Posted on 11/01/2005 3:47:18 PM PST by SmithL
Two environmental groups have gone to court to challenge renewed Alameda County permits for Altamont Pass wind farms, saying more studies are needed on the energy operations' lethal effects on birds.
One of the groups said Monday that interference by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, forced them into court action.
Lawsuits by Californians for Renewable Energy and the Golden Gate Audubon Society claim Alameda County supervisors were "arbitrary and capricious" when they approved bird-protection measures in September as conditions of the permits granted to Altamont wind-energy companies.
The regulations were approved despite critics, including the office of California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who said they didn't go far enough to protect birds, said Michael Boyd, president of the renewable energy group. Recent studies conclude nearly 5,000 birds are killed each year by flying into windmills spinning in the hills east of Livermore. The birds include protected species such as golden eagles, red tail hawks and burrowing owls.
In approving the permits, Boyd said, county supervisors shirked provisions of state's Environmental Quality Act requiring extensive studies on a project's effect on wildlife, the groups claim.
Boyd said that negotiations to settle the dispute over the bird deaths were scuttled by an October 2004 letter from Pombo to U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton asking her department to suspend interim guidelines protecting birds in the Altamont.
"It was at that moment that the wind industry started balking at the negotiations," Boyd said.
A spokesman for the House Resources Committee, of which Pombo is the chairman, called the sabotage allegation "preposterous on its face."
"These were interim guidelines, which -- as the term suggests -- had no effect in law or regulation," said Brian Kennedy. He said the changes sought by Pombo related only to new wind energy projects - not the turbines in the Altamont.
But Boyd said it was commonly believed at the time that the guidelines would apply to the Altamont, and that power companies seemed resigned to following them until Pombo's letter.
"He poisoned the will of the wind industry to negotiate a settlement. As a result, we find ourselves in court."
Boyd said there have been no studies on how the Altamont windmills affect birds, because no one suspected such a problem would exist when the wind-energy project was launched in the early 1980s.
He said evidence gathered over the past quarter-century shows that the effects are significant enough to require an impact report, which should have been triggered by September's permit renewals.
"We're not trying to stop the wind turbines from operating," Boyd said. "We're just trying to make them live up to their reputation of providing clean energy. It's not clean energy if it's got the blood of birds all over it."
The lawsuits filed in Alameda County Superior Court would require an immediate impact study to gauge the adequacy of the bird protections.
Nicki Carlsen, a Los Angeles attorney representing wind-power companies in the Altamont, said she believed county officials acted appropriately in approving the 13-year permits.
The permits require the shutdown this month of about 100 windmills deemed to be especially lethal to birds because of their locations.
Also, Altamont companies are being required to replace their windmills gradually over the next 13 years with larger, slower-moving turbines that experts believe will be far less hazardous for birds.
"We believe the county operated within all applicable laws, including (California's environmental law), when it approved the new conditional-use permits," she said.
No growth, new age, gaia worshipping retards.
Just too funny !
They won't be happy til we're living in caves. Even then they'll complain about the smoke from the camp fires.
One of the groups said Monday that interference by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, forced them into court action.
So what will make them happy?????????
Isn't this the same bunch of troublemaking hypocritical libs that constantly drone on about ALTERNATIVE POWER SOURCES??? The mindless hypocrisy is beyond belief.
Watermelons. Stinking watermelons.
indeed...
They have absolutly no shame. THey want to have their cake and eat it too.
Skip the wind farms and lets get back to good old nuclear power. Safe, clean, and will make electricity "too cheap to meter" LOL
These people use electricity every minute of every day just like the rest of us while they rabidly oppose any means of generating it. The word 'hypocrite' comes to mind.
Sounds like it might be nice to live around one of these windfarms. Wouldn't have all of these birds trying to build nests in your attic or crapping all over your car.
Why don't they focus their "Save the Bird" efforts on finding a cure for the bird flu?
This is an important reminder to anyone paying attention that "environmentalists" hate wind energy.
They only support wind energy if you are planning a gas-fired power plant, or a coal-fired power plant, or a nuclear power plant. If that is your plan, they will trot out wind energy as an alternative.
But if you are actually planning a wind farm, they will oppose it each and every time.
Apparently, the only "wind power" these folks tolerate is from their "intellectual" flatulence! Cronkite, Kennedy, et al, are opposing wind farms off either Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket. Whatever the ostensible reason, it's really because the farm will spoil their view.
>> So what will make them happy?????????
The extermination of humanity.
There. I fixed it.
That might work for the Swifts and the Ducks but what about those Burrowing Owls?
Too late! Central California To Ban Fireplaces
I believe they will oppose anything that would threaten their industry. Without a cause, they don't exist!
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