Bird and bat deaths caused by wind turbines will be the subject of a national study involving 30 scientists from universities, industry, government and non-governmental organizations.

The scientists gathered at a conference in Racine, Wisc., recently. Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology, the American Bird Conservancy, and the Johnson Foundation played host to the conference.

The Valley has an interest in the national effort. Bird deaths in the Altamont have been an ongoing subject for years. They are currently under study. Permits for old technology turbines, installed in the 1980s, have expired.

A move by industry and Altamont landowners to renew the permits was met by Alameda County's concern to reduce the number of turbines, see new technology installed, and map out better locations for the towers. A committee of five scientists was appointed. For four years, they have been reviewing the data brought forward by the monitoring team that surveys bird deaths at Altamont turbines.

The national scientific group that met in Wisconsin will be establishing scientific methods to look at bird and bat kill data. Their aim is to help any future wind-power investors to design their plans so that they have the least impact on avian life.

The new group hopes to use cutting edge technology to conduct their studies. That will include weather surveillance radar, thermal imaging, and sound tracking of migration patterns.

The national group is aware of the work at the Altamont. Andrew Farnsworth, who is conducting postdoctoral work in the ornithology department at Cornell, mentioned the Altamont study's data in his speech to the conference.

"We know that in some locations, a small percentage of wind turbines may cause the majority of bird and bat deaths," said Farnsworth, in a news release from the conference. Calling the Altamont situation "an extreme case," Farnsworth said, "only a fraction of the 5000 turbines are responsible for most of the raptor deaths annually."

"As wind power develops further, we need to know more about how placement, design, and operation impact birds and bats, as well as how habitat and weather conditions affect potential hazards," said Farnsworth.

Reached by phone in Europe on Tuesday, Farnsworth expanded his remarks for The Independent.

A couple of California scientists were at the conference, and were familiar with work done on the Altamont studies, said Farnsworth. He said he has read work by Shawn Smallwood, a member of the county's Scientific Review Committee (SRC), which is studying Altamont bird deaths. Farnsworth called Smallwood's study "one of the most thorough studies to date there."

Farnsworth, whose specialty is bird migration patterns, said that "the extent of studies, including that in the Altamont, is not strong enough to draw conclusions in a robust way (about bird safety)."

Farnsworth added that some may not feel comfortable (about drawing conclusions now), except to say, "It's good information, and we need a lot more," before generalizing information for other places.

Farnsworth emphasized the importance of basing wind-power siting on good science. One of the conference's long-term goals is to have more peer-reviewed articles on the problems. It's important, because the knowledge can spread better through the scientific community.

Many reports currently are only technical reports. Sometimes they are held by the wind power firms, or other groups, and the knowledge doesn't reach the scientific community at large.

Another problem is that funding of some studies is provided by the wind industry. "It's time to take a different approach here. Don't invalidate the work done, but take it in a different direction."

Federal funding could provide a more comprehensive approach to looking at the impact of turbines on migrating wildlife. "There is always criticism of people funding a study on their own turf, that relates to their own goals. So this would be beyond any potential biases of that," said Farnsworth, who is chairman of the group's steering committee. There is no formal name for the group.

"One thing that was most clear to me was the need to cooperate as we move ahead. One of the tendencies is for both sides to lay a lot of blame, or be extreme. There is still a huge distance to travel for what we know. We need ornithology, bat researchers and industry to cooperate, find out true science, in order to find out the true impacts of this technology," said Farnsworth.

INDUSTRY'S INFANCY BEST TIME TO STUDY IMPACTS

One speaker at the conference, Kraig Butrum, president and CEO of American Wind Wildlife Institute, said that it's important to study environmental impact now, as the wind industry begins to grow. "Imagine if a similar effort had taken place at the turn of the 20th century with the auto industry and air quality. We'd probably be in a completely different place when it comes to global climate change and energy dependence, because we (would have) considered environmental impact from the start," said Butrum.

The Racine conference scientists will study migratory routes and timing of migrations. They will also look at ways to mitigate wind turbine impacts.

It is also important to create better statistical analysis for estimating mortality at existing turbines, said the Racine scientists.

The county's SRC (Altamont Scientific Review Committee) is well aware of the need for good statistical analysis. The SRC faulted the Altamont bird fatality monitoring team in a report in August 2008. The scientists said that "multiple SRC recommendations were not implemented." Also, "Conclusions of mortality changes were presented with more certainty than the SRC felt was justified."

The SRC reached those conclusions, based on their look at the monitoring group's statistical methodology. For example, the monitoring team excluded 36 percent of the fatality records (gathered in the first survey to establish a baseline), but excluded only 17 percent of the records from the more recent effort, thus possibly biasing mortality higher in the more recent effort," said the SRC.

Mike Lynes, a member of the Altamont steering committee, said that panel is waiting to hear from the SRC.

The steering committee, which is coordinating the entire effort, is still waiting for an analysis of the current policy of shutting down one-half of the turbines at a time, which has been done over the past four winters. "We're trying to see if that is effective," said Lynes.