The Altamont is the world's oldest wind farm with some 5,000 power-generating turbines covering 50 square miles on the Alameda County border. While generating good green power for the state, it has a bad reputation for killing birds. The wind turbines on the gusty Altamont Pass were installed after the energy crisis in the 1970s. Today, the world's oldest wind farm powers an average of 100,000 homes with clean green energy. But environmentalists say it comes at a steep price.

Bill Evans wants to make it clear he's not against wind turbines. "I'm not anti-wind. I'm a consultant who people call from both sides when there's a concern about the impact on migrating birds," he said. Evans, 50, is an Ithaca-based ornithologist who has studied bird migration in North America for more than 25 years. He helped start the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's research into avian night flight calls in the mid-1990s and in 1998 founded the non-profit group Old Bird Inc.

Two of California's highest priority environmental causes, promoting renewable energy and saving the California condor, are on a collision course. The proliferation of prop wind turbines and their well documented history of killing birds of prey have put the future of California condor at great risk. The fact is, in recent years many missing Condors have most likely perished at wind farms in California. Many of the captive bed condors, released into the wild since 1992 have turned up missing. Nearly 1/3 of all the captive bred condors released, perish for unknown reasons. If one looks into the scientific literature, collision is nearly always listed as a major cause of death to Condors.

So why are wind companies not being prosecuted for killing birds? Rob Lee, now retired, was one of the Fish and Wildlife Service's lead law-enforcement investigators on the problem of bird kills in Western oil fields. Lee said that he doesn't expect to see any prosecutions because the wind industry is politically correct. This suggests a double standard. In protecting America's wildlife, federal law-enforcement officials are turning their backs on the harm done by "green" energy.

Wind turbine memorial. Illustration: Rob Biddulph Imagine that at the flick of a switch, you could not only turn a light on or off but select which power source you were going to use. Would an eco warrior choose wind power or coal? Surely this is a no-brainer. Not necessarily.

The slaughter at Altamont Pass is being raised by avian scientists who say the drive among environmentalists to rapidly boost U.S. wind farm power 20 times could lead to massive bird losses and even extinctions. New wind projects "have the potential of killing a lot of migratory birds," said Michael Fry, director of conservation advocacy at the American Bird Conservancy in Washington. ...Officials in the wind energy industry say migratory birds and birds of prey, including eagles, are killed each year at some of the nation's biggest wind farms, but they say the concerns are overstated.

Over the past two decades, federal officials have brought hundreds of similar cases against energy companies. In July, for example, the Oregon-based electric utility PacifiCorp paid $1.4 million in fines and restitution for killing 232 eagles in Wyoming over the past two years. The birds were electrocuted by poorly-designed power lines. Yet there is one group of energy producers that are not being prosecuted for killing birds: wind-power companies. And wind-powered turbines are killing a vast number of birds every year.

This important report, which appeared in the Wildlife Society's Journal of Wildlife Management, details the effect on raptor and bird mortality following repowering a portion of the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA) in California (USA). Repowering involves removing older generation towers and replacing them with higher capacity -- and potentially better sited -- units. The abstract to this report appears below. The full report can be accessed by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

Iberdrola SA and E.ON AG's turbine dreams for the windswept Texas Panhandle may be stymied by the mating rituals of the lesser prairie chicken. Wind-power developers such as E.ON are scouring sagebrush and grasslands for the presence of ground-dwelling chickens that could impede turbine construction plans. Once plentiful in the southern high plains, the bird has a high priority for listing under the Endangered Species Act, which would put at risk where as much as $11 billion in turbines that are part of the U.S.'s renewable-energy push can be built.

Turbines already are taking a heavy toll in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Game Commission released a report last spring showing the death rate is highest for bats, which additionally face being wiped out by a mysterious phenomenon called "white-nose syndrome." The evidence has mounted since studies in 2004 showed 1,500 to 4,000 bats annually were killed by the 44 turbines on West Virginia's Backbone Mountain.

Wind energy has been touted as cost-effective to produce clean energy as well as jobs. That promise, along with new government subsidies, has helped wind turbines pop up on hills and fields throughout America. But not every environmentalist is happy about that development. Critics charge that wind-energy development can cause habitat fragmentation-a displacement of a species that can eventually reduce its numbers-as well as the deaths of birds and bats (a species that is especially vulnerable due to its low reproductive rates) that collide with the wind turbines' massive rotor blades.

Should the lesser prairie chicken become listed as threatened or endangered - and it's close now - there would be significant restrictions on companies hoping to plant towering turbines across a five-state region believed to have some of the nation's best wind energy potential. "We've never seen the likes of this," said Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wildlife biologist Heather Whitlaw, who is part of conservation efforts with the other states and believes the bird could be listed within two years. "Anybody who puts anything on our landscape would be evaluated in one form or another."

Cheyenne Wind developers have asked the Department of the Interior to review Wyoming's sage grouse protection policy in light of the state's recent hard-line stance against building wind farms in important habitat areas for the chicken-sized birds. ...Wind developers say they're concerned that Wyoming's position could "abruptly halt wind energy development in Wyoming's sage-grouse 'core areas'.

Just when we thought that we were headed in the right direction, we're reminded that humans, with our limited minds, just can't see the whole picture. At least, not until the things that we've put into motion start going wrong. In our search for clean, renewable, eco-friendly alternative "green" energy, wind power sounds like a ‘no-brainer'. ...how can using wind energy possibly have a down side?

A utility company on Friday agreed to a settlement of more than $10 million following the electrocution of dozens of eagles, hawks, owls and other birds in Wyoming. PacifiCorp pleaded guilty to 34 violations of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Shickich in Casper ordered the utility to pay a $510,000 fine and $900,000 in restitution.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it opposes construction of any wind farms in Wyoming's core sage grouse population areas, a position that wind developers say could have a chilling effect on their plans in the state. Brian Kelly, supervisor in the agency's Wyoming field office, made the comments in a letter Tuesday responding to an inquiry from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

It is well known that raptors commonly fly at an altitude that puts them at particular risk for collision with wind power blades. Proper siting was touted as the key to green wind power. So why is wind power being sited in an Audubon Important Bird Area, and why is that Important Bird Area slated for border to border wind power development? The answer is simple. Instead of proper planning, Northwest wind power is being allowed to develop wherever infrastructure is available and politicians are agreeable.

The federal government has charged PacifiCorp and Exxon Mobil Corp. in two unrelated cases with killing scores of migratory birds in Wyoming, according to court documents filed last week in U.S. District Court in Cheyenne. PacifiCorp, which does business in Wyoming as Rocky Mountain Power, is charged in a 34-count criminal information document with the deaths of 38 golden eagles at power poles in six counties from December 2007 to February 2009.

Federal officials are again delaying whether to list sage grouse in 11 Western states as threatened or endangered -- leaving in limbo until at least 2010 a spate of industries that could face sweeping restrictions if the bird is protected. The chicken-sized grouse ranges from Montana to California alongside livestock grazing, oil and gas drilling and an increasing number of wind power turbines.