Over the past 20 years a lot has been written about wind turbines killing birds. The Altamont Pass wind farm in California has become the poster child of “bad wind turbines” and is pointed to again and again as a key case on turbines causing the death of birds and bats.

Mick Sagrillo’s article on birds and turbines is a really good piece to kick off your project homework on the avian issue. Birds are killed by so many things in our world – wind turbines are only one of them. Read this article. It’s amazing that there are any birds left to visit your yard and bird feeders.

Click here to take a deeper look into this very hot wind power issue.

Researchers from Newcastle University conducted bird surveys of 33 different species on farmlands around two large wind farms in East Anglia to assess the impact of wind turbines on the distribution of birds normally found in the area.

Contrary to vocal resistance to wind turbines by conservationists, these researchers found that wind turbines had no effect on the distribution of most farmland birds. The largest and least maneuverable species were the only birds whose distribution was affected by the turbines.

Published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology, the study concludes that wind farms “can help meet tough sustainable energy targets without threatening biodiversity on European farmland.”

Yet out on the coast where sea eagles reside, the bird-turbine issue finds more dire conclusions.

Over the past 30 years, a concerted effort to re-establish the dwindling sea eagle population in Britain has been thwarted by the ill conceived placement of wind farms in the very places this raptor resides.

Historically, the sea eagle was widely found throughout the British Isles. But their 8 foot wing span limits their maneuverability in the air and makes them vulnerable to wind farms today. They do not have the ability to duck and weave in order to avoid moving turbine blades.

The warning signs for birds like the sea eagle that can’t adapt to sharing space with wind farms have been vividly demonstrated in Norway where the sea eagle still thrives.

Sea eagle deaths at a 68-turbine 20 square kilometer wind farm at Smøla, (a group of islands about 300 miles from Bergen) have been noted by local ornithologists but not publicly acknowledged by the Norwegian state-owned wind farm.

Overhead power lines to the mainland were one known cause of bird deaths. Those lines have since been replaced with ground cables. But there is no quick solution for birds crashing into rotor blades. And this is no surprise.

Long before the first turbine was constructed, environmentalists warned that the concentration of eagles at Smøla made it a totally inappropriate place for a wind farm. But those protests were ignored. As you might expect, the cost in eagles is priceless.

So what’s the lesson for community wind activists from these two studies on avian-turbine issues?

Once again, it’s do your homework! Make sure that wherever you plan to site your turbines does not share space with large birds of prey or other bird species that cannot easily maneuver. Listen carefully to environmental protestors to your project and then research fully your own location – well before you start construction.

Both the farmland bird and sea eagle protesters were vocally opposed to wind farms. But only one group had a valid complaint.

The bottom line on the avian-turbine issue: It is not that you build a wind farm…. it’s really about WHERE you put it in relationship to the local birds.

For the full story on farmland birds and wind farms click here.

For the full story on sea eagles and wind farms click here.

Patterson manages energy leases on state lands and waters for the State of Texas. In way more than just Big Talk, he views Texas as the real Big Kahuna of Wind Power and tells ‘why’ for a number of really Big Reasons:

• Unlike the Cape Wind hoo-hah in Massachusetts, Texans do not say they favor green power, and then jump up and down yelling NIMBY when it comes. Texans are realists; they know we are going to run out of oil and natural gas.
• Texas has a lot of open space to build wind power. And, unlike California, Texas is not overly regulated.
• Texas has an energy history in exploration, production, leases, and mineral estate laws; apply this experience to wind power development and Texas is way ahead of many other places in the US.

Like most things in Texas, the potential for offshore wind production in the state really is HUGE.

• The Texas Gulf Coast is huge, over 21,000 square miles
• The offshore jurisdiction of the state is BIG compared to most other coastal states. They have offshore jurisdiction of 3 nautical miles. The Texas jurisdiction is 9 nautical miles – 10.3 statute miles.
• Wind projects in the Gulf off Texas are governed by the state and not the federal government; right of way issues go directly through the state.
• Texas has a 60-year experience building offshore oil and gas rigs just ripe and ready for building offshore wind platforms.
• Offshore wind generators will be only 10 miles from the nearest transmission grid; this is not the same for many onshore wind locations.

The July issue Fast Company interview with humorous Patterson will make you laugh out loud.

As this Texas wind power cheerleader claimed to interviewer Kermit Pattison, “I got a little skirt, a little sweater that says W.” — reading this interview you can almost believe that he does.

Click here to read the full interview with Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson in Fast Company on line.

Since the 1980s when the Pass became populated with turbines, thousands of birds have been decimated. No one knows exactly just how many birds are killed by the Altamont turbines, but a 2004 California Energy Commission report estimated that total bird kills were somewhere between 1,766 to 4,721 per year. These include golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, and burrowing owls.

Of the 5,000 or so turbines in the Altamont Pass, approximately 300 of them are known culprits in the massive bird kills. And, various law suits have demanded that the most deadly turbines be taken down or moved.

Although the wind blows fiercely in the Pass, and turbine blades spin incredibly fast, many experts agree that the number of windmills at Altamont, and the many old, small turbines are the cause of the bird kill problem.

Replacing the older, smaller turbines with fewer, more powerful ones – a process called “repowering” – would be a big part of the solution. Repowering the Pass with larger turbines would dramatically reduce the number of turbines and replace rapidly spinning blades with ones that turn more slowly and are higher off the ground.

Altamont Pass has one of the highest bird mortality rates, but full repowering of the 50 square mile site would cost about $1 billion.

In the 1980s, little was really known about the effect of wind turbines on bird migration and bird kills but the Altamont data has provided a bad history that wind energy resistors use to their advantage to raise resistance against wind projects.

Avian issues are real, but turbines in general are not at all as deadly as the ones in Altamont, nor is every location a danger to birds. Avian kills are a serious issue, and both the wind industry and the birds need to be protected. But your best defense to the avian kill debate as it affects your project is to do your homework first. Study your proposed wind project site and know as much as you possibly can about the bird fly patterns in the area.

To read more on the Altamont Pass bird kill issue, check out the January 2008 San Francisco Chronicle article “The Deadly Toll of Wind Power” by Charles Burress.