Bear habitat cited as key issue in Searsburg wind turbine project

The Green Mountain National Forest has postponed making a recommendation on whether Deerfield Wind LLC should get a special use permit to build wind turbines on national forest land.

Meg Mitchell, the forest supervisor, said she decided to defer making a decision until the Vermont Public Service Board finishes reviewing the project and makes a decision.

At the same time, officials issued a draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed project, which would be the first on forest service property, raising concerns about its impact on bears.

Mitchell said the key environmental issue for the Deerfield Wind project that emerged in her agency's review is its effect on bear habitat in the town of Readsboro. Other environmental issues include aesthetic impacts, and the effects on birds and bats, concerns which have defeated other wind projects in other parts of the state.

"In this particular project, it boils down to the bear habitat," Mitchell said, noting there were differing opinions on the issue from scientists. The project would destroy close to 500 bear-scarred beech trees, the report stated, while noting there are hundreds of other similar beech trees in the region.

The Readsboro and Searsburg mountain ridges are not part of a recognized major flyway for birds and bats, she said, and so the mortality rate from the birds and bats flying into the rotating turbines is less than in other locations.

If the project gains federal and state approval, it would be the first commercial wind facility built on national forest land.

Mitchell said since the Deerfield Wind project was proposed, other wind facilities have also surfaced, but she said Deerfield Wind is furthest along in the federal permit process. A portion of the project is on private land, but most of it is on national forest land.

The 34-megawatt project is proposed for two neighboring ridgelines in the southern Vermont towns of Searsburg and Readsboro. It is considered an expansion of the only existing commercial wind facility in Vermont, which is on Mount Waldo in Searsburg. That wind facility is operated by Green Mountain Power.

The new 17-turbine project would expand the existing facility on the eastern ridgeline in Searsburg and build a new facility on the western ridgeline in Readsboro.

The new turbines would be more than double the size of the existing turbines, from about 200 feet tall — which don't require nighttime lights — to close to 400 feet tall.

Mitchell said the wind project, which is proposed by a subsidiary of Iberdrola Renewables of Portland, Ore., formerly known as PPM Energy, has to be approved by the state and federal governments, in parallel but different reviews. The state is slated to start technical hearings on the proposal later this month.

So far, the Agency of Natural Resources has gone on record against the development of the ridgeline in Readsboro, saying it would have a severe, adverse impact on bear habitat.

According to pre-filed testimony in the case before Vermont regulators, Forrest Hammond, a state wildlife biologist, said the proposed Readsboro half of the project would cut hundreds of bear-scarred beech trees and have a lasting if deadly effect on the bear population in the area.

"The proposed project and construction … represents a potentially huge adverse impact to the black bears and their habitat at a level far above any that the Agency of Natural Resources has ever allowed to be permitted," he said, in either the Act 250 land use process, or Section 248 review, which is for power projects such as the Deerfield Wind proposal.

Those beech trees, because they are scarred from use by bears, are "decisive to the survival of the species," Hammond wrote in testimony filed with the board in advance of the hearings.

Mitchell said the project's impact on black bears, in the short term during construction and in the long term after construction was the biggest environmental issue associated with the proposed wind project that federal officials assessed.

Mitchell said the public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement would remain open until shortly before Thanksgiving and she said the Forest Service would hold an open house to answer questions from the public.

The full document, which is close to 400 pages long, has been several years in the making. It notes that public concerns focused on the visual impact of the turbines on the region's aesthetics, as well as the impacts on bear habitat, songbirds and bats.

Save Vermont Ridgelines, a Wilmington-based group, is also opposed to the project.

The report says the project as proposed by Deerfield Wind would result in the death of about 131 birds a year and 36 bats.

The environmental impact statement noted that there would be significant economic benefit from the project, with the towns of Searsburg and Readsboro, as well as the state of Vermont benefiting financially. Searsburg would stand to receive about $200,000 a year in tax revenue, the report stated, while Readsboro would receive about $140,000.

The draft report estimated that 71 acres of national forest land would be used by the project, and that its construction would create 240 jobs.

On the web:

www.fs.fed.us/r9/forests/greenmountain/htm/greenmountain/links/project s/deerfield_wind.htm