|
Mass Audubon Position on Wind Energy As responsible citizens, stewards, and advocates, Mass Audubon strongly supports public policies and private projects that advance energy conservation and efficiency. We also support the development of wind farms, as a renewable energy source to offset the effects of global climate change produced by the burning of fossil fuels. The question now is what are the most appropriate locations for wind farm facilities.
Rapid climate warming is one of the most serious long-term threats to the nature of Massachusetts and planet. This warming primarily results from the burning of fossil fuels to power cars, trucks, planes and trains, and generate electricity. Though we make up just 4 percent of the world’s population, Americans produce 25 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide pollution.
The development production, and consumption of fossil fuels also damages the public’s health and environment including destruction of wildlife habitat from drilling and mining; the closure of shell fisheries and fouling of beaches by oil spills; damage to human health from air and water pollution; and contamination of groundwater from the disposal of solid and hazardous waste.
To reduce these impacts, the reliance on fossil fuels as a major source of energy must be dramatically reduced. Simultaneously, there must be an aggressive increase in the amount of energy derived from renewable sources. As such, we endorse the Commonwealth’s goal to obtain 10 percent of electricity from renewable sources by the end of the decade. This goal, however, must be a minimum and not a maximum target.
Of the renewable energy options currently available, wind power has the greatest potential to mitigate the harmful environmental effects of rapid climate warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Technology to harvest wind is among the more advanced, widely available, and environmentally benign of the renewable energy options. While all energy choices have environmental impacts, the potential environmental risks associated with the operation of wind energy facilities must be evaluated against the proven destructive effects associated with the production and consumption of fossil fuels.
 The potential environmental risks of wind energy development can be reduced by the development of responsible and informed standards for siting wind energy facilities. The development of wind energy in Massachusetts should also include standards for the installation and decommissioning of these facilities.
Unfortunately, our state and federal governments have failed to establish such standards. While some regulatory programs do apply to wind energy projects, these programs were developed prior to today’s large-scale proposals and do not address potential risks to birds, wildlife and remote habitats. We therefore believe that the wind energy industry and permitting agencies would benefit from a framework of comprehensive planning and facility siting criteria to guide projects to the most appropriate locations.
Measures needed to promote the development of wind energy and manage its effects include:
- Establishing leasing programs to compensate the public for use of state and federal lands and waters;
- Developing planning and siting criteria to guide environmentally sound facility site selection, including on state and federal lands and waters;
- Refining regulatory permitting procedures;
- Establishing protocols for pre- and post-construction monitoring; and
- Establishing procedures for decommissioning abandoned wind energy facilities.
In the planning, permitting, operation and decommissioning of wind energy facilities, the location and scale of wind farms must not pose a significant threat to terrestrial, marine, and avian wildlife and habitat. Unless it can be shown that the construction and operation of wind turbines would not significantly lower the habitat value or pose undue mortality risks for wildlife at a proposed site, we recommend, that wind energy facilities avoid:
- Old growth forests and habitats of similar ecological value;
- Sites along ridge tops and ocean corridors that are major migratory avian routes and where the siting and operation of turbines could cause a significant loss to a local or regional population of birds and other migratory species such as bats;
- Sites documented as important habitat for state and federally listed endangered species;
- Important Bird Areas; and
- BioMap Core Habitat.
Based on the habitat value criteria noted above, Mass Audubon will undertake a risk analysis of certain wind energy projects and weigh the benefits and detriments as we review and comment on each proposal.
Jack Clarke, Director of Advocacy
More Information:
Wind Energy
Cape Wind Project
*Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader; click here for more information.
|
print
e-mail
go back
