In 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic wind turbines are killing about 440,000 birds per year. Since then, the wind industry has been riding a rapid growth spurt.
But that growth has slowed dramatically due to a tsunami of cheap natural gas and hefty taxpayer subsidies. Even worse: that cheap gas looks like it will last for many years, and Congress has, so far, been unwilling to extend the 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour subsidy for wind operators that expires at the end of this year.
And now, the wind industry is facing yet another big challenge: increasing resistance from environmental groups who are concerned about the effect that unrestrained construction of wind turbines is having on birds and bats. Ninety environmental groups, led by the American Bird Conservancy, have signed onto the "bird-smart wind petition" which has been submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
It's about time. Over the past two decades, the federal government has prosecuted hundreds of cases against oil and gas producers and electricity producers for violating some of America's oldest wildlife-protection laws: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Eagle Protection Act. But the Obama administration -- like the Bush administration before it -- has never prosecuted the wind industry despite myriad examples of widespread, unpermitted bird kills by turbines. A violation of either law can result in a fine of $250,000 and/or imprisonment for two years.
But amidst all the hoopla about "clean energy" the wind industry is being allowed to continue its illegal slaughter of some of America's most precious wildlife. Even more perverse: taxpayers are subsidizing that slaughter.
Last June, Louis Sahagun, a reporter with the Los Angeles Times, reported that about 70 golden eagles per year are being killed by the wind turbines at Altamont Pass, located about 20 miles east of Oakland. A 2008 study funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency estimated that about 2,400 raptors, including burrowing owls, American kestrels, and red-tailed hawks -- as well as about 7,500 other birds, nearly all of which are protected under the Migratory Bird Treat Act -- are being killed every year by the turbines at Altamont.
A pernicious double standard is at work here and it riles Eric Glitzenstein, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who wrote the petition to the Fish and Wildlife Service for the American Bird Conservancy. He told me, "It's absolutely clear that there's been a mandate from the top" echelons of the federal government not to prosecute the wind industry for violating wildlife laws.
Glitzenstein comes to this issue from the left. Before forming his own law firm, he worked for Public Citizen, an organization created by Ralph Nader. But when it comes to wind energy, "Many environmental groups have been claiming that too few people are paying attention to the science of climate change, but some of those same groups are ignoring the science that shows wind energy's negative impacts on bird and bat populations."
That willful ignorance may be ending. The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and Defenders of Wildlife recently filed a lawsuit against officials in Kern County, California, in an effort to block the construction of two proposed wind projects -- North Sky River and Jawbone -- due to concerns about their impact on local bird populations. The groups oppose the projects because of their proximity to the deadly Pine Tree facility, which the Fish and Wildlife Service believes is killing 1,595 birds, or about 12 birds per megawatt of installed capacity, per year.
The only time a public entity has pressured the wind industry for killing birds occurred in 2010, when California brokered a $2.5 million settlement with NextEra Energy Resources for bird kills at Altamont. The lawyer on that case: former attorney general and current Gov. Jerry Brown, who's now pushing the Golden State to get 33 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2020.
Despite the toll that wind turbines are taking on wildlife, the wind industry wants to keep its get-out-of-jail-free card. Last May, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed new guidelines for wind turbine installations. But the American Wind Energy Association quickly panned the proposed rules as "unworkable."
Billions of dollars are at stake. And the wind industry is eager to downplay the problem of bird and bat kills. But the issue, which clearly has the Obama administration in a tight spot, is not going away. The Sierra Club now favors mandatory rules for wind turbine siting.
And while wildlife protection is essential, the broader issue of equitable treatment under the law may be more important. For years, says Glitzenstein, the Interior Department has been telling the wind industry: "'No matter what you do, you need not worry about being prosecuted.' To me, that's appalling public policy."
Disclosure: Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, which over the past ten years, has obtained about 2.5 percent of its budget from the hydrocarbon sector.
Follow Robert Bryce on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pwrhungry
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The environmental site developments into these projects needed to be reviewed over years, to look for migration patterns, nesting patterns, mammal populations, etc. We need to be more respectful of what is already in existence and functioning ecologically before we further engage in these projects. In the end, for every action that takes place in the environment there are always multiple reactions.
Wind power is far less harmful to birds than the fossil fuels it displaces. Incidental losses of individual birds at turbine sites will never be more than an extremely small fraction of bird deaths caused by human activities.
Conservation programs by wind developers save habitat and help protect birds.
• Wind is the only source of energy that does not present population-level risks to birds, unlike coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric power.
• The wind industry has a long history of proactively collaborating with the environmental community to address impacts and protect wildlife.
• Industry representatives have been working diligently with the Fish and Wildlife Service and conservation community to find better ways to reduce impacts on eagles – this includes meetings with the American Wind Wildlife Institute, Defenders of Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Club, and the National Audubon Society.
• The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) acknowledges that wind energy is not even close to being a leading cause of mortality with respect to birds.
Your purported long history isn't supported by the evidence of SO MANY projects being sited in environmentally sensitive areas, key migration routes, existing habitats of species at risk.
In many cases, your members pay compensation for the "right to take" species at risk. This is hardly risk mitigation since it still results in bird kills. But its legal of course. How about taking on this as an ethical operating principle.... "AWEA MEMBERS WILL NOT ERECT UTILITY SCALE WIND TURBINES IN LOCATIONS THAT WILL INCREASE THE RISK OF HARM TO AVIAN SPECIES AT RISK". When we, the public, see you, the power companies, start to act with integrity in protecting ALL aspects of our environment, you might start to regain credibility on this particular issue. Until then, you have no moral superiority over oil and gas. None.