Wind Turbines Are Killing Birds and Bats

Stork photo courtesy of Mark Duchamp, President
Save the Eagles International

I saw the once verdant wheat fields of Eastern Europe covered with ugly wind turbines, slowly spinning their huge blades into the wind. A few funnel dust swirls were blowing the topsoil into the air. They did not appear to be connected to any storage station that would distribute the electrical power generated. I searched and found out that they were really not connected to any network, were not generating usable electricity, they were all for show to placate the “green growth” European bureaucrats.

Turbines kill birds on a large scale around the world and disturb humans and wildlife. According to Save the Eagles International, “contrary to what we are told, wind farms will cause the extinction of many bird and bat species.”

Large birds are naturally attracted to tall structures. I’ve seen stork nests on top of power line poles. A pair of ospreys built a nest on the nacelle of an abandoned wind turbine in Cape Vincent, New York, as reported on June 2, 2016 by Mark Duchamp, President of Save the Eagles International. An osprey was hit by a turbine blade in Scotland and had to be euthanized. http://canadafreepress.com/article/another-osprey-killed-by-a-wind-turbine-in-scotland

The World Council for Nature reported that “a few wind farms in Germany have been loosely monitored for bird and bat mortality and the government has disclosed a number of carcasses: 69 eagles, 186 kites, 192 buzzards, 13 harriers, 59 falcons, 12 hawks, 7 ospreys, plus hundreds more birds of all sizes and even more bats.”

“These figures are just a small sample of the ongoing massacre, driving many rare species into extinction,” said Duchamp. He cited Ubbo Mammen, “an ornithologist commissioned by the German government, who estimated that 200-300 Red Kites are being killed yearly by wind turbines in Germany.”

Duchamp believed that the 29 sperm whales that were stranded and died between January 9 and February 4, 2016 on German, English, and Dutch beaches may have been killed by the operation of offshore wind turbines. The environmentalists’ explanations seemed to ignore, Duchamp said, the “most obvious and likely one – offshore wind farms.”

Angie and Uwe Löblich of the wildlife center in Struck encountered a white stork with a chopped off beak so gruesome that it had to be put to sleep. The injury was likely caused by a spinning wind blade. http://www.maz-online.de/Lokales/Prignitz/Storchenschnabel-von-Windrad-abgeschlagen#

Other cranes and large birds are chopped up when they fly into wind turbines and even power lines. http://www.gegenwind-vogelsberg.de/kranich-stirbt-durch-rotorblatt-einer-wka-in-helpershain/

Mark Duchamp wrote that “in Spain alone, wind turbines kill 6 to 18 million birds and bats a year.” http://canadafreepress.com/article/birds-and-wind-farms

Wind projects in southern Ontario dot the lake shores, the very shores which millions of birds flock to during migration. Duchamp added that Michigan had wisely imposed a 3 mile buffer zone between wind turbines and Lake Huron. http://ontario-wind-turbines.org/

Save the Eagles International explained in 2014 that avian radar and cameras are only 7 percent effective in daytime and work up to 150 meters away, dropping effectiveness in half at a distance of 300 meters. This means that bats, migrating songbirds, and owls which travel at night have no warning and are thus killed by millions. Bats are attracted by insects that swarm around the wind turbines. http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/releases/mitigation-by-video-cameras.html

Arne Follestad et al studied how the 68 wind turbines in Smola, Norway affected the population of white-tailed sea eagles in the archipelago. https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wind-power-and-birds-at-smola-norway-2003-2006/

Wind turbines and solar power panels chop in the spinning blades and fry in the mid-air heat flux millions of birds around the world, not to mention the physical and mental distress (Wind Turbine Syndrome) caused to mammals on land and in water in the proximity of wind and solar farms. http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/another-eagle-killed-gory-pictures.html

Environmentalists believe that the practice of issuing incidental take permits for wind farms is detrimental to all species of bats and birds and should be stopped. The assurance that turbines will be located on sites away from migratory flight paths is not sufficient to prevent bird deaths. Turbines still attract swallows, bats, and raptors from miles away. Endangered bird species are not spared either. As bird watchers spotted the fastest flying bird, the White-throated Needle tail , turn up in Britain, they witnessed in horror its flight into the path of a nearby wind turbine. https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/06/27/birdwatchers-see-rare-bird-killed-by-wind-turbine/

Mark Duchamp enumerated the many casualties of wind farms – 3,000 golden eagles in 25 years of operation at the Altamont Pass wind farm built on “the hills where golden eagles come from all over California to hunt and interact.” http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/

“White-tailed Sea Eagles are being killed by windfarms in Norway, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Scotland and the Netherlands; Bald Eagles in Canada; Golden eagles in the U.S., Sweden, Scotland, and Spain; Wedge-tailed Eagles and White-bellied Sea Eagles in Australia; eagles from five different species in Spain, all condemned to disappear because of the government’s green policy,” explained Duchamp.

“In Australia, the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle will become extinct because of a biased, faulty and misleading environmental study which permitted the construction of seven windfarms in its habitat.”  www.iberica2000.org/Es/Articulo.asp?Id=4382

While millions of birds and bats are dying needlessly, wind and solar power inconsistent energy production cannot replace coal. The world’s economy needs fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and hydro-power that provide a constant source of electricity, not partial or intermittent Aeolian energy.

 

EPA, the Enforcer of Federal Pollution Control Laws

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created in 1970, is the primary federal agency and key player with boundless authority to develop and enforce regulations to allegedly protect human health and the environment from harm caused by pollution. EPA regulations are issued based on the following Acts enacted by Congress:

-          Clean Air Act

-          Clean Water Act

-          Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund)

-          Safe Drinking Water Act

-          Solid Waste Disposal Act/Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

-          Oil Pollution Control Act (1990)

-          Environmental Planning and Community-Right-To-Know Act

-          Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act

-          Toxic Substances Control Act

-          Pollution Prosecution Act of 1990

“EPA promulgates national regulations and standards” with help from the Department of the Interior, Army Corps of Engineers, states, tribes, and NGO stakeholder groups. (CRS Report RL32240, The Federal Rulemaking Process: An Overview, Maeve P. Carey)

EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance in coordination with the Department of Justice and EPA’s 10 regional offices provide day-to-day federal enforcement activities, monitor compliance, provide incentives, and fines.

Disagreements between the federal EPA and state governments occur in regards to environmental priorities and strategy, compliance assistance, and enforcement.

Enforcement issues debated in congressional hearings and legislation:

 

      -          Constant increased compliance monitoring and reporting

-          Environmental enforcement and penalties to the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy

-          How to measure success – via measurable health and environmental benefits or via total dollar value of penalties

-          Are penalties enough to deter polluting or too harsh, causing economic hardship? The EPA and environmentalists say that it is not enough while Americans believe that penalties not only cause hardship but actually harms business, freedom, and property rights.

-          How effective is pollutant trading programs and enforcement?

-          Are punishment and pollution deterrence effective through litigation?

“There is no readily available, current, comprehensive list and description of the complete universe of those who are regulated under all of the major pollution control statues. EPA has been criticized for not adequately defining the regulated universe, a step that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined to be a critical component necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of enforcement.” (p. 15, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34384.pdf)

The EPA monitors 31 economic activities and industries: aerospace, agriculture, automotive, chemicals, computers/electronics, construction, dry cleaning, education, federal facilities, food processing, furniture, health care, local government operations, marinas, metals, minerals/mining/processing, paints and coatings, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, ports, power generators, printing, prisons and correctional institutions, pulp/paper/lumber, ready mix/crushed stone/sand and gravel, retail, rubber/plastics, shipbuilding and repair, textiles, transportation, and tribal.

EPA monitoring is achieved by:

-          Self-monitoring/reporting

-          Review of records

-          Full and partial inspection/evaluations

-          Area monitoring of the vicinity of a facility

EPA enforcement includes:

-          Notice of violation (the initial process)

-          Requirement of a violator to take specific action

-          Revocation of a violator’s permit to discharge

-          Penalty for non-compliance

-          Negotiated settlements through civil administration actions

-          Civil judicial process (lawsuits filed in federal district court by DOJ on behalf of EPA and for states by State Attorney General)

The EPA’s criminal enforcement program had an estimated 191 investigators assigned in 2013. In 2009, the EPA built the “EPA Fugitives” website http://www.epa.gov/fugitives/) which

contains “photographs and information about alleged violations of individuals who have avoided prosecution for allegedly committing environmental crimes.” (p. 26, CRS Report RL34384)

Finally, some members of Congress showed interest in the sanctions and penalties imposed by EPA in settlements that require redress of environmental damages known as “injunctive relief,” fines, “permanent or temporary closing of facilities or specific operations, increased monitoring/reporting, revocation of existing permits, denial of future permits, and barring of receipt of federal contract funding or other federal assistance.” (CRS Report RL34384, p. 27)

Fines collected by the EPA are deposited with the U.S. Treasury. But, under the Superfund and Clear Water Acts, money collected for replacing or restoring natural resources must be used to restore the resources. In the November 6, 2013 Federal Register, the EPA published the “Civil Monetary Penalty Inflation Adjustment (Final) Rule. www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-11-06/pdf/2013-26648.pdf

EPA and DOJ use the following templates to calculate civil penalties:

-          BEN, to calculate economic advantage/savings if the violator does not comply

-          ABEL, to measure a corporation’s ability to afford compliance, cleanup, and civil penalties

-          INDIPAY, to assess an individual’s ability to afford compliance, cleanup, and civil penalties

-          MUNIPAY, to gauge a municipality’s ability to comply, to cleanup, and to pay civil penalties

-          PROJECT, to evaluate a violator’s ability to fund instead a Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) to mitigate pollution compliance such as a public health project, an emergency preparedness project, etc.

Waiving “sovereign immunity” the EPA assessed nearly $615 million in penalties in 2012 against 61 federal agencies. Regulated businesses and individuals were charged in 2012 $9 billion for judicially mandated pollution controls, cleanup and “beneficial” SEP projects.

In 2012 EPA claims that 2.2 billion pounds of pollutants were removed from air and water, $208 million were levied in civil penalties (administrative and judicial) and $44 million in criminal fines and restitution. EPA issued 1,780 penalty orders and referred 215 civil cases to the DOJ. (Congressional Research Service, RL34384, December 16, 2013, Robert Esworthy, Federal Pollution Control Laws: How Are They Enforced?)

To fund the EPA’s enforcement/compliance activities, the President FY 2014 budget request was $625 million, more than the previous year’s $615.9 million. Detailed allocations for the EPA were not available. The DOJ’s FY2014 budget request funding for its Environment and Natural Resources Division was $112.6 million and 520 FTEs.

According to Robert Esworthy, one important issue for the 113^th Congress regarding EPA should be “additional oversight hearings,” review of grants award process associated with EPA-states’ partnerships, and “statute-specific legislation to address long-standing concerns that affect certain aspects of EPA enforcement/compliance activities under the various pollution control laws.”

American taxpayers, business owners, and some members of Congress are concerned about more legislation that would further expand the overreaching power of the EPA while environmental groups (NGOs) are upset about reining in and constraining the enforcement/compliance power of the EPA.

EPA’s unchecked power has been blamed for destroying economic prosperity, the supply of food, Americans’ means of support, and preventing the exploration of much needed resources that fuel the economy, in an effort to protect the habitat of a small fish, a rare bird, a mouse, while wind and solar farms are given federal permission to chop and fry thousands of birds with their “green” wind turbines and solar panels, including the endangered bald eagle in California.