While citizens were sleeping, mercenary biologists working for faux environmentalists like T. Boone Pickens (Pickens Plan) have crafted environmental assessments of proposed wind turbine sites. The goal: maximize profits by siting as many turbines as possible by writing deceptive environmental assessments to hide the damage turbines must do to get the job done. The Coalition for Sensible Siting found this sprint for federal 1603 cash has gutted US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and State protections. Lobbyists waving the “Global Warming” banner swarmed Capitol Hill and begged permission to destroy eagles, bats, passerines, and the lives of countless citizens under the guise of “saving the planet”. The result? Debilitating health impacts on thousands of citizens, decimation of golden eagle populations across the country, grave concerns about extinction of bats, and hundreds of thousands of passerines killed annually... and we’re not even to the halfway mark for proposed wind energy installation.
The AWA Goodhue Avian and Bat Protection Plan prepared for AWA Goodhue of Dallas, TX was recently posted to the Minnesota Public Utility Commission (MPUC) public document docket. It’s not difficult to see that it is a sham Plan. Lay it side by side and compare it to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) documentation on how to obtain an Incidental Take Permit for bald and golden eagles.
(CAUTION: the new Pickens Plan contradicts itself and contradicts the previous avian survey. Reading the Plan is likely to cause you to feel dizzy and confused by the “new” information provided by Pickens’ consultant Westwood. Please remain seated for the duration of the comparison to avoid injury from dizziness and nausea.)
AWA Goodhue's lead up to the 'Avian and Bat Protection Plan':
1. Fail to perform studies recommended by USFWS
2. State there are no bald eagles in the "footprint" of the proposed wind project
3. Get proved wrong by local citizens
4. Insist bald eagles are only present due to citizens"baiting" eagles using dead things
5. Try (unsuccessfully) to get farmers in trouble with the MN Board of Animal Health
6. Harass citizens and eagles using a low flying helicoptor
After reading the USFWS material and the AWA Goodhue proposal it quickly becomes evident that the mitigation strategies proposed by Pickens, under the direction of the Certified Wildlife Biologists with Westwood [un?]Professional Services calls for: starving the eagles out of the project footprint by removing habitat that supports their prey, removing all habitat eagles rely upon for roosting, perching and sheltering during harsh Minnesota winters so eagles will leave, harassing the birds with helicopters for behavior modification, and disrupting breeding and nesting habitats by using construction equipment within 1/2 mile of the nest sites. None of the eagles that have been calling this area home for the past decades will survive this onslaught - which is apparently Pickens’ desired outcome.
1. Fail to perform studies recommended by USFWS
2. State there are no bald eagles in the "footprint" of the proposed wind project
3. Get proved wrong by local citizens
4. Insist bald eagles are only present due to citizens"baiting" eagles using dead things
5. Try (unsuccessfully) to get farmers in trouble with the MN Board of Animal Health
6. Harass citizens and eagles using a low flying helicoptor
After reading the USFWS material and the AWA Goodhue proposal it quickly becomes evident that the mitigation strategies proposed by Pickens, under the direction of the Certified Wildlife Biologists with Westwood [un?]Professional Services calls for: starving the eagles out of the project footprint by removing habitat that supports their prey, removing all habitat eagles rely upon for roosting, perching and sheltering during harsh Minnesota winters so eagles will leave, harassing the birds with helicopters for behavior modification, and disrupting breeding and nesting habitats by using construction equipment within 1/2 mile of the nest sites. None of the eagles that have been calling this area home for the past decades will survive this onslaught - which is apparently Pickens’ desired outcome.
Concerned citizens and USFWS officials have had numerous discussions about the USFWS recommendations for siting industrial wind turbines near active bald eagle nests with AWA Goodhue. This developer has routinely insisted that there is no siting recommendation related to active bald eagle nests and has insisted that the 2 mile distance explained by citizens is fantasy. An email exchange with the USFWS was recently posted to the MPUC docket making it very clear that the Service recommends a two mile setback from active nests.
The Coalition for Sensible Siting is curious to see what excuse the developer will come up with now that they can no longer say, “We didn’t know....” If AWA Goodhue is not successful in driving the birds from the project area, there seems no doubt Pickens’ wind farm will kill and maim bald eagles as the birds try to forage and hunt in fragmented habitat divided by 7 ton blades with tips spinning between 140 and 200 miles per hour.
The birds that travel the Mississippi Migratory Flyway depend upon maintenance of these critical habitats to support them as they move from the Arctic Circle to as far away as Patagonia. The cumulative effects of allowing this level of predation upon the land will be severe as other wind energy developers follow the precedent set by Minnesota’s ill-advised Public Utilities Commission ensuring birds and bats transecting the US are killed by the hundreds of thousands.
The MPUC determined that T. Boone Pickens’ AWA Goodhue wind project is “Not Needed” to meet Minnesota’s renewable energy mandate. And yet, the developer’s proposed "mitigation strategies" would lead one to believe that placing 400 foot wind turbines in Goodhue County Minnesota is critical infrastructure and so, while unfortunate, it is necessary to collapse one of the healthiest ecosystems in SE Minnesota. Clearly, such a claim is fantasy to dazzle the MPUC into allowing turbine construction to move forward.
2 comments:
The Pickens Plan appears to endorse a philosophy of "rape the land now, fix it later." How dare bald eagles, bats, and citizens live where HE wants to dump his gargantuan junk! I swear the man and his MN cohorts are like two year old: "I see it. I like it. I want it. It's mine."
One can quickly understand how WestwoodNot So Professional Services gets away with writing this nonsense when they have friends like the MN Office of Energy Security/Energy Facility Permiting allowing them to. That is the group responsible for reviewing such plans for the state and making recomendations to the MN Public Utilities Commission. The OES/EFP does not have a single electrical engineer, biologist or medical professional on staff. They are knowledgable about MN statute though, and since industrial wind has lobbied to be exempt from the laws that any other business must abide by they have allways recieved approval with no questions asked until now.
Wind has been allowed to write its own rules and govern themselves with no watchdog. What other business is allowed to do that? This is classic Fox guarding the Henhouse.
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