New York State Department of Environmental Conservation responds to Avian Risk Assessment

In a letter dated December 31, 2004 and addressed to David Perri, Executive Vice President of Chautauqua Windpower LLC, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) issued a scathing response to the Avian Risk Assessment put forward by Chautauqua Windpower LLC and their consultants.

What follows is a brief summary of the NYSDEC response to the Chautauqua Windpower LLC Avian Risk Assessment. The full text of the NYSDEC response is also available by clicking on the previous link. (A better quality and smaller version of this document will be available soon)

Summary of the NYSDEC Response

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) identifies several “fundamental flaws” and refutes the conclusions of the Draft Avian Risk Assessment study of the proposed wind power development site in Ripley and Westfield (Chautauqua County), New York. The DEC calls the proposed wind turbine project area an “extremely important bird/raptor migration area” and indicates that it “ranks as the third most significant New York spring raptor migration site in terms of annual numbers of raptors moving through.”

The Draft Avian Risk Assessment, issued in June, 2004, was prepared by Chautauqua Windpower, its attorneys and environmental consultants, including Ecology & Environment, a Buffalo-based environmental consulting firm. Findings of the Draft Avian Risk Assessment indicate that the proposed wind power project will pose a negligible risk to birds.

The 31-page DEC letter disputes the study’s conclusion, stating that staff “strongly believe that the mortality expected from a completed Chautauqua project will be significantly higher” than that predicted in the Draft Avian Risk Assessment.

The letter enumerates the flaws in the methodology and assumptions that form the basis of the study as outlined below:

• “Extremely limited” data were collected: The DEC finds that the data used as the foundation of the study “were undertaken for a very limited period of actual sampling time, failed to sample a vast amount of airspace… and appear to have missed the actual peak periods of migration for passerines.” These data limitations may have lead to under-counting of birds and under-estimation of risk.
  
• Bird mortality risk was inappropriately estimated: The DEC also finds fault with the study’s estimate of bird mortality risk based on two previous bird mortality studies – one from a wind turbine facility in Spain and the other from a facility in Oregon. DEC states that these mortality studies conducted at distant locations “are of questionable relevance to a study of wind development in western New York.”
  
• The potential impact on bald eagles was misstated: The DEC refutes the Draft Avian Risk Assessment’s claim that bald eagles and other protected species are not at significant risk, stating that “bald eagles and other protected species do and can be expected to use the project area,” and that “this project could be biologically significant to one member of the four adult bald eagles breeding in the area.” The DEC and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service had both expressed serious concern about the proximity of the proposed wind turbine project site to nesting bald eagles in separate letters to the developer in early 2004.
  
• An evaluation of the risk to bats is omitted: despite previous DEC requests for information on resident and migrating bats, the Draft Avian Risk Assessment does not specifically include this information. The DEC states that at a West Virginia wind turbine facility “bat mortality rates may have been higher than those of birds,” and requests that information on bats at the proposed Westfield-Ripley wind turbine site be provided.
  
• Inappropriate “apples and oranges” comparisons are “done freely” in the Draft Avian Risk Assessment. For example:
  
  • The study uses bird fatalities at a 300-foot stationary communications tower as one basis for predicting the risks posed by a 450-foot high wind turbine with a 253 foot diameter disk at the top whirling at close to 200 miles per hour at the blade tip
    
  • Bird mortality at wind turbine projects in areas with dissimilar species, geography, and turbines (Tarifa, Spain and Stateline, Oregon) are used to estimate bird mortality at the proposed Westfield and Ripley project area.
    
  • The Draft Avian Risk Assessment compares bird mortality from existing wind turbine projects to other sources of avian mortality such as collisions with cars, buildings, etc., stating that the mortality from wind turbine projects is ‘minor’ in comparison. The DEC calls this comparison “fallacious” citing that sufficient comparative studies have not been done, and that this comparison is not being made on a unit for unit basis (e.g.: the number of bird fatalities from cars is not stated in context of the number of cars on the roads).

The DEC also indicates that there are numerous examples throughout the Draft Avian Risk Assessment in which Chautauqua Windpower has "slanted the discussion in favor of their proposal."

The letter indicates that DEC "supports and strongly encourages wind energy as a potential source of renewable, clean energy" but it concludes that "staff's critical review of the ARA [Draft Avian Risk Assessment] finds its conclusions are unreliable" and that it "cannot endorse the use of the ARA to determine the impact or risk to avian resources from the Chautauqua Wind Project."

Follow this link to view the full text of the NYSDEC letter and critique addressed to David Perri, Executive Vice President of Chautauqua Windpower LLC.
(A better quality and smaller version of this document will be available soon)