Energy Saver News; WattBusters - Wind Power at Altamont

Traveling from Stockton to San Francisco introduced me to the windmill farm at Altamont Pass. There looked to be hundreds (the actual figure is around 6500) of turbines. It was lightly to moderately breezy but what I saw had me scratching my head. I counted only a handful of the turbines turning. With civilization encroaching from both the San Francisco and Stockton directions, I wondered why the turbines were idle. Why build so many towers if you aren't going to generate electricity with them?

A bit of research showed me that there are varied reasons but most have to do with legal issues.

The issue that came up the most was bird deaths. I was quoted between a hundred and millions of birds killed when actually speaking to people. The descriptor changed, usually in conjunction with the number - "100 birds splatted", "1000 birds slaughtered", "10,000 birds massacred", etc. Figuring that I was receiving emotional responses, I looked up "altamont bird deaths" online. Again, the numbers varied widely but 1100 bird deaths per year seemed to be a figure that was repeated often.

Being from a non-wind farm area, this was all kind of new to me. I've read figures of 57 million vehicle windshield/bird deaths nationally and plate glass window collisions killing 97 million birds. 1.5 million birds die from collisions with stationary structures (such as towers, stacks, bridges, buildings) every year. The rub is, the reported multi-million bird deaths are mainly 'regular' birds. The Altamont birds are mostly raptors, which are generally rare and legally protected. (Sounds like a bummer to be a regular bird in the United States.) Raptors and other protected birds include golden eagles, red-tailed and ferruginous hawks, American kestrels, turkey vultures and great horned, barn and burrowing owls. There is an extremely small number of them currently in the wild.

Altamont lies along a migration route for many of the protected birds. Although the birds generally fly higher than the towers, they apparently can't avoid snacks that they spot from the sky. The ground is relatively clear near the base of the towers and ground squirrels become targets. Once a raptor zeroes in on dinner, it locks on and doesn't take its eyes off the prey until it strikes. A golden eagle can see prey on the ground from 1000 feet up and reach speeds of 200 mph in a dive. The bottom line is, anything in the bird's path is disregarded when it's in hunting mode and collisions with objects occur.

Twenty-nine conditional use permits for turbines in the Altamont Pass were renewed -- some for 20 years, some indefinitely -- in November 2003 and January of this year by the East County Board of Zoning Adjustments. Appeals of those approvals were filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Californians for Renewable Energy and the Golden Gate Audubon Society.

Years ago, environmental groups rallied for the use of clean, wind energy in a move to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and were successful but now they have the bird problem to deal with. It seems that there should be some compromise that will allow the windmills to supply energy while still protecting the birds. Measures might include letting grass grow tall around the wind turbines so raptors can't see their rodent prey; reducing populations of ground squirrels and other rodents; removing turbines from certain canyons and valleys; and clustering the turbines and making the blades more visible to birds. We'll have to wait and see how the legal issues are worked out in court.

Other voiced objections to windmills is the belief that they are obtrusive to the environment, cut down on tourism and are noisy. I'm not buying this stuff. I can see the need to help the birds but the 'obtrusive argument' is stretching it. I drove from Stockton to San Francisco. If anything seems obtrusive, it's humans and development. Civilization (homes, businesses, etc.) have crept to within a few miles of Altamont now. As far as noise, it's not like the traffic barreling through the pass is soundless. Pertaining to tourism, I'd never seen anything like the towers at the Altamont Wind farm project. It may not have brought in tourism dollars, but the sight of the towers compelled me to bring out the video camera. I also got footage of the Bay Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, Alcatraz and Chinatown which could all be labeled 'obtrusive'.

I'm definitely not an authority on wind power. This article is just my observations of what I saw and then looked up. One thing that I come away with is that we have a very real need for energy but we have a responsibility to find the best approach to generate ample power while causing the least damage. Gotta' fly now...