Groups want birds protected from windpower

June 29, 2003

By Paul J. Nyden
STAFF WRITER

More than 25 conservation groups called on federal officials last week to take a closer look at what they say is the growing danger of windpower projects to migratory birds along the Appalachian range.

Defenders of Wildlife, National Audubon Society, Humane Society of the United States and Endangered Species Coalition were among the groups that want Interior Secretary Gale Norton to assess the impact on migratory birds before more new permits are given to build wind turbines. The huge metal turbines are usually taller than a football field.

“Windpower should be a part of our energy future,” said Mike Senatore, top lawyer for Defenders of Wildlife. “But it won’t live up to its environmentally-friendly reputation if we’re not careful about how and where we build it.

“If we do it wrong, we’ll kill hundreds of thousands of migratory birds every year,” Senatore said.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it illegal to kill migratory birds.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that communications towers, such as those for cellular telephones, already kill between 4 million and 5 million migratory birds each year.

Currently, there are projects and proposed projects that would erect more than 500 wind turbines on ridge tops within a 15-mile radius on the West Virginia-Maryland border.

Paul Kerlinger is a scientist with Curry & Kerlinger, a consulting firm to the windpower industry on birds and other wildlife.

Kerlinger recently described a serious “bird kill” at the Backbone Mountain wind-energy facility during the night of May 23-24. The bodies of nearly 30 warblers, vireos and other songbirds were found after they struck wind turbines at the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center.

In an e-mail to Frank Young of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Kerlinger noted that the birds died the same night 100 cars piled up in bad weather along Interstate 68, just to the north, in western Maryland.

Kerlinger said birds were killed that night because they were attracted to six bright lights at the wind farm’s substation.

“Those of us who consult on windpower projects routinely admonish developers regarding bright lighting,” Kerlinger wrote. “This even underscored the importance of avoiding bright lights at wind plants, as well as all other man-made structures.”

Kimberly Ockene and Eric R. Glitzenstein of Myer and Glitzenstein, a public-interest law firm in Washington that specializes in protecting wildlife, also wrote to Norton and other federal officials on June 24 on behalf of the 25 groups.

The mountain ridges of eastern West Virginia and western Maryland, they warned, could “become a gigantic deathtrap for migratory songbirds and raptors.”

Windpower project investors are attracted to the area because of the strong winds along mountain ridges near Grant and Tucker counties.

Other windpower farms are being developed from Vermont south to Tennessee and Georgia.

Projects in the Grant-Tucker county area include:

Friends of Blackwater and other West Virginia environmental groups recently failed in their efforts to convince the PSC to deny a permit to NedPower. The groups want more-detailed studies completed about dangers to birds and other wildlife.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also raised serious questions about the huge NedPower wind farm, where the average height of a turbine will exceed 400 feet.

Ockene and Glitzenstein noted that those turbines are “high enough to reach directly into the flight path of one-quarter or more of the migrating birds.”

The Federal Aviation Administration requires that lights be placed on all structures more than 200 feet high.

To contact staff writer Paul J. Nyden, use e-mail or call 348-5164.
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