of oil and gas development and production are not restricted to a narrow sector of the economy,” the API report says. “Rather, its impacts are broad-based benefiting manufacturing, construction, real estate, finance and insurance, health and social services among others.”
The same could be said of all jobs, some economists said. There is only so much money being spent in society at any one time, Viard said, and how it is spent has effects on different people.
“It’s absolutely true if I spend a dollar on offshore drilling instead of spending it on a hamburger, that is going to have a whole series of ripple effects,” Viard said. But the induced effect of not spending that dollar on the hamburger “is equally wide,” he said.
If an oil company did not spend money on drilling, Viard said, it might choose to return it to shareholders, who might spend it elsewhere or invest it, which could drive down interest rates and benefit home buyers.
“Everything affects everything,” Viard said. “There’s no way to trace where that money would go, but it would go somewhere, and wherever it went it would create jobs, direct, indirect and induced.”
Not all jobs have equal positive impacts on society, Isakower said.
“While there will be an induced effect for any job, some jobs have greater induced effects than others,” Isakower said. Oil industry jobs are among those that benefit many others, he said, because “they do tend to be higher-paying jobs than the national average.”
A moratorium could cause short-term pain to oil industry jobs and support businesses, Morris said, because those jobs tend to be concentrated in a few geographic areas.
“Workers can’t instantly change what industry their skills are suited to,” Morris said, and small businesses that service the oil drilling sector cannot quickly relocate.
“There’s no question that in the short run there can be economic disruption,” Morris said. “That doesn’t mean by itself [that a moratorium] is a bad policy. We could be buying time to prevent further economic degradation down the line.”
Economists argued that policy decisions should not be made solely or even largely on the basis of whether they will hurt or help jobs.
“Otherwise,” Viard said, “we would still have the horse-and-buggy industry because we didn’t want to lose horse-and-buggy jobs.”
The BPRC Research Nerd
in Wind farm birds, Wisconsin wind siting council, acciona, acciona contracts, accionia wind, health effects, win farm wildlife, wind farm bats, wind farm compensation, wind farm complaints, wind farm contract, wind farm health effects, wind farm health effects. wisconsin wind farm, wind farm lese, wind farm property valuses
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7/5/10 The headache Down Under: Like a bad neighbor, Acciona is there AND Wind siting council meeting on Tuesday
Noel Dean has a farm at Waubra but he and his family moved out 13 months ago when their headaches worsened.
“Sore ears, pain in and around the eyes, pain on top of the head, pain in the back of the head, behind the ears and early this year, we started to get throbbing pain at the back of the head and tinnitus,” he said.
“We couldn’t stay there another night – it was that bad.”
RESIDENTS REJECT WIND FARM HEALTH FINDINGS
SOURCE: ABC News, www.abc.net.au July 5 2010
By Kellie Lazzaro,
Campaigners against wind farms have rejected a report finding no scientific evidence to link wind turbines to health problems.
The National Health and Medical Research Council, which advises the Federal Government, found that there was no evidence that the turbines’ low frequency noise or shadow flicker made people sick.
But residents of Waubra in Victoria’s south-west who live near the state’s largest wind farm, say they are sick and are convinced that wind turbines are to blame.
Noel Dean has a farm at Waubra but he and his family moved out 13 months ago when their headaches worsened.
“Sore ears, pain in and around the eyes, pain on top of the head, pain in the back of the head, behind the ears and early this year, we started to get throbbing pain at the back of the head and tinnitus,” he said.
“We couldn’t stay there another night – it was that bad.”
Mr Dean first complained to the Waubra wind farm operator Acciona in May last year, but the company refused to give him access to the outcome of its investigation.
He then commissioned an independent report into noise levels at his property at a cost of more than $40,000.
He has just received that report by Noise Measurement Services and says it confirms there is a link between the low frequency noise from wind farms and adverse health effects.
“Anything from 1 to 20 hertz can cause adverse health effects and that is what we have found in a pulsing motion. It is a pulsing motion that makes the effects just a lot worse,” he said.
But in a rapid review of existing studies, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has found there is no published evidence of direct pathological effects from wind farms.
The director of the council’s evidence and advice branch, Professor John McCallum, says they have brought together opinion and evidence from all around the world.
“Shadow flicker is the flicking on and off of wind turbine shadows as the blades rotate. It is the glint off the surface of the blades and those are now minimised by treatment of the blades that prevents reflective glint as well, and they are the kind of four main areas that people talk about health effects from,” he said.
He says World Health Organisation (WHO) studies have found no reliable evidence that sound below the hearing threshold will produce physiological or psychological effects.
The NHMRC report refers to a study of three wind farms in the UK that found if people are worried about their health, they may become anxious and suffer stress-related illnesses.
For this reason Professor John McCallum says people who believe they are experiencing health problems should consult a GP, but he says the report commissioned by Noel Dean about noise levels on his farm would need to be further tested.
Donald Thomas also lives at Waubra and was a big supporter of the wind farm, until he too started getting headaches, heart palpitations and high blood pressure.
“We’ve invited the Health Minister and top health officials to actually come out to Waubra to talk to us and see what the problem is first hand, but none of them have bothered to do that. They just look at overseas studies and pick the ones that suit them,” he said.
The National Health and Medical Research Council acknowledges the health effects of renewable energy generation have not been assessed to the same extent as those from traditional sources and recommends authorities continue to monitor research.
The National Environment Protection and Heritage Council has met in Darwin today to consider national wind farm development guidelines.
NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: Acciona has several projects in the works in Wisconsin, but we've had no luck getting them to tell us what their plans are for our communities.
WIND SITING HEARING NOTICE
Tuesday July 6, 2010, beginning at 1:00 p.m and 6:00 p.m.
Docket 1-AC-231
Public Service Commission of Wisconsin
First Floor, Amnicon Falls Room
610 North Whitney Way, Madison, WisconsinAudio and video of the meeting will be broadcast from the PSC Website beginning at 1:00.
CLICK HERE to visit the PSC website, click on the button on the left that says "Live Broadcast". Sometimes the meetings don't begin right on time. The broadcasts begin when the meetings do so keep checking back if you don't hear anything at the appointed start time.
MEETING NOTICE
Wind Siting Council
Docket 1-AC-231Agenda
1) Welcome/Review of today’s agenda
2) Review and adoption of meeting minutes of June 21, 2010 & June 23, 2010
3) Straw proposal amendment ballot results
4) Straw proposal revisions based on ballot results
5) Additional revisions to straw proposal prior to end of public comment period
6) Next steps/Discussion of next meeting’s time, place and agenda
7) Adjourn
NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD:
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE WIND SITING COUNCIL STRAW PROPOSAL
The BPRC Research Nerd
in Acciona, Wind farm birds, Wisconsin wind siting council, wind developer wisconsin, wind farm bats, wind farm contracts, wind farm health, wind farm noise, wind farm property values, wind farm setbacks, wind farm shadow flicker, wind siting rules
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6/30/10 Final Wind Siting Hearing in Madison AND Ramming it through: Is the PSC even listening? AND Brown County Towns asks that more time and care be taken in creating guidelines. Will the PSC's reply be "LOL!" ?
WEDNESDAY June 30, 2010, beginning at 1:00 p.m and 6:00 p.m.
Docket 1-AC-231
Public Service Commission of Wisconsin
First Floor, Amnicon Falls Room
610 North Whitney Way, Madison, WisconsinAudio and video of the meeting will be broadcast from the PSC Website beginning at 1:00.
CLICK HERE to visit the PSC website, click on the button on the left that says "Live Broadcast". Sometimes the meetings don't begin right on time. The broadcasts begin when the meetings do so keep checking back if you don't hear anything at the appointed start time.
WIND TURBINE DEBATE SPINS TOWARD SEPTEMBER 1 DEADLINE
SOURCE: The Daily Reporter, dailyreporter.com
June 29 2010
By Paul Snyder,
The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin is sticking to a firm Sept. 1 deadline to propose wind turbine placement rules despite calls from local governments to wait.
“We had a very clear mandate to get work done quickly,” PSC Chairman Eric Callisto said Tuesday.
“Expediency is important in order to have uniformity and ground rules in place for future wind development.”
Callisto and other PSC staff members this week are traveling throughout the state to hold public hearings on wind turbine placement draft rules based on recommendations from the state’s Wind Siting Council. The council’s goal is to recommend rules for turbine placement on wind farms that generate less than 100 megawatts of electricity. Wind farms that generate more than 100 megawatts are subject to PSC approval.
The council first met in March, and Callisto said then he expected recommendations by July. The PSC will then use those recommendations to make rules by Sept. 1 for review and approval by state lawmakers.
Still, local governments argue the process is moving too fast.
Representatives from the towns of Morrison, Wrightstown and Glenmore in Brown County last week requested the Wind Siting Council first consider a March report by the World Health Organization relating to health problems caused by wind turbines.
Glen Schwalbach, who submitted the request on behalf of the towns, said further review is more important than a year or two delay in setting the turbine placement rules.
“The fact is: We have newer information now that says there are more health implications than some people have believed relating to noise effects,” said Schwalbach, the town supervisor in Rockland, which neighbors the three towns requesting the review. “It’s not just a case of whining or people imagining things.”
Doug Zweizig, the siting council’s co-chairman, said council members do not know why they have to meet the Sept. 1 deadline. He said he thinks itís a mistake to rush a set of recommendations to the PSC.
Zweizig, a Plan Commission member in the town of Union, said his town took about a year and a half to develop a wind farm ordinance.
“It’s clear that they’re trying to pass something as quickly as possible,” he said. “I think the council could have had a much better process, but it went almost immediately to looking at positions of the various members.”
The majority of the 15-member council, Zweizig said, favors wind development, and members who have experience living on wind farms are not being heard.
Callisto said he wants consensus recommendations but will take the majority’s vote if that’s the best he can get.
“It would hold more weight if it was consensus, but I realize how difficult this is,” he said. “It was not unanimous legislation, either.”
The reason for the Sept. 1 deadline, Callisto said, is so Senate and Assembly committees can review and approve the rules before the legislative session ends. Because the turbine placement recommendations would represent rule changes, they would need to be submitted by Sept. 1 during an election year and only would require approval from legislative committees rather than the full Legislature, Callisto said.
He said he wants the same group of lawmakers that formed the council to review the rule change proposals.
If new wind farm studies come along, Callisto said, and groups such as the Brown County towns want more review, there is room for change.
“I think they’re going to be flexible to accommodate new studies,” he said. “Rules get modified all the time. Nothing’s written in stone.”
NEXT FEATURE
TO: Public Service Commission of Wisconsin
Docket No. 1-AC-231 Draft Chapter 128--Wind Energy Systems
Request by the Towns of Morrison, Wrightstown and Glenmore
Brown County, Wisconsin
June 23, 2010
Issue: Request to delay issuing the PSCW wind siting standards until epidemiological studies of health complaints from Wisconsin`s current wind farms are thoroughly completed.
The towns of Morrison, Wrightstown, and Glenmore in Brown County are very concerned about the mounting evidence that there are serious negative impacts on human and animal health caused by wind turbines. It appears it is not only reasonable to delay the issuance of wind siting standards but it would be irresponsible to not do so in light of new studies and ongoing complaints of residents in and near Wisconsin`s existing wind farms.
In general, scientifically and statistically relevant studies have been limited. But, a very important report was published March 2010 by the World Health Organization (WHO) entitled "Night Noise Guidelines for Europe" (available at euro.who.int/en/what-we-publish/abstracts/night-noise-guidelines-for-europe).
The report is based on a six-year evaluation of scientific evidence by thirty-five scientists from medical and acoustical disciplines. WHO indicated that now governments have justifications to regulate noise exposure at night. WHO sets the limit for annual average exposure to not exceed 40 decibels (dB) outside of a residence.
WHO stated, "Recent research clearly links exposure to night noise with harm to health. Sleep disturbance and annoyance are the first effects of night noise and can lead to mental disorders. Just like air pollution and toxic chemicals, noise is an environmental hazard to health". WHO stated that they hope their new report will prompt governments to invest effort and money in protecting health from this growing hazard.
Our towns ask the PSCW to acquire the WHO report and evaluate its application to setting appropriate sound levels for wind turbines.
The PSCW`s draft rules do not address low frequency noise levels. It is not known whether the WHO report addresses this issue but other studies have described the likely effects. This is another area where epidemiological studies are needed before wind turbine setbacks can be reasonably proposed.
Besides sleep disturbance, there are complaints of other physiological problems. It is not acceptable to ignore or minimize the significance of these impacts as just quirks of human imagination.
Also, there is evidence that existing wind farms in Wisconsin are negatively affecting farm animals. Whether it is noise or some other physical phenomena, studies and testing should be done before setting siting standards.
At a public meeting of the Brown County Health Department and the Brown County Human Services Committee, reputable medical and health experts stressed the importance of epidemiological studies to determine the true nature of health impacts of wind turbines.
The State Board of Health pointed out that the lack of funding is a hurdle. But a conviction to do the right thing should prompt the PSCW to make a case to pursue the money issue with state legislators as well as our U.S. senators and representatives. Certainly, our towns would help in this endeavor. That said, it is even more appropriate for the wind developers and their associations to offer funding for independent studies since such studies should reduce future litigation. Electric utilities should have a stake in this effort as well. This is an opportunity to involve the University of Wisconsin research capabilities in both human health and animal health.
It appears that Act 40 does not set a deadline for completing the siting rules. This week a state senator who was one of the leaders in passing the wind siting law agreed that studies should be done to be sure the rules are adequate. If one or two years were used to study the existing wind farms while delaying any new installations, the developers would still have time to help utilities meet their 15% RPS by 2015. Again, if needed, our towns would help in getting the support of legislators.
Our towns implore the PSCW and the Wind Siting Council to not ignore the evidence of potentially serious health impacts and to not set standards until they have done the obvious and reasonable step of studying the health impacts of existing wind turbine installations in Wisconsin. Professional ethics demands no less. We believe our request aligns with the PSCW`s responsibility to protect the citizens of Wisconsin.
Submitted for the towns by Glen R. Schwalbach, P.E.
The BPRC Research Nerd
in Brown County Invenergy, Eric Callisto, Wind developers behaving badly, Wind farm birds, Wind farm health effects, Wisconsin public service commission, psc wind siting council, wind farm bats, wind farm noise, wind farm property values, wind farm shadow flicker, wind siting council, wind siting rules legislation and policy
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5/11/10 TRIPLE FEATURE: Bye-Bye Brown County, Hello Invenergy AND Bye-Bye Birdie, Hello Wind Industry AND Bye-Bye Bat Population, Hello Post Construction bat mortality numbers showing Wisconsin wind turbine related bat kills among the highest in North America at ten times the national average
“The notion that the wind industry is predominantly made up of small, environmentally conscious operations is one that must be quickly dispelled.
These are large, corporate-scale utility companies, not unlike coal and oil conglomerates … with a checkered environmental track record to date.
Voluntary guidelines will not change that paradigm, and will work about as well as voluntary taxes.”
George Fenwick
President, American Bird Conservancy
May 11, 2010
INVENERGY TRIES TO WOO BROWN COUNTY FOR WIND FARM PROJECT
SOURCE Green Bay Press-Gazette, www.greenbaypressgazette.com
May 11, 2010
By Tony Walter,
Invenergy LLC officials say they have a track record of profitable projects and satisfied customers to support their efforts to bring a wind farm to Brown County.
“If one looks overall at this, they’ll see there’s a high level of comfort,” said Kevin Parzyck, project manager for the proposed 100-turbine Ledge Wind Energy Project in four towns in southern Brown County. “Our feeling is that it’s a benefit to the community.”
Invenergy, one of the six largest wind energy companies in the country, according to the American Wind Energy Association, wants the local project to become its 23rd wind farm in the United States.
It awaits siting guidelines from the Wisconsin Public Service Commission as it fends off opposition from a citizens group that is protesting the location in Morrison, Wrightstown, Glenmore and Holland.
The PSC is expected to announce the guidelines by July, and Invenergy plans to resubmit its proposal based on those rules.
Many property owners in Brown County have signed contracts with Invenergy to permit wind turbines on their land in exchange for annual payments of approximately $8,000. Other property owners insist that the wind turbines will have negative health and safety impacts and will reduce property values.
But Invenergy officials say they have public opinion on their side.
The Wisconsin Legislature has been debating a bill that would require one-fourth of the state’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2025. And a poll commissioned by the American Wind Energy Association claims that 89 percent of American voters believe that increasing reliance on wind energy is a good idea.
Parzyck said the proposed wind farm in Brown County is not a reckless plan and has the potential of being a $300 million project when completed.
“There has to be a rock solid plan in place if you’re going to have a huge upfront investment,” he said.
The opposition group, Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy, is misinforming the public, he said.
“The one thing I would say is this group is extremely well-funded and well connected statewide,” he said.
“They have said they do not believe renewable energy makes sense in Wisconsin, but that flies in the face of what the Legislature and electorate has asked for. And they haven’t offered any alternatives.”
The citizens group has said it doesn’t oppose wind turbines but objects to their locations. The decisions on where to locate the turbines were based on the towns’ zoning ordinances at the time, Parzyck said.
Bill Hafs, the county’s land and water conservation director, said he has been in contact with Invenergy officials to discuss the possible impact of wind turbine construction on groundwater. But he said the county has no say on the wind farm issue.
Invenergy’s financial worth isn’t disclosed because it is a privately owned company. It has wind farms in 14 states and one in Canada.
SECOND FEATURE:
FEDERAL WIND FARM RULES MAY NOT SAVE BIRDS
United Press International, www.upi.com
May 10, 2010
The American Bird Conservancy says it fears proposed voluntary guidelines for wind farms will not prevent the deaths of birds by the turbines.
ABC President George Fenwick said Monday he sent letters to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey identifying key shortcomings in recent federal plans to address the affects of wind farms on birds.
“I find it ironic that the Interior Department is asking us to believe that the wind industry will follow voluntary guidelines when their own land management agency is not even doing so,” Fenwick said.
Fenwick said the Fish and Wildlife Wind Advisory Committee has made excellent recommendations for the generation of wind power that the conservancy wants adopted throughout the federal government. But Fenwick said the major shortcoming in the recommendations is that they are proposed as voluntary, rather than mandatory, and as such will do little to curb unacceptable levels of bird mortality and habitat loss at wind farms.
“The notion that the wind industry is predominantly made up of small, environmentally conscious operations is one that must be quickly dispelled,” Fenwick said. “These are large, corporate-scale utility companies, not unlike coal and oil conglomerates … with a checkered environmental track record to date. Voluntary guidelines will not change that paradigm, and will work about as well as voluntary taxes.”
THIRD FEATURE: A letter from a bat and a Wisconsin conservationist
The Bat in the Wind Turbine Facility… Today’s Canary in the Coal Mine
By Kevin Kawula
May 11, 2010
Things are going badly for our wildlife populations in and around the operating industrial scale wind projects in Wisconsin.
Anecdotal reports from people living in Wisconsin wind projects report an absence of normal wildlife, i.e. no turkey, no deer, fewer or no songbirds, and no bats. Relatives and friends outside the wind facility report greater numbers of deer and turkey.
The birds and deer are leaving the area, but the bats are as likely to be dieing, as leaving.
A recent post-construction bird and bat mortality report, conducted by We Energies (WEPCO) CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD as part of receiving approval for it’s Blue Sky Green Field project, shows that the bird deaths were 11 to 12 bird deaths/per turbine/per year. This is four times higher than the national average of 3 bird kills/per turbine/per year.
Even more alarming are the bat kill rates of 40.54 to 41/per turbine/per year This is more than ten times the reported national average of less than 4 per turbine per year.
Wisconsin's turbine related bat deaths are among the highest in North America, and equal to the bat mortality numbers from Pennsylvania/Appalachia area which stunned conservationists across the nation.
The total number of bats killed by the 88 turbine Blue Sky Green Field project is estimated to be between 3,500 to 3,600 per year.
Two additional post construction reports show the same bat kill rates at the Cedar Ridge project, and slightly higher kill rates at Invenergy Forward Energy project near the Horicon Marsh.
These three projects alone have resulted in an estimated 8,000 bat deaths per year.
That's 16,000 dead bats for the two years these projects have been in operation.
According to page 66 and 67 of the Public Service Commission's Environmental Impact Statement, the bat kill numbers for the pending Glacier Hills wind project are expected to be equally as high, adding at least another 3500 turbine related bat deaths per year.
Can Wisconsin bat populations sustain this kind of impact?
Bats are not being struck by the blades (135 feet long with tip speeds of 180mph), but are suffering catastrophic damage to their lungs as they fly into the low-pressure zone that is created behind the rotating blades.
This drop in pressure causes their lungs to expand rapidly, burst, fill with fluid and blood, and they drown. It is called barotrauma – deep-sea divers get a version of it called the bends, when raised too quickly from the depths.
Birds have different lung structures, so they are not as readily affected, but bats are mammals and have lungs much more similar to ours, so take a deep breath, and imagine you can’t stop inhaling until your lungs burst.
Bats live up to thirty years, reproduce slowly, maybe one pup a year, and and because they maintain tight family groups, the loss of a single bat can have a significant impact.
Bats are a vital link in the natural balance of Wisconsin’s wild and not so wild areas.
I cannot think of a time in human history that bats have not been flying over Wisconsin, but the loss of our bat population could happen in our lifetimes.
White nose syndrome, a nasal/respiratory fungus, is threatening cave roosting/hibernating species of bats, in the eastern United States into extinction, but has not yet reached Wisconsin.
Industrial wind turbines kill all species of bats, even the tree roosting/migrating species we hoped might be spared from the white nose blight.
If the state continues to follow its plan to add 200 to 300 new industrial turbines each year until 2025, turbine related bat deaths could be as high as 131,200 to 192,700 bats per year.
This total annual mortality number is unlikely, because the remaining bat populations would likely crash from mounting annual losses before then.
I am asking that we, as conservationists, help stop this needless slaughter.
Contact the Department of Natural Resources and the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin with your concerns.
Shari Koslowsky, Conservation Biologist with the DNR, has been very helpful in explaining the post construction mortality numbers. She can be reached at shari.koslowsky@wisconsin.gov , (608) 261- 4382.
My main concern is that there is no representative of any organization with expertise in wildlife and natural habitat protection on the Wind Siting Council. The Wind Siting Council is a 15 member organization currently working on creating guidelines for siting wind turbines in our state.
I am asking that the DNR require the PSC to stop the operation of industrial scale wind turbine facilities at night (curtailment) when electrical demand is low and easily met by existing base load generation which cannot be shut off.
The period from dusk until dawn must be reserved for migrating and feeding wildlife as an equitable distribution of a state (“free wind”) natural resource, for the greater good of the whole rural community, human and animal. Night time curtailment would ensure safe passage for bats and night migrating birds, and provide a reliable period of quiet for the undisturbed sleep that is vital to any being's health.
CLICK HERE to leave a comment on the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin’s Wind Siting Council’s docket.
Thank you all for your time and consideration on this issue. Energy independence will eventually mean grid independence, but until then the decision makers need to face the facts and take responsibility for the harm caused by their decisions, and remedy the problem.
Thanks again,
Kevin Kawula
Board member of the Rock County Conservationists, TPE Member, Spring Valley Planning and Zoning board member, Owner and operator of Lone Rock Prairie Nursery, and Rock County Parks Volunteer.
lonerockprairienursery@gmail.com
WHAT WIND TURBINES MEAN CAN MEAN FOR BIRDS:
The BPRC Research Nerd
in Wind farm birds, Wind farm health effects, wind developer, wind farm bats, wind farm noise, wind farm property values, wind farm shadow flicker
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