I appreciate Scott's thoughtful response. I'm just trying to get
across the vast scale of the windpower enterprise and how limited our
data is about avian impacts. Wind power is going from millions of
dollars invested to 10's of billions in a very few years. It's
expanding a thousand fold. With billions at stake, the potential
conflicts of interest are huge. I just don't want wind power in
general or at specific sites to get an automatic pass.

Large
structure impacts are more than just radio towers. New York is
shutting off it's skyscraper lights on foggy nights during migration to
reduce the carnage. I've been where we picked up a half dozen dead
warblers below just one building, and those are just the few we found
before the feral cats got to them. We're talking about millions of
300 ft wind machines and millions more huge transmission towers spread
all over rural America. Do they have warning lights or not? Do lights
help or hurt? Wind is a dispersed resource where the new transmission
towers will probably outnumber the windmills.

Full
avian impact assessment means much more than picking up dead hawks on
site. What about the injured birds that make it to the next field?
How do we know the local raccoons , owls skunks etc. didn't grab the
victims before we count them? What if the birds just leave a major
breeding or wintering area? Many prairie birds simply won't breed
near anything tall, because that's where their predators hang out. The
key impacts are probably episodic. The radio towers are fine until a
foggy night where thousands of birds die. If you miss checking things
that one night, you miss nearly all the impacts.

I'm sure the new large windmills are
better than the old ones that spun so fast they were invisible to the
birds, but they still could have unacceptable impacts in many
locations.

In recent years, politics and poor judgment has
led the US environmental movement to support some disastrous policies.
Corn-based ethanol, originally supported by many groups as bio-fuels,
is an economic, environmental and human disaster. Unchecked
immigration, which is leading to dramatic US population growth that
will overwhelm everything else we do, has seen nothing but politically
cowardly silence from nearly all environmental groups. Let's start
looking more carefully before we leap.

Richard Carlson
Full-time Birder, Biker and Rotarian
Part-time Economist
Tucson, AZ, Lake Tahoe, CA, & Kirkland, WA
rccarl at pacbell.net
Tucson 520-760-4935
Tahoe 530-581-0624
Kirkland 425-828-3819
Cell 650-280-2965



----- Original Message ----
From: Scott Downes <downess at charter.net>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2008 3:55:26 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] re: Wind Power


First there seems to be some thought in my post
that I was in error for not mentioning solar. I would like to applaud Doug for
putting solar on his house and anybody that does such. Personal use of solar or
other indepedent uses are largely without any negative consequences.
Doug states:

I am against wind power for several
reasons.

1. There are other less intrusive options available

I agree 100%. Is research available today to start
working on them? And while may be less intrusive, lets be honest when we disucss
things, like I stated above when we educate ourselves on what technology we
support, do a pro and con list for all available options, just about every
technology has some cons, lets look at what it the preferred lost cons. Is it
wind power? Maybe, maybe not. If you look at worlds use of energy we are
probably going to need all of the renewables possible, wind, solar, etc..all...

2. Impact research is sketchy in spite of all
that has been said. I think Scott summed it up best with words like probably,
maybe, doubtful, suggests, and the like

I also never stated that we have all of the
research answers, but again lets be honest; how many decisions are really made
with complete knowledge? Do we know the long-term impacts of allowing
shrub-steppe to be plowed up for farms or houses? I could write a book on
listing these decisions. I also never stated that wind research is sketchy.
Because its such a hot topic currently, the amount of research into it is
staggering. Dozens of PhD projects are being funded by wind, hundreds of other
studies including on grouse are being done. Most areas would kill for the amount
of research being done currently in wind? Why because there are so many unknowns
and biologists who care about wildlife are trying to find out. Does the industry
get ahead of our research? yup. I did state that the knowledge lacking is in
basic understanding of species natural history which plagues us all. These same
population questions are going to plague any and all decisions regarding land
use, from plowing etc.. to wind.

3. Large tracts of public lands are being
dramatically changed forever by private enterprises, while the same groups that
espouse this are determined to stop private enterprise from utilizing the lands
that they actually own.
Some public land is being changed, however most of
the land currently under wind is on private land and landowners are being paid
fairly well for it. Well enough that in many cases they dont plow up their
grassland or shrub-steppe to plant wheat around the turbines, so some habitat is
actually being saved by wind and some is lost. Like I said, good and bad and
alot of gray. This is ones of those gray areas.

Doug states:
Lastly I must argue with Scott about power needs.
The PNW does not need power.

I also strongly agree with Doug that we are
hampered in the PNW by selling power to other areas. I never stated the PNW has
power needs, I did state the US and the world has power needs, so things must be
built somewhere. So while habitats in the PNW get effects of energy
development they dont get the use. One major difference I see is that we need to
stop thinking in terms of state borders. Birds dont live by state borders,
pollution doesn't live by state borders and the total energy needs of the US and
the world don't live by political borders. He states let Arizona or California
deal with their own issues. Well the Sage sparrows and other species do migrate
through the southern states that he speaks of, and if we dont come up with
something some states will continue to put up coal fired power plants which I am
strongly against as they might not have dead birds piling up at their doors,
their effects are far more harmful than any renewable. The not in my backyard
philosophy isnt valid, something is going somewhere. We have to determine what
the something is and where the somewhere is. To do this requires talk not within
political borders but among different political borders.

I think there are technologies that have more
promise than wind, but almost no technology is without adverse effects, we would
do well to remember stuff. Just because we dont see a bird falling, doesnt mean
there is no effects. I would love to see incentives for people to put solar on
their home, but currently it is a technology most people cannot afford and is
impractical in non-sun dominated areas for a major energy source. For people to
have it as a mainstay work needs to be done, and should. However, solar has
another side, that is industrial plants. Those are also major projects and will
destroy habitat as its kind of hard to install huge solar panels on top of a
sagebrush.... Biofuels have been mentioned, but to do that midwest farmers are
going to polw up CRP and prairie lands to plant corn and that has effects.

Doug also states that "There are other less
intrusive options available".
Its a noble effort to install solar panels on
houses and any that can, should in addition to other enrgy conservation
strategies, all of our birds will be better off for it. The main problem is that
people that can install solar aren't third world countries, aren't the poor
etc.. the world energy crisis isnt going to be solved by solar on houses. I
would love to see R & D on making us all as energy self reliant on our homes
as we could, but we aren't there yet and unless we all plan on shutting off
things electronic accorss the county, more humans are here every day that use
more power and the need is growing, so something is required to be built. Like I
said before, something is going to be continued to be built to supply energy
needs for WA, the US and the world. Educate yourself on what in your best
educated opinion is the least obtrusive energy and voice it to those decision
makers.

Finally, apparently people need to read my posts
again. I never stated that I'm in favor of building wind, nor did I say that
wind is without impacts. Plowing up the shrub-steppe or grazing in the
shrub-steppe personally tears my heart out. Far more shrub-steppe is damaged by
non-wind though, including vineyards, grazing, wheatfields etc... I am a
conservationist first, finding a bird or bat under a turbine, even one bothers
me. Please don't make the mistake that because we research wind or are
associated with wind that it doesn't. However, I'm also have a annoying
practical nature to myself and know that larger problems arent going away.
I did my master's in the quilomene on the current
site of the Wild Horse Wind Farm on Sage Thrashers (I don't need to be educated
on what is in the Quilomene, I'm pretty darn familar with it, probably more than
just about anybody on here as I spent over 200 days on site over the course of
2+ years). I also never attempted to defend all agency decisions. I will defend
the personnel. I know its popular to yell at agency biologists for decisions
they make, well lets look at what goes into their decisions. They are to
preserve the wildlife of the state while managing the receational needs of the
taxpayers they serve. These sometimes aren't in unison. Are they political? Of
course! They are apart of the government, which is a political entity. The head
of agencies are often political appointees getting pressure for political
reasons and biological decisions are only one of their factors (and
unfortunately sometimes not a strong one). If we as birders care enough to make
a stink about wildlife related issues, get educated, get informed and get
involved and make our voice heard. Biologists themselves (whether agencies or
consultants) have little actual say in the grand scheme of things. All we can do
is do sound science and hope its followed. We are not political entities just
happen to work with and for them.

I have a feeling this discussion has begun to be
beat to death, so would encourage everyone to read all that they can about
everything and use sound decision making opprtunities to inform the powers that
be where you want to go. We all have difference of opinion, however what may get
lost is we all love birds and wildlife and we want them to be around for our
kids and grandkids. What we have to do is figure out the correct way to do this.
To avoid another silly post by littl ol' me today, I would recommend everyone
read this line three time before posting anything in response to what I've
stated in my post:
I am not for or against wind power. I am for people
being fully informed and making informed decisions. I want to get facts and
educational materials available to people. I want people to do their own
research using posts made today and looking at nationalwind.org. I am also for
preserving wildlife and habitats, that is why I work in biology and why I bird,
because I get a smile on my face on just being around birds and wildlife and
believe we owe it to everyone to have the same smile.

Scott Downes
downess at charter.net
Yakima WA