Posted under activism & endangered species & local birds
The Altamont Pass wind farm, just east of Livermore, has over 4500 turbines (a.k.a. windmills) and was, at one time, the largest and highest-power-producing wind farm in the world. Unfortunately, the specific location and design of some of its turbines also makes it a blender for birds, and over the past 20 years it has probably killed over 20,000 birds, including hundreds of golden eagles and thousands of hawks. As part of a lawsuit settlement a couple of years ago, the wind farm operators agreed to make some changes to greatly reduce the bird kill: they would shut down some of the turbines during the winter (when kills are highest and power production is lowest), and would remove some of the less efficient turbines and replace them with larger, more efficient models that have been found to kill fewer birds. Sounds OK, but here’s the thing: they aren’t doing it! The San Franciso Chronicle had an article about this a few weeks ago. Oooh, it just burns me up.
JIA on 02 Feb 2008 at 11:12 pm #
Hey Phil,
If I’m reading the Chronicle article correctly (my only source of info on the subject), it’s not that the companies aren’t implementing the agreement they signed– they are apparently turning off the turbines requested, and powered down others in Nov-Dec — the problem is that these steps are turning out not to be enough to meet the 50%-reduction-in-3-years goal. Thus the new recommendation by the panel to turn off another 309 turbines, and keep others shut off through January.
I’m not trying to defend the companies here, I’m just pointing out that it sounds like the specifics of the agreement — how many and which turbines to shut down — were insufficient to meet the goal of reducing bird deaths. Fault the scientific recommendations for that, not the companies.
Hopefully the legal agreement has strong language that will force the companies to meet the goal (50% reduction in deaths), and not just shut off certain turbines, regardless of outcome. The SFChron article wasn’t clear on that point, I thought.
-Jo
admin on 03 Feb 2008 at 2:25 pm #
Jo,
Thanks for your comments!
The Chronicle article, though generally pretty good, doesn’t go into details and leaves a wrong impression about some things. The full settlement agreement, with supporting documents and amendments and all that garbage, can be found at http://www.altamontsrc.org/alt_settlement.php It includes specific language about which turbines must be shut down seasonally and permanently. The wind power companies have shut down some, but not all, of the required turbines; they have also not removed some of the turbines for which removal is required. So it’s not that they did what they said they were going to do, and it didn’t work; they simply haven’t done some of what they agreed to do.
As to your second point: yes, a fundamental part of the agreement is that the scientific review committee evaluates raptor mortality and can require changes to meet the required 50% reduction in mortality. The magic date for this is November, 2009: if the 50% reduction hasn’t occurred by then, additional actions are triggered.
Unfortunately, the power companies are treating the initial time period (until Novenber, 2009) as a free pass to go on killing raptors, rather than actually making an effort to meet their requirements. It’s simple bad faith.
It’s plain on the facts that they are not abiding by the agreement, since they are still operating some turbines that are required to be shut down, and have not removed some turbines that are required to have been removed.
None of this was explained in detail in the Chronicle article, though.
–Phil
Mercy Scanneu on 06 Jan 2012 at 11:18 pm #
Nice post. I used to be checking constantly this weblog and I’m impressed! Very helpful info particularly the final section
I take care of such information a lot. I used to be seeking this certain info for a very long time. Thanks and good luck.
blouson swimsuits on 07 Feb 2012 at 7:18 pm #
It’s very trouble-free to find out any matter on net as compared to textbooks, as I fount this piece of writing at this web page.
Earline Hathaway on 09 Apr 2013 at 8:43 pm #
I believed it was going to be a few boring old post, but it surely compensated with regard to my time