By Tania Soussan Journal Staff Writer HOUSE— Nobody expected the
golden eagles to be there. But after the New
Mexico Wind Energy Center was built on the state's eastern plains near
House in 2001, an active nest was discovered, outside what had been
believed to be the range of golden eagles in the
state. And then one day last year, windsmiths at
the third-largest wind farm in the world watched helplessly as jet black
ravens harassed one of the adult eagles, chasing it into a
turbine. Later, one of the young eagles from the
nest was found dead beneath a turbine. The deaths
of the two golden eagles— a species protected by a pair of federal laws—
highlight the worries of biologists and wildlife advocates that New
Mexico's rapidly growing wind industry could pose a threat to birds and
bats. "There's no question that we're concerned
about it," said David Henderson, executive director of the Audubon
Society in New Mexico. So far, only a small number
of bird and bat deaths have been reported at New Mexico wind farms, but
more turbines are in the works and the numbers of fatalities are likely
to increase somewhat— although not at the alarming levels experienced by
older wind farms in other states. "The problem
with wind power is there's very little regulation," said Gail Garber,
executive director of Hawks Aloft. In most cases,
all that's required to build a wind farm are building permits and a
lease with the owner of the land where the turbines will be
placed. Unless the project is on federal land,
neither the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service nor any state agency reviews
the wind farm for impacts to birds, bats or other species. And there are
no requirements to monitor wildlife deaths. Quay
County has started requiring a four-season bird survey before
construction to minimize impacts, but in New Mexico rules vary from
county to county.
Growth
industry U.S. wind energy capacity has
been increasing an average of 22 percent a year in the last five years,
according to the American Wind Energy Association.
In New Mexico, wind power is growing— with the enthusiastic
encouragement of Gov. Bill Richardson. The state
has 407 megawatts of wind power already up and running or under
construction. But there is a potential for 49,700 megawatts of wind
energy. The 204-megawatt New Mexico Wind Energy
Center near Fort Sumner is owned and operated by FPL Energy to provide
power for Public Service Company of New Mexico.
Cielo Wind Power recently finished upgrading the Caprock Wind Ranch
north of Clovis to 80 megawatts for Xcel Energy. And Padoma Wind Power
is building the 120-megawatt San Juan Mesa wind farm northeast of
Roswell for Xcel. The companies argue that these
modern wind farms are much less likely to injure birds than older
facilities like the one in California's Altamont Pass that has caused
high numbers of raptor deaths. "In the last 20
years, wind development has come a long, long way," said Jan Paulin,
president and chief executive officer of Padoma.
The new towers are tubular rather than lattice structures so there's
nowhere for birds to perch, and the rotors spin more slowly so birds can
spot them more easily, Paulin said. Perhaps the
biggest factor that determines whether a wind farm will be bad news for
birds is where it's built. Wind farms should not be near migratory
routes, prairie dog towns that attract raptors or water bodies that draw
birds. "It all comes down to where they're put,"
said Bill Howe, migratory bird biologist for the Fish and Wildlife
Service. Because the high winds needed to produce
electricity are generally found only in eastern New Mexico, there's
little risk of turbines going up along the Rio Grande Valley, an
important migratory flyway. But there are lots of
birds in the eastern part of the state, too. "They migrate through there
by the thousands or tens of thousands," Howe said.
And their migratory paths are often defined by winds that help them on
their travels, Henderson said. "Wind and birds sometimes mix and we need
to be careful about that." Birds also migrate
along the Pecos River corridor and heavily use playa lakes and
escarpments around Tucumcari that provide
updrafts. For the lesser prairie-chicken, a rare
grassland bird, the tall towers at wind farms are a visual disturbance
that could discourage them from using traditional territories, said
David Krueper of the migratory bird office. "It's
not just the collisions," he said. And as far as
bat deaths are concerned, the problem first came to light in 2003 after
large numbers of dead bats were found during the fall migration at a
forest ridgeline wind farm in Appalachia. Like
birds, bats appear to use wind currents to help them during their
migrations, said Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Lyle
Lewis. There is also a theory that bats'
echolocation systems might confuse propeller blades for
insects. "It is a concern," he said. "We certainly
need more research."
Addressing threats
At the FPL
wind farm near House, avian biologist Nancy Cox spent a recent day
watching a new golden eagle nest that was found along the escarpment
just below the turbines this spring. FPL has hired
environmental contractors and is working with the Fish and Wildlife
Service to reduce the threats to eagles. "We've
definitely stepped up our monitoring efforts and it's focused on finding
solutions or management processes for dealing with golden eagles," said
Jim Lindsay, an FPL biologist. Meanwhile, PNM has
upgraded its nearby transmission towers and lines in the area to
discourage birds from nesting and perching to reduce problems with
eagles. So far, the eagles nesting below the mesa
this spring are raising a chick without problems.
"They're using prairie dogs as food items as well as turtles," Cox said.
She sits a half mile or so away from the nest and watches the birds
through a spotting scope. The songs of Western
meadowlarks and Cassin's sparrows are easy to pick out over the low hum
of the turbines spinning in a gentle wind. A pair
of Chihuahuan ravens fly up from the escarpment, swing between two
turbines and head across the mesa. "Ravens go up
and down this escarpment, back and forth," Cox said. "They love playing
with the wind." Cox's surveys have also turned up
Swainson's hawks, ferruginous hawks, lots of Chihuahuan raves, some owls
and other raptors, rock wrens, lark sparrows, scaled quail and other
birds. But none have been in large numbers that signal a potential
conflict with the wind farm, she said. The Fish
and Wildlife Service has not taken legal action against FPL or any other
New Mexico wind farms. "It's more of a
discretionary role that we play," said law enforcement special agent
Julie Scully. "The intention of wind generation is not to take birds ...
we take those kinds of things into consideration."
Low count Both
bird advocates and wind power executives say it is important to keep the
numbers in perspective. Last year, at the
136-tower FPL site, for example, workers found 14 dead birds and 21 dead
bats. But no dead birds have been reported at the Caprock site since it
started commercial operations Dec. 31. Overall,
the 15,000 commercial turbines in use nationwide by the end of 2001 were
blamed for an estimated 33,000 bird deaths that year, according to a
study by Western EcoSystems Technology Inc. But
that study also found that 60 million to 80 million birds a year are
killed nationwide in vehicle collisions, at least 98 million die when
they fly into buildings and millions more die in collisions with
communication towers or are killed by housecats.
"It's estimated that wind has a smaller impact, but there's not much of
it," Garber said. "The time to address it is now when it's still a young
industry." The Wind Energy Association predicts
that wind farms will never account for more than a small fraction of
human-caused bird deaths. "We really don't have a
handle on what's going on in New Mexico because most wind farms are on
private land and nobody's going out to look for carcasses," said Nancy
Gloman, head of the Fish and Wildlife Service's migratory bird
team. It's also hard to get an exact count of bird
deaths because some carcasses are eaten by scavengers or simply never
found by the maintenance workers who routinely check around the turbines
at the FPL and Caprock sites. Because wind energy
doesn't cause the air pollution, mercury emissions and other
environmental problems that traditional power sources do, it is a
benefit for birds and other species, the industry
argues. That's why conservation groups generally
endorse wind power; they just want companies to do what they can to
avoid harming birds. "We can have our cake and eat
it, too," Henderson said.
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