Press Releases
February 26, 2005
Bear Creek wind turbine park plan runs into turbulence
ByJames Conmy, Staff Writer
The benefits of wind energy versus adverse environmental impacts are the heart of an ongoing dispute over a Bear Creek Township wind turbine park.
Luzerne County commissioners, local environmentalists and the park's project manager, John Connelly, continued the debate Friday on the 34-turbine park. Luzerne County owns the parcel.
"Our attempt was to bring the parties together, so if they disagree, they're disagreeing about facts," Commissioner Todd Vonderheid said. "We don't know if everybody was thrilled and we can ever bring them to a 100 percent agreement."But we feel they have more common interests than they do disagreements."
Dr. Henry Smith, a board member of environmental group Defend Our Watershed, did not share Vonderheid's positive outlook. He said Energy Unlimited does not value the parcel, near Crystal Lake, eyed for the wind park. ÒThey are minimizing the land's importance as a watershed and an environmental asset," Dr. Smith said. "They clearly do not understand its significance." Environmentalists feel the park will affect the flow of clear, clean water into Crystal Lakeand reservoirs that provide drinking water to portions of the county. Underground cables and access road will dirty water and delay it from reaching its natural destination, Dr. Smith said. Concern also exists that migratory bats and birds' habitats will be ruined and they will fly into the path of operating turbines. Connelly is convinced the Montgomery County firm's project will not have adverse environmental impacts. Federal and state agencies will corroborate Energy Unlimited's stance by issuing the proper permits, Connelly said."I cannot comprehend how a wind park is supposed to have a detrimental impact on the watershed," Connelly said. "It's not like a coal mine or nuclear power plant, where things get thrown in there and come out as waste matter.
"I think wind parks are the most ecologically compatible way of generating electricity in a country with an energy crisis."
Flying into glass windows kills more birds than wind turbines, Connelly said. Both sides' arguments have merit, according to Thomas Mohagen, environmental project manager for Hamer Environmental L.P. The Mount Vernon, Wash. , firm is an independent consultant on potential impacts of wind energy. Rainwater dripping off turbines will not affect the watershed like Connelly claims, but the development of the wind park can. Development reduces the natural habitat that absorbs water and allows it to slowly drain in the watershed, Mohagen said.
"With the more water running off, you have a lot more sediment running into the watershed," Mohagen said. "You would definitely not want to have a lot of sediment going into your watersheds." Replanting natural vegetation once the park is erected can mitigate the issue. More birds are killed in collisions with cars or windows; however, steps can be taken to help divert birds' flight paths from wind parks, Mohagen said. Using radar to ascertain flight paths and positioning wind turbines accordingly can reduce impact, Mohagen said.
"If you put the turbines more to the other side of the property, your impact is going to be reduced," Mohagen said. As for the debate, Connelly called Friday's meeting positive and pledged to work with environmental groups to create a project so successful it is copied around the nation. Energy Unlimited is offering only minimal changes and is not being flexible, Dr. Smith said. An agreement made with the parcel's former owner, Theta Land Corp., prohibits county officials from preventing construction of the park.
August 10, 2004
WSDOT says, get along, li'l seabird
By JOHN C.
RYAN
Journal Staff Reporter
Just as the roadrunner always eluded Wile E. Coyote in the old cartoons, the Washington State Department of Transportation is hoping that a small seabird called the marbled murrelet will outrun the biologists it has hired to chase them in an inflatable Zodiac.
The agency has hired Hamer Environmental of Mount Vernon to scare the diving birds away from the Hood Canal Bridge whenever construction crews are driving piles underwater.
WSDOT is retrofitting the western half of the 1.5-mile bridge and rebuilding its older, eastern half.
Hammering two-foot-diameter, hollow steel piles into the ground can send deafening noise through the water as well as through the air. The underwater pressure wave can be deadly to underwater creatures too close to its source. "Within close range, about 120 feet, it could potentially cause rupturing of internal organs or harm their ears," said biologist Thomas Hamer.
Up until now, crews from Kiewit General have been driving piles at low tide, just out of the water on the eastern shore of Hood Canal . Once they start working underwater, probably by the end of this week, they'll send the murrelet wranglers out on patrol. One spotter will scan the horizon with binoculars from a post on a bridge pontoon, while two others will search for the small black-and-white birds from a Zodiac. When they see murrelets, the biologists will motor towards them to push them away from the construction noise. Right now, Hamer says there are no murrelets immediately near the pile-driving site. But he expects more to start migrating south from British Columbia in the weeks ahead. "It's our job, 30 minutes before pile driving, to get them out of the area," said Hamer. With murrelet hazing being one of the newer specialties of bridge construction, Hamer's crews can't be sure they'll scare the birds away from the bridge instead of simply causing them to pop underwater and into harm's way. Biologists will experiment by approaching the birds at different speeds and angles.
"By our rules, if the birds dive several times, we have to stop," said Hamer. "Obviously, it's not working (if) they're just spending more time underwater." Under the permit granted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the $275 million project can continue even if the federally protected birds remain in the area. Murrelets are getting special treatment because they are listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Other diving seabirds in the area, like pigeon guillemots and rhinoceros auklets, may not be so lucky.
"We'll be monitoring all the birds in the area," said Hamer. "We'll also do beachwalks and pick up any carcasses we see in the water."
Fish can also be harmed by the pile-driving noise. If strong enough, the pressure wave can stun the fish and cause internal organs to hemorrhage. WSDOT will lessen the force of the underwater concussion waves by surrounding the piles with "bubble curtains." An air hose around the base of each pile being driven will generate a ring of bubbles rising to the surface.
"That air gap doesn't transmit as much sound," said WSDOT site manager Ray Arnold. "It's something that we've been having to go to on our large steel piles up and down the West Coast because of threatened and endangered species." Researchers from the Battelle Marine Sciences Lab will study the effectiveness of the bubble curtain on dampening underwater sound and its effects on marine life. Most of the marbled murrelets that hunt for fish in the depths of Puget Sound nest in the tops of old-growth evergreens in the North Cascades or the Olympic mountains . Logging of old-growth forests is primarily responsible for the murrelet's decline, with oil spills also reducing their populations.
Working in Hood Canal is a challenge for bridge builders. Not only do they have to avoid working in the water during a "fish window" when salmon are migrating past the bridge, they also have to observe a "storm window." From October through March, crews are forbidden to do any work that affects the structural integrity of the bridge.
"There's a bigger risk of large storms in the winter time," said Arnold . The storm window policy was put in place after the Interstate 90 floating bridge sank during a 1990 renovation.
Scientists predict gloomy future for coastal marbled murrelets
A report says the birds face extinction in a setback for interests that hoped to log the Northwest forests that the birds nest in.
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
By MICHAEL MILSTEIN
Leading scientists say the marbled murrelet, a seabird nesting in coastal forests, is sliding toward extinction in the Northwest, dealing a setback to a timber industry anxious to strip it of federal protections that block logging. The researchers project the elusive species will disappear in the next century from Oregon , California and Washington , except Puget Sound, where a mere 45 birds might remain. But timber groups quickly questioned the conclusions and the objectivity of scientists behind them.
The stark findings are contained in a March report commissioned by the Bush administration after timber interests demanded a review of the murrelet's threatened status under the Endangered Species Act. The report's findings had been expected last week, along with a decision from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional office in Portland on whether the bird's protections would remain in place. But high administration officials postponed the decision beyond a court-approved April 30 deadline. They released the scientific report on the bird only after The Oregonian pressed for it. Next to the northern spotted owl, the marbled murrelet is the species that has most stood in the way of Northwest logging. Cutting on public lands collapsed in the region as the two birds won protection under the federal Endangered Species Act more than 10 years ago. The decision on whether the murrelet should remain protected was held up for review in the office of Craig Manson, assistant secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said Jeff Fleming, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman.
The pending decision will weigh a key question raised by timber interests: whether the estimated 21,900 murrelets on the West Coast differ enough from some 925,600 unprotected birds in Alaska and Canada to warrant special safeguards. "Why are we protecting a species on the edge of its range when there's clearly a viable population in other areas?" said Chris West of the American Forest Resource Council in Portland . His group and three Oregon sawmills forced the issue by suing the government in 2002 for not reviewing the status of the murrelet every five years as the law requires. A similar lawsuit centered on the spotted owl.
The Bush administration agreed to complete the reviews, with the murrelet finding due April 30. The government will seek an 60-day extension to the deadline, Fleming said Tuesday.
Timber officials said they were willing to wait. "The time frame isn't as critical to us as it is for the job to be done right," West said. He said some scientists who worked on the report have advocated murrelet protection and said his group would look at whether the findings "meet the rigors of science." But wildlife activists voiced concern the delay was hiding an attempt to downgrade protection for the murrelet despite evidence the bird is disappearing.
"It looks to me like they're trying to find any way they can to get around good science," said Susan Ash of the Audubon Society of Portland. She said the new findings "confirm our worst fears." In an unusual move, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year hired EDAW Inc. and Hamer Environmental L.P. as its main subcontractor, in Seattle for $348,916 to examine all research on the murrelet since it was listed as threatened in 1992. The outside help was needed to manage the added work and ensure an objective review, agency officials said.
The company assembled 16 international scientists to review the details. They found the bird is declining throughout North America and remains particularly vulnerable in the Northwest. The report the scientists submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in March says logging and urbanization in the past 150 years has eroded coastal old-growth forests where the birds nest. Females lay one egg each year on a large, mossy branch. About 226,000 acres of murrelet habitat have been lost since 1992, although the pace of loss has slowed, the scientists found. Broken habitat exposes the birds to predators, they said. "In most areas within the listed range, murrelets are left with small, isolated stands of older trees for nesting," they wrote. "At present and for the foreseeable future, these remnant populations are struggling to be self-sustaining . . . and face potential extinction during the next century." They warned that protection of the bird's habitat could be "severely compromised" by changes to the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which the Bush administration is reworking because it has fallen short of logging goals.
But West questioned how the few birds on the West Coast, which spend most time at sea, could lack nesting trees. "When we're talking about millions of trees out there, to think that's a limiting factor is laughable," he said. The scientists identified three distinct populations of murrelets from Alaska to California , suggesting birds in the Northwest may stand apart from others. The Endangered Species Act provides for the protection of such groups within a species if they are judged significant to the species as a whole. The science findings form the core of what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will consider when deciding on continued protection for the murrelet, said agency biologist Barry Mulder. But he said the agency must also weigh other questions, such as the uncertainty surrounding scientists' predictions. "There is not a lot of really specific hard information on trends," he said. "That makes our decision-making rather difficult."
Endangered birds interfere with highway project
07:23 PM PDT on Thursday, August 5, 2004
By GARY CHITTIM
KINGSTON, Wash.
Ð A small seabird stands in the way of one of the state's largest and most
urgent highway repair jobs.
The threatened marbled murrelet lives in the waters surrounding the crumbling Hood Canal Bridge and now Washington State is going to great lengths to keep these birds and the bridge project from crossing paths. "We're essentially... I shouldn't say we're chasing birds, we're moving them from the areas as gently as we can," said Tom Hamer, biologist, Hamer Environmental.
The state hired Hamer and his team to spot and chase off marbled murrelets that get too close to the Hood Canal Bridge during the loud and dangerous underwater pile driving process.
"Whether it's impacts to internal organs from the percussion going on underwater to impacts to the hearing of the bird," he continued. They call it hazing and keeping the murrelet away won't be easy, because the fishing is good.
It's a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money, but you're also talking about the Endangered Species Act and that's the one thing that could put a project, even this big, right on ice.
State engineers say the old and decrepit Hood Canal floating bridge may not survive any more delays.
Engineers say if they have to pay to keep the murrelet away, so be it.
"It can cause problems but we go to great lengths to protect threatened or endangered species," said Ray Arnold, Washington Transportation Dept.
The weather and seas will get rougher and more of the hungry murrelets are expected to arrive as they make their migration south from Canada.
