California Officials Approve Permits for Wind Farm
Date: 23-Sep-05
Country: USA
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved conditions on permits held by wind power companies like FPL Energy, a unit of FPL Group Inc., and other wind generators to produce electricity at the 584-megawatt Altamont Pass wind farm, one of the world's largest wind energy centers.
One megawatt of wind energy can power about 250 to 300 homes with no emissions, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
Altamont Pass, about 50 miles east of San Francisco, is on the Pacific Coast migratory flyway for raptors and close to a nesting area for golden eagles, hawks, falcons and owls.
The site has been generating wind power for about 20 years for sale to utility PG&E Corp., but nature groups like the Audubon Society and the Center for Biological Diversity have stepped up pressure to reduce bird kills and protect the nesting grounds.
A California Energy Commission study estimated that up to 4,720 birds from 40 different species are killed each year at the farm, including as many as 1,300 protected raptors.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, in a letter to the supervisors in July, said "ongoing harm to protected bird species (at Altamont Pass) is serious and unacceptable."
The supervisors renewed the permits to require wind power companies to replace more than 5,000 windmills over the next 13 years with 500 more efficient turbines with high blades that spin above the birds' flight paths.
The wind developers also must prepare an environmental impact report within three years, and a scientific review committee will be set up, the supervisors said.
"The scientific committee will help guide the program over the next 13 years and provide a lot of important third-party expertise into the process," Steve Stengel, a spokesman for FPL Energy, said.
Jeff Miller, a spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the supervisors failed to require wind operators to submit data to justify their claims of financial hardship.
The companies said Altamont bird-protection could cost them more than $500 million.
Miller said bird deaths could be cut in half if all the turbines were turned off in the winter, the deadliest removed permanently, and steps taken to protect the local bird habitats.
