Avian Workgroup
Meeting Summary
December 6, 2000
Seattle Washington
PDF Version - 28KB
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
The group reviewed the agenda and the
purpose of the Meeting: to review the status of Avian perspectives paper,
the Avian fact sheet, discuss outcome from the National Avian Wind Power
Planning Meeting IV, and decide on future activities for the work group.
[See Attachment
A for the Agenda and see the participants list at the end of the summary.]
PERSPECTIVES PAPER
Wally Erickson, WEST, Inc.
Wally Erickson provided a detailed
presentation, on preliminary findings and the status of the Perspectives
White Paper. The title of the draft paper is: Avian Collisions with Wind
Turbines: A Summary of Existing Studies and Comparisons to Other Sources
of Collision Mortality in the United States. After the presentation, work
group members contributed these comments:
- Species composition data is important,
especially to distinguish mortality data for Threatened and Endangered
Species.
- Maybe the report should have compared
avian impacts from wind turbines to other forms of energy generation,
e.g. a cradle-to-grave life cycle analysis. Others pointed out that
would take substantial resources beyond the scope of this paper.
- First cut paper does a good job at
putting human-made structure impacts on birds in perspective.
- The paper shows that the wind industry's
impact on birds is small.
- The packaging and presentation will be
critical to the credibility of the product.
- Only three raptor fatalities have been
reported at five study sites. This number is important to note.
- California data offers a unique story.
- This will be an important contribution
to the literature when it is done.
- It's useful to put species in categories
of concern. There is also the question of adaptive management. Are we
learning over time?
- The paper could be presented as the
state of science on avian mortality (from wind power) with a
comparative look at the literature for other categories of human-made
structure impacts.
The workgroup also noted that care needs
to be applied regarding what is being requested from WEST for the current
subcontract amount. The Workgroup may need to look at all the comments
and the scope of work and revisit the funding level.
ACTION STEPS:
- Comments on the present draft should be
e-mailed to Wally.
- Wally will e-mail the group what he can
or can't incorporate into the next draft which he anticipates coming
out by January 16, 2001
UPDATE ON NORTH DAKOTA WIND POWER MEETING WITH
USFWS ON GRASSLAND CONSERVATION EASEMENT COMPATIBILITY WITH WIND
DEVELOPMENT
Jay Haley, EAPC Architects and Engineers.
A meeting was held between US Fish and
Wildlife Service personnel from North and South Dakota, and members of the
Wind Industry. The wind industry was represented by Jay Haley, Kim
Christianson of the ND State Energy Office, Scott Piscitello of RES, Jim
Lindsey of FPL Energy, Dale Strickland, WEST, Inc. and John Dunlop of AWEA.
The issue is that there is a world-class
waterfowl production area in ND and SD that contributes more than 1/3 of
the waterfowl produced in North America. The wind industry has not yet
sited a windfarm in an area such as this with the high breeding pair
densities seen in the Dakotas. The concern is that there is some potential
for this situation to become another Altamont Pass if not addressed
properly.
The USFWS has a grassland easement program
that is designed to preserve prairie grasslands that are used for nesting
in the spring. Currently they do not allow wind turbines on easement
lands. They are aware that competition for land easements with the wind
industry will have a negative effect on their program, and they have
concerns about negative impacts to waterfowl production. Bird-strike
issues are fairly well understood, with metrics in place that could be
used to study or monitor the impacts in ND. The avoidance or displacement
of nesting sites has not been addressed yet in any studies that the group
was aware of, and there is probably a need to design a study that will
properly address this issue.
DISCUSSION:
- The question was asked whether there are
studies that address displacement effects of turbines on waterfowl?
ACTION:
- Various members of the subgroup will
follow this issue and provide a resource as appropriate. Steve Ugoretz
offered to liaison with the North Dakota study group, if appropriate.
NOCTURNAL MOVEMENTS -- BIRDS AND BATS
Richard Carlton, EPRI
Does the Avian Workgroup want to support development of new chapters
for the Standard Metrics and Methods document? If yes, why? If no, why
not?
[Refer to attachment
B for Richard Carlton's slides].
Richard Carlton presented the conclusions
of an EPRI study done by Bill Evans on this issue. After discussion, the
Workgroup agreed to not pursue this topic at this time. There were some
who supported NWCC involvement with nocturnal avian issues, but not enough
to reach group consensus. The perspectives pro and con are listed below.
Summary of reasons stated for why it may be
appropriate for the NWCC to address nocturnal methods and metrics for
birds and bats at this time.
- More data is needed to determine if this
is a problem and proceed proactively.
- Some see a need for data. The absence of
data has been used by some environmental organizations to propose
project delay: such as for the 300 MW VanSycle Stateline Project.
- At the May 16-17, 2000 NAWPPM IV meeting
this issue was sited as an issue that needed more research.
- Soon there will be more nocturnal data
and it would not take a lot to ask some bird experts to say if the
numbers are significant.
Summary of reasons stated for NWCC not to
address nocturnal avian issues at this time:
- The Avian Workgroup has limited
resources and this is not a high priority.
- Some private companies, such as Seawest
Windpower, are already conducting research on bats.
- The need for bat studies seems to be
driven by regulation. Potential issues with bats has not come up in
the experience of the Avian workgroup company representatives.
- We should wait for the Perspectives
Paper draft with its data on nocturnal and bat impacts, and then
revisit the question of whether to pursue the issue further.
DECISION:
No specific action steps were agreed to, but these possible action
steps were discussed:
- See what the Perspectives Paper can
cover on what is known about nocturnal mortality data.
- Focus on getting a better understanding
of the number of birds and bats killed in relation to their
populations sizes (species specific) and try to develop rough order of
magnitude information that would be useful for answering information
requests.
- Decide whether the impacts are
significant enough to justify modifying the NWCC "Studying Wind
Energy/Bird Interactions: A Guidance Document" to include
specific nocturnal methodologies.
The Avian Workgroup will continue to
monitor the issue and continue having dialogue about possible roles for
the NWCC.
FACT SHEET DRAFT
Tom Gray, AWEA
Tom Gray briefly presented a draft of the
one-page Avian Fact Sheet. The group discussed it and various individuals
made the following comments:
- Clarify who the "we" is, i.e.
scientific community researchers. The suggestion was the
"we" refers to the NWCC.
- Prefer use of the word"injury"
to "mortality.
- Clarify the types of birds, e.g.
raptors.
- Simplify language and avoid jargon. Use
terms like: mitigation, prevention, impacts to population.
- 1-2 birds/turbine/year looks negative.
Need to put this in context.
- Change meters to feet.
- This is useful and not biased.
- Reorganize the language to clarify what
we know and don't know.
- Mention that the wind industry knows
something about how to avoid and minimize impacts to birds.
- Use sidebars and graphics.
- Go to two pages double sided.
- Focuses on large wind farms. Include
information on mid-sized turbines, clusters, and small (<50 kW)
turbines.
- Ask NREL to do the layout.
- One member prefers the term
"mortality reduction" or "risk reduction" to
"mitigation."
- Present information on what is being
done about the issue.
- The fact sheet should state the
significance of the problem in relative terms.
ACTION:
- Workgroup members will get all their
comments into Tom Gray and Abby Arnold at RESOLVE and NWCC staff will
work with the parties to produce a revised draft.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS OF THE AVIAN workgroup
Abby Arnold
Should the avian workgroup continue and if so what are its goals?
Members agreed the group should continue
and some offered the following perspectives about future directions:
- One thing the group has not done is
summarize what we know. The group has evolved from dealing with an
emergency to a mature group distributing information, but we need to
hone our message.
- It is important to keep this group going
as a useful forum for emerging issues.
- The risk of perception becoming reality
is always there (e.g. nocturnal, bats), therefore the group is needed.
- In the early days of the committee it
was the potential of USFWS enforcement action that spurred on the
research.
- The agencies are not seeking punitive
action towards the wind industry.
- We can get a year ahead of the curve by
keeping the committee going.
- There is a need to shift gears from
production of information products to how to get the message out to
insure the work of these products is used.
- The group's overall message should be
transitioning way from the negative aspects and toward the positive
aspects. For example, in many locations, avian problems have been
minimal or non-existent; and the wind community now knows a great deal
about prevention of avian problems through careful siting.
- While we definitely have learned that
careful siting seems to be the key to avoiding avian impacts, fully
understanding bird utilization and abundance at a proposed wind
developments is critical to careful siting. There are numerous
projects in progress where avian work is either not being done at all
or being done at a very minimal level - thereby opening the industry
up for a future potential problem site. 'Careful siting' is
particularly important for large sites (like Stateline and other
100+MW sites)- yet the fast track approach to installing wind farms
should not preclude the opportunity to properly assess the site for
avian issues.
ACTION:
- The Workgroup agreed that it would
continue its role as national research advisor and input will be
directed to NREL (Karin Sinclair) on research priorities.
- The Workgroup will complete
outstanding products.
A list of other potential action steps was
identified including:
- Development of a communications plan
that might include
- Fact Sheets
- Slide Show
- Information Package
- Communication Strategy with the
following elements:
- Communication
- Education
- Outreach
- Target Audiences
ALTAMONT SPECIFIC WORKSHOP
Abby Arnold
Does the Avian Workgroup want to sponsor a workshop on the Altamont?
- Topics proposed for discussion from the
agenda included:
- Results of recent research
- Present facts/dispel misperceptions
- Stakeholder co-sponsored
- Timeline and funding
The work group agreed that at this time an
Altamont specific workshop was not needed but that NWCC could hold a
general avian-wind workshop for key stakeholders such as environmental
organizations, agencies, regulators, and the industry from key states such
as California, Texas, Minnesota, and the Dakotas.
ACTION:
The Avian Workgroup will continue to monitor the need for and usefulness
of an NWCC-sponsored avian-wind issues workshop.
NWCC Permitting Handbook Modification and
Re-Print Abby Arnold
The NWCC Siting Workgroup is primarily charged with revising and updating
Permitting of Wind Energy Facilities: A Handbook in 2001, but there is
some natural overlap with the Avian Workgroup. The issues on the agenda
for this meeting were:
- What process do we envision to achieve
this goal
- Role of the Avian Workgroup in this
process
- Task members
- Timeline and funding
Work group members offered these comments:
- The handbook could include information
on recent changes in the siting process in response to electric
restructuring which in some areas has accelerated the number of
attempts to get new generation on line quickly.
- This is an opportune time to update the
handbook.
ACTION:
- Tom Gray, Steve Ugoretz, Larry Hartman,
and Heather Rhoads offered to participate in the Permitting Handbook
update process from the Avian Workgroup.
AVIAN-WIND POWER PLANNING MEETING V
Abby Arnold
What's the timing for a next meeting? Members agreed that a meeting
was not needed in 2001, and would defer the decision to conduct another
research meeting to a future date.
FINAL PARTICIPANTS LIST
- Dick Anderson, California Energy
Commission
- Abby Arnold, Senior Mediator &
Director of Business Development, RESOLVE, Inc.
- Mike Azeka, Vice President, SeaWest
Windpower, Inc.
- Don Bain, Renewable Resources Policy
Analyst, Aeropower Services Inc.
- Richard Carlton, Ph. D., Manager,
Quantitative Ecology, Environmental Department Electric Power Research
Institute
- Ed DeMeo, Renewable Energy Consulting
Services, Inc.
- Wallace Erickson, Western Ecosystems
Technology, Inc.
- Thomas Gray, Deputy Executive Director,
American Wind Energy Association
- Van Jamison, Environmental Protection
Specialist, U.S. DOE Denver Regional Office
- Paul Kerlinger, Ph.D., Principal, Curry
& Kerlinger, L.L.C.
- Gabe Petlin, Senior Analyst/Outreach
Coordinator, RESOLVE, Inc.
- Heather Rhoads-Weaver, Northwest SEED -
Sustainable Energy for Economic Development
- Michael C. Robinson, Ph.D., Manager,
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Karin Sinclair, Avian Projects Manager,
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Joan Stewart, Permits &
Environmental Affairs Specialist, Altamont Infrastructure Company
- Steve Ugoretz, Wisconsin Department of
Natural Resources Integrated Science Services
- Rebecca Wooden, Environmental Planner,
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
ATTACHMENTS
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