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US Issues 30-Year Eagle-Killing Permits To Wind Industry
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Lindsay Abrams reports at Salon that the Obama administration is offering wind farms 30 years of leeway to kill and harm bald and golden eagles. The new regulations, which were requested by the wind industry, will provide companies that seek a permit with legal protection, preventing them from having to pay penalties for eagle deaths (PDF). An investigation by the Associated Press earlier this year documented the illegal killing of eagles around wind farms, the Obama administration's reluctance to prosecute such cases and its willingness to help keep the scope of the eagle deaths secret. President Obama has championed the pollution-free energy, nearly doubling America's wind power in his first term as a way to tackle global warming. Scientists say wind farms in 10 states have killed at least 85 eagles since 1997, with most deaths occurring between 2008 and 2012, as the industry was greatly expanding. Most deaths — 79 — were golden eagles that struck wind turbines. However the scientists said their figure is likely to be 'substantially' underestimated, since companies report eagle deaths voluntarily and only a fraction of those included in their total were discovered during searches for dead birds by wind-energy companies. The National Audubon Society said it would challenge the decision."
I'm as green as anyone, but lordy that was some one-sided summary Hugh.
Can I at least ask for some other numbers, such as the number of bird kills resulting from pollutants dumped out by the big coal fired plants in Ohio?
Three Squirrels
There is no perfect solution here. I'm not saying companies should erect wind turbines in the middle of nesting areas, but the truth is, there is no risk-free, cost-free, environmental-damage-free answer to the problem of power production. Coal mining is wretched for the environment and coal miners have a nasty habit of dying of black lung. Nuclear power has risks (and I'm a nuclear proponent). The long-term cleanup and environmental repair is very costly if something goes wrong. Solar power is expensive. Wind turbines kill birds.
At a certain point, the question is "What's an acceptable loss ratio?"
Windmills: The Politically Correct way to kill eagles.
I always knew this green non-sense was anti-American.
It figures that they'd be killing eagles. And that Obama would go along with it.
Can I at least ask for some other numbers, such as the number of bird kills resulting from pollutants dumped out by the big coal fired plants in Ohio?
Are you trying to argue that it's better to kill some birds using windmills than killing some birds via the smokestacks ?
When we burn fossil fuel, we increase the amount of C02 level in the atmosphere, triggering what is called by many "Global Warming".
When we don't want to burn fossil fuel, and turn to Nuke, we end up having radioactive waste that can last very very long time.
And when we turn to the wind, the birds (including the eagles) ending up having to pay.
A much more simple way is to cut down on our wasteful lifestyle.
Do we need to turn our home into a greenhouse every winter ?
Do we need to turn the same house into an igloo every summer ?
We don't, do we ? But I have been to people's office / home in winter / summertime and boy, they sure feel like greenhouse / igloo.
And to those "electric car" fanbois, listen up.
Do we really need electric "CAR" ?
I mean, do we need a VERY HEAVY VEHICLE, even if they are electrically driven, to get us from point A to point B ?
Look at the weight of the electric cars. They are NOT THAT MUCH DIFFERENT from the fossil-fuel cars, weighting more than 1 ton.
What is the average weight of a human being ? 50/60 kilo?
Why do we need something that weight A FUCKING TON to deliver something that weight 50/60 ton ?
If you ever talk to people in the packaging industry they would tell you that the concept of having the packaging material weighting MUCH HEAVIER than the goods in it is ridiculous.
But that is what we had been doing, ever since cars (the fossil type) started rolling out of the factories.
Isn't it time for us to demand the electric car vehicle manufacturer to TOTALLY RE-DESIGN the electric cars, so that it won't weight so much ?
Less weight means less need for energy to get it going, which translates to, longer lasting battery per charge.
If we are to change towards a new thing, why do we need to stick to the old concept of clumsy cars ??
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
If they need a way to dispose of them after their unfortunate turbine encounter, I suggest to serve them up fried.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
You have no idea how illegal it is to even posses an eagle feather you happen to find while hiking. The only people who get a pass are Native Americans.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The eagles are an issue, but the wind-farms are a question of survival of the human civilization. Nobody sane can put these two issues even remotely on the same level.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It's crazy.
The environmentalists don't appear to have anyone on their team who understand the amount (or even the magnitude) of the energy consumed globally to make it all work. That, or their desire for renewables is biased by an anti-capitalist desire to collapse the economy. I don't know.
Brass tacks: We need -massive- amounts of energy, we will need even more, and there are two options - hydrocarbons and nuclear.
The governments of the world should all have Manhattan-style projects to solve nuclear fusion, alternative fission reactors, and solve the battery storage problem - be it super-cap technology or something else.
Instead we waste time dicking about with windmill foolishness. Sigh.
Keep it up. Go team.
..don't panic
How about a more balanced view? How many eagles would really die? How does that compare to the dangers from CO2, from other technologies? What about the habitat ruined by oil wells, natural gas wells, fracking, etc.? It's really not at all as simplistic as this posting implies.
What about all the eagles killed by trucks, trains, cars and high buildings?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The *real* simplest solution is to put the stuff that lasts a Very Long Time, into a Very Deep and Stable Place.
THAT is the simplest solution. Not your fantasy of getting a few billion people to live the backwards lifestyle you won't even accede to yourself (oh wait, that was supposed to apply to you and not just the peasants?).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's not just a license. It's a not-so-subtle symbol of what Obama wants to do with America, have it fly right into the spinning Obama Turbine of Destruction and fall right onto the Hard Ground of Failure.
If he could build wind turbines that spit on the dead eagles at the foot of the tower he would.
"Every time an eagle screams, a liberal gets his wings!". That's right honey, they sure do.
If you work at an airport, you know that birds are stupid and will fly into anything. If there is any metric to use for determining if wind turbines are a real threat, they should be compared to high-rise buildings. An estimated 1 in 10 birds are killed by flying into buildings every year. I doubt the birds killed vs number of structures ratio is much worse for turbines.
There won't be any left in thirty years.
Energy policy for nerds:
http://www.withouthotair.com/
As xtal points out, the important thing most people don't get about the numbers is the sheer size.
It is, it turns out, actually possible to get usefully large contributions from what are considered green sources. But you need nation-sized installations.
With exactly 10 seconds of thought on this, couldn't you just put giant wire cages around the turbines? It would certainly reduce efficiency but would prevent direct strikes on the blades.
Was this whole slashdot article typed-up by the (Global warming isn't happening) lobby?
I can finally open that Kentucky Fried Eagle franchise I've been dreaming of!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Now I see why, as a political group, those people are so annoying. Bullshit headlines like this make me a lot less interested in whatever asshole cause they are championing.
The U.S. should invade Afghanistan to make homes for nesting eagles.
Why do we need heavy cars? Who cares? We want them. We're natural and what we want is natural. Our natural desires for comfort and safety trump your irrational desire to "save the planet"...
You, sir, are a complete and utter fucktard. Go eat a bowl of dicks.
Sick of this shit. What a fucking fraud.
if you can get killed by wind turbines? Trot with the turkeys ... and become dinner.
Why don't they use those instead? Pic: http://cdn1.hssmedia.fi/Newsmedia/2013/06/11/647/VLBLOT_100575.jpg
The article offers a ray of hope that Europe might establish a process where permits are granted in three and a half years with only one court about to stop the process:
Of course imagine the outrage if this short-circuiting of the right of protest and judicial review were granted for other types of energy projects ...
I think the best I've heard Greenpeace described was something like "assholes who always get in the way... but every once in a while do something useful too."
They are pumping chemicals into the ground to release gas. Most of the gas gets harvested, the rest just goes everywhere.
That's not an accusation, that's how it works. So putting dangerous chemicals into the ground and spreading gas everywhere. That's a bad thing.
The wind industry is just making itself look bad by attempting to indemnify itself, but considering the completely nuts figures jurys come up with in America, not entirely surprising.
Bald eagle pop' est 200,000, conservation status is 'least concern'.
Golden eagle pop' est 170,000 to 250,000 conservation status is 'least concern'.
Farmers, game keepers, egg collectors and tourists disturbing feeding areas are the biggest causes of bird death or nest failure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Eagle#Threats
'the Obama administration's reluctance to prosecute' Perhaps because without intent, there is actually little to prosecute for?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
This law, originally passed in 1940, provides for the protection of the bald eagle and the golden eagle by prohibiting the take, possession, sale, purchase, barter, offer to sell, purchase or barter, transport, export or import, of any bald or golden eagle, alive or dead, including any part, nest, or egg, unless allowed by permit Bald Eagle sitting in tree (16 U.S.C. 668(a); 50 CFR 22). "Take" includes pursue, shoot, shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, molest or disturb (16 U.S.C. 668c; 50 CFR 22.3). The 1972 amendments increased civil penalties for violating provisions of the Act to a maximum fine of $5,000 or one year imprisonment with $10,000 or not more than two years in prison for a second conviction. Felony convictions carry a maximum fine of $250,000 or two years of imprisonment. The fine doubles for an organization. Rewards are provided for information leading to arrest and conviction for violation of the Act.
In other news (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3033412/posts), an Indiana man was charged this week with the unlawful possession of a bald eagle, which the man says he cared for and rescued from the mud pit in which it was trapped. The former Department of Natural Resources employee, Jeffrey Henry, could face up to 60 days of jail time and a $500 fine as part of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
Law is the will of the powerful.
Okay, I will probably be modded down for this, but it's worth saying. And for the record, I'm opposed to needlessly killing animals.
The first time I heard about eagles being killed by windmills, I imagined one being cut down while flying from point A to point B, not noticing that there was this lethal windmill in its path. Then, I saw a video on a website of an actual eagle death by windmill (and I apologize for not being able to find & post the link here) and was very surprised bu what I saw. Basically, the eagle was "dancing" with the windmill, repeatedly flying around it over and over. Like a moth flying around a flame. Eventually, the two paths intercepted, and the eagle was hit by the blade.
So part of me wanted to scream "stupid eagle!" and make the natural selection comment. But maybe there is something hypnotic going on that makes the bird want to investigate this strange whirling object?
Maybe a solution to the problem isn't to grant power companies "permits" to kill eagles, but to find a way to repel them rather than attract them.
- Mike
You know, I get associated with right-winged conservatives all the time (probably for good reason), but I found this article stupid, and just another effort to blame the Obama Administration for something else.
Do you have any idea how many wind turbines there are in California alone? Add to that all the wind turbines in Texas, plus all those strung out over the other 37 states that have wind power, and the fact that ONLY 85 eagles have been killed by them over 15 years is a pretty darn low number. I was expecting to read something like 100 per year. (Okay, granted, Texas isn't really the home of bald eagles)
I get it, I am a patriot, and the hearing that any eagle are killed doesn't sit too well with me. But seriously, 85 over 15 years?
How about an article saying how many animals are ALIVE from us going to windpower and reducing the amount of pollutant in the enviornment?
The Obama Administration issuing permits to wind power companies protecting them from prosecution because a bird is stupid enough to fly into a turbine sounds like a logical move to me.
Now if we were talking hundred or more birds killed a year in the same area, the argument could be made to disassemble some turbines in a given area. But these incidents sound pretty remote. The Altaria Wind Farm in California has 490 turbines. (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States ). I am too lazy to go and look at how many turbines there are total near eagle nesting area, but once again, the numbers reported are really low. (The article does state though that not all deaths are reported, so I can accept that hese numbers may be higher).
Now if the poster can think of a way to get clean energy without any side effects, please tell us, and we will consider you for a Nobel Prize.
Windpower is NON-VIABLE, which is why it needs such huge subsidies...
I think the only point of the story is that Dear Leader says it is OK so it must be so.
You're so right about those dangerous chemicals. They put dihydrogen monoxide in the ground. As you may know, dihydrogen monoxide kills thousands of people every year.
How about "Wind farms given largesse to cause death to children by infrasound-driven prolapse"?
Shit, if this were ALF talking about Huntingdon or whoever given license to torture beagles to death, there'd be NO FUCKING CHANCE it would appear here as anything other than the ALF being hysterical nutjobs.
Yet this hysterical nutjob gets a full slashdot article slaveishly spent on it as if it were sensible.
Every summer, it warms.
So your claim is incorrect.
If you wish to claim that the trend is zero, you're wrong.
If you wish to claim that the trend proves that there is no AGW, you're wrong.
Both for the same reason: error bars in the trend estimation are huge for 15 years.
Intra-year variability in a stable climate is about 0.5C. That means the trend could be, if that variability were driving things one way, +0.3C per decade, or more than 50% higher than expected from AGW.
Always ignorant of their hypocrisy.
"If you don't like it, move to China" ring a bell?
> a typical "green" person doesn't think in terms of "best alternative", but simply opposes whatever is being done
By your definition, that is. Grow up.
We are parasites. Humans are parasites. You. You are a parasite. A very stupid, closed minded parasite.
If the Fan Industry didn't put guards on fans.......
The solution is so obvious I should not have to spell it out.
As the party of jackasses say, "With money, anything is possible."
Let's kill some birds and fish. The truth is that we could create a mass extinction (killing nearly everything) if we keep going in the direction we're going. Or we can build a bunch of windmills and dams (and perhaps fission reactors), buying time to look for something better like fusion while killing off smaller localized sets of biodiversity, or we can simply kill ourselves or each other and let the animals do whatever they will without us. I don't see any options where we're not killing something.
Dear Leader is wise. Dear Leader is all-knowing. Dear Leader must have concluded that Dear Leader's environmental agenda is more important than a few birds.
What's even more stupid is that if the man had called a Federal Wildlife Officer to report the stuck Bald Eagle, the officer would have simply shot it and taken the body away to be disposed of.
I guess this says something about Slashdot when one person has so many accepted submissions. Clearly this guy has an agenda, as proof by this story. Hey Hugh, you have a website, how many platforms do you need to broadcast your view?
Give it rest.
proponents of dirty power. dumb one at that.
Preventable in what manner? If both coal power and wind power kill birds as a byproduct, what are humans supposed to do to generate electric power?
That is a very accurate and succinct paraphrasing of the GP's post.
Thank you for providing it for the stupid parasites that are too lazy to read three clearly written and logically coherent paragraphs.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
They die because they're born with a defected brain. Not our fault.
Last time I checked, the U.S. was supposed to have a President with limited powers enumerated by the Constitution. The story shouldn't be about birds or wind power. It should be about an administration that all too frequently ignores, changes or selectively enforces laws duly enacted by Congress. Absent some sort of national emergency, this type of behavior is outrageous.
Birds are magnificent but also pretty dumb. I have cardinals hitting my windows during the spring, usually just sitting in my study I hear a *thud* and there's a cardinal either shaking off a headache or lying there dead. Eagles are magnificent and protected for a reason. Wind Farms should be able to develop technology that keeps them away from the turbines. This is a Market Opportunity folks, somebody should be able to come up with like the little bird vinyl stickers you can buy to keep birds from hitting your windows.
Maybe train other Eagles to avoid the Wind Mills and chase other Eagles away? I don't know but there should be a better way than saying "Meh, it's okay kill the Eagles."
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Eagles have both greater visual acuity and vastly superior reaction times compared to humans.
How exactly can they not see and avoid giant windmills in the sky? I don't get it.
when did cars in the US start getting so much bigger than in other places?
Around the time crash safety standards rose, if rally2xs is to be believed. Or when CAFE was instituted and automakers found they could comply by reclassifying their station wagons (called "estate cars" in some markets) as light trucks, creating the minivan and SUV.
http://labbratz.com/img/comic/375.jpg
They rather give people the OK to kill the bald eagle then to admit man made global warming is a hoax. Unless it can be SCIENTIFICALLY proven its real, I can't support a more expensive way to make energy just because its "green". 79 Minimal bald Eagles killed, I would guess it is MUCH higher because a lot of people would not want to report them, and more eaten by wolves.
No surprise Obama would do this, as a symbol of America, Obama would be glad to have it destroyed.
"How's that 'hopey-changey' stuff workin' out for ya?"
Any progress made with wind, wave or solar will be fought by the traditional power industries. We have all seen pictures of bird kills from oil spills. We can not know the chaos caused by coal or nuclear. But how quickly do complaints come after a bird hits a windmill? Also make note that real solutions are always avoided. Loss of our environment is directly related to population. If we install tight birth control regulation we can actually do something about almost all of our intractable environmental difficulties and most social issues as well. Notice how issues can be converted by this example: Right now we have all kinds of conflicts with our borders and migrant farm workers. The farmers claim they can not get American workers. What they really mean is that they feel that they can not pay the needed wages for American workers. If we reduced our population through enforced birth control from 350 million to 80 million we would need about 75% less farm laborers. We could eliminate 75% of agricultural pollution. We could also eliminate 75% of the housing and streets covering our nation. Wildlife would prosper. Our air and water would be far less polluted. And employment would not be an issues as reduction by birth control means that we would have many seniors needing help from the younger folks in society. And it gets even better. Seniors need less food than younger folks. They also purchase less common goods and things like automobiles as well. Any way you look at it our greatest threat is population and our greatest relief is in planned population shrinkage through birth control.
Like every year, a number of people die getting hit by freight trains. These things are massive, make a lot of noise and oh ya, can only travel along well defined paths. Still, some people seem to get snuck up on by 3000 ton trains and killed.
It really is a case of natural selection.
Only in "America", where you are penalized for animals committing suicide ... idiots.
Compared to the number of buildings, those birds will meet pretty close to no wind turbines.
...you just need to be aware of the bias. All articles have bias to some degree; writing completely without bias cannot effectively convey ideas--lack of bias reduces an article of writing to nothing but an enumeration of facts. Bias is required to support arguments and formulate ideas, or else you are just making the worlds most boring encyclopaedia.
Thus, it is best to actively seek out and focus on biased articles and apply critical thinking--and look at articles biased on BOTH sides. So, don't b!tch about the bias in an article being against your personal views, go out and seek another article biased towards the opposite side of the argument and evaluate each argument on its merits.
How many birds are killed by coal pollution might be part of a valid counter-argument but it does not invalidate the fact that wind tubines kill eagles and other birds, nor the fact that the government is giving the industry preferrential treatment. Where I live Oil Sands is a major source of energy, and upgrader plants (particularly the oldest ones) have tailings ponds. When countermeasures fail and several dozen birds land on the toxic tailings and die the incident is widely reported and the oil companies are held to account, paying thousands per bird found. If they are held fully liable and are subject to mandated full disclosure of all animal fatalities resulting from their operations then how come wind farms get a free pass?
Wind makes no CO2 and is renewable and that is good, but killing wildlife and destroying habitat is bad no matter who does it, and everyone who does it should be responsible for it. We don't give drivers of hybrid cars a free pass if they are at fault in an accident or let them pour their used oil into a storm drain because their cars have a smaller carbon footprint--that would be asinine! Just because an energy source is renewable doesn't mean it has no impact on the environment (just look at how devestating renewable hydroelectric power has been to the environment in China as an example). ALL energy development must be done sustainably throughout the lifecycle. You could never get a nuclear plant built adjacent to a residential neigbourhood, you couldn't get Keystone XL bulit across an aquifer and you wouldn't give BP a break on the cleanup costs of Deepwater Horizon. You shouldn't give a wind farm of hundreds of turbines covering hundreds of acres a free pass on killing birds, destroying habitats and affecting the health of nearby residents just because it is "carbon free".
FAIRNESS matters.
The oil inudstry where I am kills less birds than the wind farms in the area, and the amount killed by wind farms is already quite small, yet the oil industry is required by law to be fully liable for all bird deaths and must, at their own expense, install countermeadures to drive birds away from hazardous areas (scarecrows, air cannons, supersonic noise makers, etc). Even if only a few dozen birds die in a year, and even though none are endangered they are rightly held fully accountable in that respect, as are all industrial operations in my juristiction.
So, tell me why being "carbon neutral" gives a wind farm a free pass to kill animals and destroy habitat?
Care to provide a link to the post you're replying to? Because the one in the "parent" link doesn't claim that s/he said that, merely asked if "If you don't like it, move to China" from rightwingnuts, as s/he and you two are, but going down by your and their assertion as "typical liberal" thing to tell everyone where to live.
to defend it. BP recently got caught paying trolls to send people death threads on the web. Google it. Or what aboit the time they "lost" a laptop containing personal data about tens of thousands of people? If money had a dick, your lips would be around it.
Find ways to breed them, and not necessarily all in their natural habitat.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Those bastards took my pet rabbit, I hope they choked on his bones.....
Have we lost all humanity ??? In many ways we extend care to creatures .. protect the innocent .. those unable to cope with our new world ..
and now we've descended to the pits of depravity .. murdering our national symbol and more .. for what???
So Big Biz wont have to install screening around turbines????
This is disgusting news .. repulsive, vomitous ...
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
How do I mod down the article itself?
Wow, some technological advance - windmills that hunt and kill eagles.
Aren't these really eagle suicides?
Amazing that Slashdot would accept an article from someone putting link bait in their username and using FUD as the premise for the summary. Bias much?
I think I've asked this before, but don't remember getting an answer.
I realize people would consider this uglier than existing windmills, but is there a reason something like a chain link fence couldn't be put around windmills as a visual "barrier" to the birds? Seems to me like it would be a visual barrier, yet not actually impede the wind flow much. (Yes, I know small birds can and do fly through chain link fences too.)
It's 99.5% water and sand. The other 0.5% includes things like guar gum, alcohol, and various other things that are also in your dinner. Also a few scarier sounding things, mainly petroleum products like propane and hexane. More on these *ane chemicals in paragraph 3. That's not to say that a specific type of fracturing, in some very specific type of circumstance, might not have some undesirable effects, but those effects aren't due to "huge amounts of nasty chemicals".
It may be useful to note there are two major types of fracturing. In the most common, cracks a few inches long are re-created along the bore hole, which had been polished smooth by the drill. This type of fracturing effects only a few inches from the bore. This has been extremely common for many years. The well your tap water comes from is likely fractured.
The second category of fracturing creates much larger fractures. It's not used much for water wells. More often, it's used for wells that take chemicals out of the ground, like petroleum (all of those *ane chemicals we mentioned earlier). They pump in a little bit of propane, petroleum jelly, etc., in order to get a lot more of the same type of products out. On net, they take a lot more *ane out than they put in. That's because they aren't stupid - putting in more than they are going to get out would be a huge waste of money.
How does a bird actually wind up getting killed by a wind turbine?
Turbines are big, slow-moving, and non-reflective (ie: they don't look like sky)
I constantly hear that these things kill birds, and I've seen various statistics which say "but, really it's nothing compared to how many birds die from any other thing we do", but can anyone explain how it actually happens at all? Maybe the blades move faster than I think, but I can't tell because they're so big? I just don't get it. Do birds just fly into thngs all the time, and we only notice it when they fly into glass because it makes that noise?