-----Original Message-----
From: mark duchamp
[mailto:markduchamp@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 26, 2003 7:55
PM
Subject: red energy
Happy New
Year!
First, this, for innocence:
http://web.icq.com/shockwave/0,,4845,00.swf
Then this, for the dark
side:
"""""""""""""""""""""""
RED ENERGY
Windfarms are often
set up in wilderness areas because: 1) they need vast
expanses of land 2)
conveniently, there are no neighbours to raise
objections 3) eagles, swans
and geese cannot protest.
But what of the defenders of our feathered
friends, the bird societies?
I am just returning from a trip to Scotland,
Northern England and Wales,
where I have read a few environmental impact
assessments (EIA). I knew
before I went that wind turbines were lethal to
anything that flies: eagles,
kites, harriers, falcons, hawks, owls,
swans, geese, storks, grouse,
songbirds, bats etc. Thousands of deaths have
been documented in the world
so far*, millions go
unreported. *
http://www.iberica2000.org/Articulo.asp?CodArt=da0804
Much effort is being made to hush-up the killings: promoters are
wary that
their projects may be defeated on such grounds. As a result,
consultants are
hired with a purpose: to prove that the turbines will not
decimate the
populations of endangered species living around them. Their
reports are
confidential, so that nesting locations are not disclosed to the
public. But
it has the added advantage that they can write anything they
want.
To show you what I mean, I will give you a few examples.
1)
First example: the consultant "predicts" that eagles will stay clear of
the
rotors. This is based, he writes, on studies about raptor behaviour in
the
presence of wind turbines. Shrewdly, he uses obfuscating
pseudo-scientific
jargon: the birds will show a "non-preference" for the
turbine
area.
This is a fallacy. Golden eagles and other raptors are known to fly
into the
area swept by the blades, whose tips rotate at speeds up to 250
kmh*. It has
been known for years that biologists contracted by the
California Energy
Commission have documented a death rate of 40 to 60 golden
eagles at the
huge Altamont Pass windfarm, plus 400 hawks, kestrels and owls
- yearly
averages.
* http://www.iberica2000.org/ImprArticulo.asp?CodArt=DB4868
Other evidence that eagles are being killed is available from two
different
areas in Spain, and from Germany and
Australia.*
* http://www.iberica2000.org/Articulo.asp?CodArt=DB7497
2) Other example, from the same EIA: in 60 hours of observation,
55 flights
of golden eagles and 12 of sea eagles were recorded at the future
windfarm
site of Edinbane on the Isle of Skye. The golden eagles were flying
35% of
the time within the range of height of the rotor blades; the sea
eagles did
it 50% of the time.
So how does the consultant handle this
adverse evidence? - He "predicts"
that there will be no "significant
decline" in the eagle population because
they fly much of the time "out with
the proposed swept area of the turbine
rotors".
This beggars belief.
It goes beyond spin, and beyond lying. This is cynicism
at its best. For
what is being said is something like this: there is no
problem with children
crossing the dangerous highway in front of the school,
because they spend
50 % of the time on the side-walk.
It is simply outrageous.
This
being written in a "Confidential Raptor Annex", the consultant
obviously
thought critical eyes would never see it. This annex was to be
read only by
the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and by
SNH - Scottish
Natural Heritage, a government agency in charge of preserving
wilderness,
among other social treasures; but they take their orders from
the Scottish
Executive, and He is very bullish on windfarms.
The RSPB, however, is
independent, and the mission of its officers is to
care for the birds. So it
is all the more shocking that they did not object
to such duplicity. Copies
were leaked of letters written by their senior
officer responsible for the
Isle of Skye. She was content with asking for
more information on various
points of detail, so as to be able to recommend
appropriate "mitigation
measures" (see point 3 below).
She was acting upon instructions from the
top management, no doubt, for no
conscientious ornithologist would even
consider such a project. Indeed, it
is a repetition on a smaller scale of
the sinister Altamont Pass windfarm in
California. In both cases we are
dealing with an eagle dispersion area - and
here we have an aggravating
factor: the presence of rare and precious
white-tailed sea eagles. Besides,
a second windfarm is to be erected on the
next ridge, also part of the same
dispersion area. Its name is Ben Aketil,
and we have maps* showing the
flights of eagles and other protected species.
The cumulative
effect will be disastrous.
* available from the
author upon request.
3) Mitigation measures.
Worldwide, it is common
practice to recommend mitigation measures that will
bring revenues to those
who recommend it The most frequent consists in the
"monitoring" of the
bird population after the windfarm is built.
Will post-construction
monitoring mitigate anything? We know from the
Altamont Pass experience
that, having in 20 years killed up to 1000 eagles,
6000 hawks and falcons
and 2000 owls, the windfarm is still operating and
will continue
indefinitely. This is in spite of being "mitigated" by
monitoring studies,
which were more beneficial to the people conducting them
than to the
birds.
So let's not be fooled when we hear that the negative effects of a
windfarm
will be "mitigated". This is just a smoke screen. Other mitigation
typically
consists in recommending that a particularly poorly sited
turbine be
eliminated, or placed elsewhere; that the windfarm be built
outside the
breeding season - measures that sound good but will make little
difference
in the end.
4) The farcical "habitat enhancement" is
another mitigation measure, one
that was used at Beinn ann Tuirc and other
windfarms built on known ranges
of breeding eagles:
A) Destroy the
eagles' hunting grounds by removing the heather and
dispersing the grouse
population.
B) Try and create a new grouse habitat in an area nearby, away
from the
turbines, planting new heather - which will not be sufficiently
grown till 5
or 7 years after the windfarm is built (but who
cares?)
C) Predict that the eagles will stop flying over their usual core
range and
go for the grouse in the "enhanced habitat".
What will
happen in fact is that grass will grow after the heather is gone,
and
rabbits and hares will take residence under the turbines, as they
normally
do. The eagles will go for them, and mice will attract smaller
raptors. And
as the rotors kill airborne predators, prey will remain
abundant and attract
more of them. As in Altamont, a black hole is created:
a population sink for
eagles.
X
X
X
This is the sort of dishonest rhetoric being used to impose
windfarms on
eagle and other protected species' habitat, in spite of
evidence that they
are deadly. Indeed, a wind project at Inverliever may
soon be approved on
the flying path of ospreys - see a copy of the map
showing their documented
flights
*.
*
available from the author upon request.
There is more: a great number of
windfarms will stand across migration
routes - which is folly. And if policy
proposal PPS22* is adopted in the UK
(and it looks like it will), Nature
2000 designated areas and National Parks
will not be
spared.
* http://www.odpm.gov.uk
On the Isle of Skye, which is home to internationally important
species like
sea eagles, golden eagles, merlins, hen harriers and golden
plovers, the
Edinbane windfarm project has been approved. Two more stand in
line, and
there will be more until the islanders come to realize the damage
being done
to the tourism industry. Cumulative effects are barely
addressed in EIA's,
if at all, and the Executive may over-ride hostile
Councils when the
installed capacity is over 50 Mw. The road has been
cleared of obstacles;
the words "protected species" have lost all
meaning.
To get an idea of the cumulative effect, see the windfarm map of
Scotland
on: www.viewsofscotland.org (click: impact maps). Look at it and try and
imagine a flight
of mute swans arriving from the Arctic, probably at dusk,
possibly in the
rain, going down to make a landing.
The map is only an indication of
things to come. There will be more, as long
as taxpayers keep paying
generous subsidies. The consumers will feel the
pinch later, as they do now
in Denmark.
The tactics of the wind industry, and governments that
promote it, is to
ignore the cumulative effects. Each project is to be
judged "on its own
merits". This effectively amounts to a
free-for-all.
A case in point: the Beinn ann Tuirc windfarm, in the
scenic region of
Argyll, was approved through the following illegal*
justification: if the
breeding pair of eagles on whose range the "farm" is
built happens to be
killed by the blades, this will only represent 0,25% of
the UK population of
400 pairs.
* it is illegal to kill golden
eagles, even 0,25% of the population.
But 2 more "farms" were built in
Argyll, on other eagle ranges. And for
Edinbane, the consultant used Argyll
as a precedent saying he estimates the
risk for eagles to be no greater than
in other windfarms in Argyll. This is
what is meant by "on its own merits":
cheat, divide and conquer; ask for
0,25% and take 50% .
The Outer
Hebrides is another Scottish jewel renowned for its wildlife. As
an eagle
habitat, it is equally important to the UK and to Europe as the
Isle of
Skye. It is also first port of call on a number of migration routes
from
Iceland, Greenland and the Arctic. Will this internationally important
archipelago be spared?
- Not at all: a first batch of 600 giant
turbines is in the pipeline already
for Lewis, the biggest island. It
will have a devastating impact on resident
and migrating bird
populations, on the National Scenic Area, on Natura 2000
sites, and on the
people of Barvas, Eishken, Galson, Pairc and Stornoway.
Projects are
considered one by one "on their own merits": the cumulative
effect is never
addressed.
As usual, the tactics of divide and rule are being applied.
AMEC, Beinn Mhor
Power, British Energy, S & S Energy Group, and the
already defunct TXU, all
have defied the fundamentals of habitat and species
conservation: cumulative
effect and precautionary principle. The Scottish
Executive, through SNH,
condones this disregard.
Do we hear the RSPB
complain? - We don't, because its top management
strongly supports wind
energy. They claim it will slow down climate change.
But new evidence
indicates that windfarms will save little or no greenhouse
gases.*
* www.iberica2000.org/Articulo.asp?CodArt=db2267
It is therefore legitimate to wonder if other considerations may
be playing
a role in their attitude. This one for instance:
www.southernelectric.co.uk/home/home_rspb_energy_welcome.asp?sMenu=rspb
(go to page bottom, enter 1.000.000 (customers)
in first square, move curser
to 6 (years), press the equal sign, and see
the millions of pounds that will
flow to the RSPB).
Their part of
the bargain is to lend their name to the scheme - "RSPB
energy" - and to
strongly advocate the development of renewable energy, i.e.
mostly
windpower at this time.
Although claimed to be "green" energy, it is not
- for it hardly saves on
harmful emissions (see above). If it must be given
a colour, I think "red
energy" would be more appropriate, in view of the
1,000 eagles and millions
of smaller birds already killed - and the many
millions to come.
By the way, here is the powerpoint presentation given
by Shawn Smallwood and
Carl Thelander at the National Wind Coordinating
Committee meeting in
Washington, DC on
November 18, 2003: pictures are
better than 1000 words
http://www.nationalwind.org/events/wildlife/20031117/presentations/Smallwood
.pdf
And you will find my own papers here:
www.iberica2000.org/ImprArticulo.asp?CodArt=DB3369
Mark Duchamp
Wildlife Advocate
Save-the-eagles@madrid.com
www.iberica2000.org/ImprArticulo.asp?CodArt=DB3369
You will find it posted with the rest of my stuff
here:
www.iberica2000.org/ImprArticulo.asp?CodArt=DB3369
Comments, anyone? So, when they tell you: an Environmental Impact
Study will
be made for each project - or. mitigation measures will be
applied - you
know what to expect!
Bird slaughter and cynicism, this
is what the game is all about
folks!
Cheers
Mark
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