Environmental Review of Windmills Plan Urged

Scientists should study whether 19 big windmills in Highland County would kill significant numbers of birds and bats, state and federal officials say.

They say the $50 million proposal is particularly deserving of study because those windmills could be the first of many on Virginia ridges.

"It’s very important for us to understand what the impact of this project is on the natural system," said Tom Smith, director of the state Department of Conservation and Recreation’s natural heritage program.

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Highland New Wind Development, run by a Harrisonburg family, is proposing to build the windmills on two 4,300-foot-high ridges in scenic Highland, about 150 miles northwest of Richmond.

Each windmill would stand nearly 400 feet tall – about the size of the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Richmond.

The project has received local approval in Highland and now moves to the State Corporation Commission for consideration.

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On behalf of the SCC, the state Department of Environmental Quality will oversee an environmental review.

The DEQ will collect comments from state agencies. The DEQ will then make recommendations, for studies or other actions, to the SCC. The SCC could require the studies or other actions as conditions for approval of the project.

Studies would ideally be funded by the developers and conducted by experienced scientists, Smith said.

The proposed Highland windmills have stirred emotional debate in the remote county of 2,500. Would they be ugly, or attractive? Would they provide clean, much-needed power, or too little to justify developing wild ridges?

Interviews suggest a key environmental issue for state regulators will be the windmills’ effects on wildlife.

"There’s not a lot known about the impacts of these turbines" on animals, said David Whitehurst, director of wildlife diversity for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Smith, Whitehurst and an official of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said they want researchers to look into these questions:

*How do birds and bats use those Highland ridges? How high do they fly? When?

*How many birds and bats would the windmills kill? After construction of the turbines, scientists could count bodies.

*Would the project endanger any rare species? For example, the Virginia northern flying squirrel, an endangered species, has been reported in the area.

Smith said such research may find ways to help the project coexist with wildlife – for example, by stopping the windmills when birds or bats are most active.

Birds and bats are important components of healthy ecosystems, being both the eaters and the eaten. Many also help people by gobbling mosquitoes and crop pests. Yet many species of bats and birds, particularly songbirds, are in decline.

Tal McBride, who is proposing the windmills with his father, Henry T. McBride, did not return calls last week. But he sent an e- mail Friday afternoon saying Highland New Wind has hired a consultant, ABR Inc., to study environmental issues.

"The types of studies" state and federal officials want "are being conducted right now," McBride said.

He added, "To date, the data has shown that no wind project has had a biologically significant impact on any species."

McBride referred further questions to Frank Maisano, a Washington public-relations consultant. Maisano could not say what would be studied, how long the research would last or what it would cost.

"It’ll be a comprehensive study, and it’ll be a significant cost," Maisano said.

ABR is a 29-year-old environmental research company with offices in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Forest Grove, Ore., its Web site says. An ABR spokesman could not be reached Friday.

Smith said Highland studies should last several years because things such as weather changes – foggy nights, cold spells – may affect animals’ behavior.

"Without a long-term analysis of how birds and bats use that particular area, you don’t really know."

Highland New Wind has not yet made a formal proposal to the SCC. The specific research needs would hinge on the exact nature of the proposal, Smith said.

Hawks, bald eagles and songbirds migrate over Appalachian ridges, and bats feed there, experts say.

But a lot remains unknown about how the animals move about, said Deanna K. Dawson, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

For example, it’s unclear if most birds in the Appalachians follow special migration corridors, or if they simply cross the mountains to get where they want, Dawson said. At Altamont Pass, east of San Francisco, windmills built in the 1980s have killed thousands of eagles, hawks and other birds.

But for reasons including the presence of numerous crossbars on those older windmills – bars on which birds perch – many experts say the problems at Altamont may be unique.

Studies by a group that included industry, federal officials and conservationists found that windmills on two Appalachian ridges were lethal to bats.

During six weeks in 2004, 44 windmills at a West Virginia site killed an estimated 1,400 to 2,000 bats. At a Pennsylvania site, 20 windmills killed an estimated 400 to 920 bats.

The deaths were "among the highest ever reported," said the report of the group, the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative. Depending on how strong the wind blows, the 19 Highland windmills could produce up to 38 megawatts of power, enough on average for 15,000 to 20,000 homes, supporters say.

Because the windmill project would be Virginia’s first, the SCC will have to determine what authority it has over the environmental review, said Cody Walker, an administrator in the SCC’s energy division.

In 2002, the General Assembly limited the SCC’s authority to review environmental impacts for power plants. Generally, the legislature says the SCC can consider issues that have not been addressed by other state, federal and local agencies.

The federal Fish and Wildlife Service is not formally part of the state review. But the agency has jurisdiction over migratory birds and endangered species and plans to relate its concerns, said Karen Mayne, supervisor of the service’s Virginia office.

It is possible studies would show the windmills won’t kill significant numbers of birds or bats, said Rick Reynolds, a state game department biologist. But what if many more windmills were built? How many deaths are too many?

So far, experts say, there are lots of questions and few answers.