LAWSUIT SEEKS REDRESS FOR MASSIVE
ILLEGAL BIRD KILLS
AT ALTAMONT PASS, CA, WIND FARMS
-
- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 12, 2003
- Contact: Jeff
Miller (510) 663-0616 ext. 3
or cell (510) 499-9185
Center
for Biological Diversity e-mail
jmiller@biologicaldiversity.org
Richard
Wiebe (415) 433-3200 or cell (415) 505-8793, e-mail
wiebe@pacbell.net
Attorney
for Plaintiffs
Livermore, CA ñ The Center for Biological Diversity (ìCBDî) filed a
lawsuit today against Florida energy producer FPL Group, Inc. (NYSE
symbol: FPL) and Danish wind power company NEG Micon A/S for their part
in the illegal ongoing killing of tens of thousands of protected birds by
wind turbines at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (ìAPWRAî) in the
San Francisco Bay Area of California. Through their subsidiaries
and associated entities, FPL Group and NEG Micon own or operate roughly
half of the approximately 5,400 wind turbines at the APWRA. Each
year, wind turbines at the APWRA kill up to 60 or more golden eagles and
hundreds of other hawks, owls, and other protected raptors. These
bird kills have continued for 20 years in flagrant violation of the Bald
Eagle and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and
several California Fish and Game Code provisions. The lawsuit
alleges that these violations and bird kills are unlawful and unfair
business practices under the California Business and Professions
Code.
ìAltamont Pass wind turbines are causing extremely high levels of bird
mortality along a major raptor migration route and are likely depleting
eagle, hawk, and owl populations not only locally but throughout the
western U. S.,î said Jeff Miller, spokesperson for CBD. ìWe
absolutely support wind power, but it is past time for the primary
turbine owners, FPL Energy and NEG Micon, to address this problem.î
ìAltamont Pass has become a death zone for eagles and other magnificent
and imperiled birds of prey. Recent studies have proposed numerous
recommendations for mitigating the devastating effect of Altamont Pass
wind turbines on birds, yet the industry is blindly charging ahead
replacing existing turbines with new and much larger turbines without any
requirement of effective preventative measures or remediation for ongoing
bird kills,î said Richard Wiebe, attorney for the plaintiffs.
The APWRA was established in 1982 on 160 square kilometers of private
cattle ranches in eastern Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. Due in
part to the local abundance of raptor populations in the region, wind
turbines at APWRA cause more bird deaths than any wind facility in the
world, a result of poor planning that allowed wind turbines to be built
along a major raptor migration corridor and in the heart of the highest
concentration of golden eagles in North America. Wind turbines at
Altamont Pass kill over a thousand birds each year, including up to 60 or
more golden eagles, 300 red-tailed hawks, 270 burrowing owls, and
additional hundreds of other raptors including kestrels, falcons,
vultures, and other owl species. In 20 years of operation, the wind
power industry has yet to implement any effective measures to reduce the
killing of protected raptors or come up with meaningful mitigations to
protect bird populations affected by the wind farms. In recent
months, the County of Alameda approved repowering and renewed permits for
the majority of the wind turbines at APWRA without conducting any public
environmental review or requiring any meaningful mitigation measures to
reduce or compensate for bird deaths. CBD and CAlifornians for
Renewable Energy filed a formal appeal of the permit renewals with
Alameda County in November 2003.
The extraordinary numbers of raptor deaths continue unabated, due in part
to the complete regulatory failure by federal, state, and local officials
to enforce wildlife protection laws. ìThe U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, U. S. Attorneyís Office, California Department of Fish and Game,
and Alameda and Contra Costa Counties bear equal responsibility for the
ongoing bird atrocity at Altamont for their failure to impose any
meaningful mitigation requirements or protective measures on the Altamont
Pass wind power industry,î stated Miller.
To add insult to injury, the Altamont Pass wind power industry has been
receiving massive tax credits as well as government cash grants funded by
surcharges imposed on Californiaís electricity consumers as part of the
stateís flawed deregulation plan, all of which serve to subsidize the
killing of birds. ìThe wind power industry receives tens of
millions of dollars in revenue from Californiaís consumers, as well as
enormous tax credits and government subsidies, based on the perception
that it provides ëgreení energy, yet continues to kill thousands of
protected birds annually,î said Miller. ìThe Altamont companies
routinely kill rare birds that are the natural heritage of all
Californians, and take taxpayer subsidies home to Florida and
Denmark.î According to wind industry reports,
the Altamont Pass fiasco has tainted public perception of wind energy and
hampered wind power development, as concerns about bird impacts has
delayed or discontinued other wind facilities.
The magnitude of bird kills at APWRA has been known since at least 1988,
when the first of many studies of raptor mortality was published. To
date, the industry has not implemented effective mitigation measures to
reduce bird kills, protect and maintain existing bird populations, or to
compensate for killing large numbers of birds from imperiled populations,
despite numerous studies by the California Energy Commission, the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and others. ìThe birds have
literally been studied to death, yet the Altamont Pass turbine owners
have failed to take action to reduce the risk to birds of prey,î said
Miller. In fact some efforts at APWRA, such as a small mammal
poisoning program, have actually increased the risk to raptors while also
threatening other endangered species inhabiting Altamont Pass such as the
San Joaquin kit fox and California red-legged frog. Recent research
at APWRA determined that bird mortality has not lessened over time, that
the industryís minimal mitigation measures have been ineffective, and
that the actual number of bird deaths is likely 8 to 16 times the
industry-reported number of bird kills.
The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in San Francisco, is brought
under Californiaís Unfair Competition Law (California Business and
Professions Code section 17200), which prohibits businesses from
violating other laws, in this case federal and state wildlife protection
laws, in the course of their business activities. The lawsuit also
alleges that FPL has violated Californiaís false advertising laws and the
federal Lanham Act by making untrue or misleading statements in publicly
asserting that it complies with all federal and state environmental
laws.
The issue at Altamont is not wind power versus birds, but rather whether
the wind power industry is willing to take simple steps to reduce bird
kills. Raptor experts have suggested numerous measures to reduce
bird deaths, including retiring particularly lethal turbines, relocating
turbines out of canyons, moving isolated turbines into clusters,
increasing the visibility of turbines to birds, retrofitting power poles
to prevent bird electrocutions, discontinuing the rodent poisoning
program, and managing grazing to encourage rodent prey away from
turbines. Raptor experts have also suggested mitigation through
raptor habitat preservation to maintain the stability of the bird
populations that are being depleted.
Concerns about the potential for wind turbines at Altamont Pass to kill
endangered condors recently scuttled plans by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service to reintroduce condors into the Diablo Range east of Morgan Hill
and Gilroy. The turbines may also be severely impacting local
populations of the western burrowing owl, a declining species for which
the CBD and bird conservation groups are requesting protection under the
California Endangered Species Act.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit environmental
organization dedicated to the protection of native species and their
habitats. The Center works to protect and restore natural ecosystems and
imperiled species through science, education, policy, and environmental
law. For more information about the impacts of wind turbines on
raptors and the Altamont Pass issue visit
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/programs/bdes/altamont/altamont
*****
Jeff Miller
Center for Biological Diversity
San Francisco Bay Area Office
370 Grand Ave., Suite 5
Oakland, CA 94610
jmiller@biologicaldiversity.org
www.biologicaldiversity.org
P:510-663-0616
F:510-663-0272