Oregon wind farm first to ask for permission to harm birds

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Pacific Wind has filed a first-ever "take permit" as a legal refuge if its wind turbines kill any golden eagles.

West Butte Wind Power has become the first wind farm in the country to formally ask the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service if it can harm golden eagles.

It’s a development that follows a three-year-old effort by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rein in a spike in eagle mortality rates amid collisions with wind turbines, and has conservation groups cautiously optimistic about the wind industry’s future on American lands.

The central Oregon wind farm, owned by California-based Pacific Wind Power, is located 32 miles east of Bend on a 5,000-foot plateau. The 104-megawatt operation set to develop there would include 52 wind turbines on the land off Highway 20. If approved for the “take” permit, West Butte will become the first American wind farm approved under new federal rules intended to reconcile bird protections with a national push for clean energy development.

The rules essentially extend the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act to wind farms. They’ve been phased in since 2009 following Fish and Wildlife’s own estimation that 440,000 birds were killed by wind turbines that year.

The rules now tie permit approval for wind farms with conservation measures, allowing wind developers to apply for take permits, or permits allowing wind farms to kill, harass or disturb bald and golden eagles, their nests or their eggs, in exchange for conservation measures that benefit eagles.

Pacific Wind Power’s application asks to take up to three golden eagles over five years while the company complies with an aviation and bat conservation plan. The plan shoots for a zero net loss of breeding populations of golden eagles, which use the area surrounding the proposed wind farm. It would be reviewed every five years.

The American Bird Conservancy, which is focused on conserving native birds and habitat, expressed support for the permit process; progress, said officials, in a situation where hundreds of thousands of birds are otherwise being killed. Last month the ABC petitioned the federal government to also regulate the wind industry’s impacts on migratory birds. It has criticized the U.S. Department of Justice for failing to prosecute wind energy companies that kill protected species like bald and golden eagles, even while DOJ has prosecuted oil companies for bird kills.

“The notion of getting the wind companies into the legal framework that was intended is a good thing,” said Bob Johns, spokesman for the conservancy. “What we’re not saying is it’s a good thing that they’re going to get a permit. That’s a whole different thing.”

The ABC plans an in-depth review of the proposed permit, and pushed the Fish and Wildlife to extend the period for comment by 15 days.

Liz Nysson, energy policy director at the Oregon Natural Desert Association, a conservation group that has been critical of wind farms proposed on private land in the Steens Wilderness area, said that organization will also weigh in as the permits allow the Fish and Wildlife Service to set a bar on eagle protection, and enforce mitigation and conservation plans that reduce impacts to the birds.

“This really is a significant issue. Golden eagle mortality does occur at wind farms, and Oregon has already had a few golden eagle mortalities attributed to wind farms,” she said.

Pacific Wind Power owner John Stahl said the permits, however, are not mandatory.

“We had been having discussions with Fish and Wildlife on golden eagle issues and we didn’t want to get sideways with them so we sat down with them and said, ‘Let’s see if we can come up with a take permit…’ I don’t know that you technically need a take permit, legally, but if you were to have an accident and kill one of them you could get yourself into some pretty serious legal issues.”

He said Pacific Wind Power preferred to address any future problems on the front-end of development, though eagle use of the area is limited.

The company has already overcome opposition for the project’s potential impact to sage grouse through agreements with the Bureau of Land Management and Crook County that fund both new sage grouse habitat and the purchase of conservation easements.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has praised Pacific Wind Power for taking “a constructive approach to resolving wildlife conflicts” that have otherwise hampered wind development.

Lee van der Voo, lvdvoo*at*gmail.com, is a freelance writer for Sustainable Business Oregon.