Wind energy and Nebraska's wildlife
In the search for alternative and renewable sources of energy, wind turbines that generate electricity have a lot going for them. They generate little or no pollution, do not contribute greenhouse gas emissions to the environment during operation, do not require water resources for cooling or power generation and are increasingly becoming cost-effective. Wind power offers an opportunity to produce electricity, contribute to renewable energy portfolios and reduce emissions that contribute to accelerating climate change. However, the construction of arrays of commercially sized wind turbines—popularly called wind farms—are not completely environmentally neutral, with particular potential to impact wildlife populations.
In Nebraska, wind-energy development has been slower than surrounding states, mostly due to our publicly owned power system. This system has done a tremendous job of keeping electric rates in Nebraska low, but that has created challenges for adding new wind-power facilities in the state. As the sixth windiest state in terms of potential to produce 889 billion kilowatts a year, Nebraska ranks 22nd in wind-energy production among states, with 153 megawatts on-line today. Not surprisingly, efforts are underway in Nebraska to increase the development of wind power, with hopes of stimulating rural economies and exporting wind from Nebraska to out-of-state markets.
There was a flurry of wind-energy related bills in the last legislative session, which led the Natural Resources Committee of the Nebraska Legislature to call for an interim study of wind energy issues in Legislative Resolution 83 (LR 83). Past legislative efforts include changes in state laws to allow for Community-Based Energy Development (C-BED) for commercial development. C-BED allowed Nebraska wind farms to be developed that can take advantage of federal tax credits, which our publicly owned utilities could not use. Public power companies partner with the developers to purchase the power from the facilities. The Legislature will have to grapple with how to potentially expand wind-energy development in the state while protecting the low electric rates of the citizens, and particularly how costs for new transmission lines, which can cost a million dollars per mile to build, for exporting wind energy to out-of-state markets will be funded. Part of LR 83 will include how to deal with the environmental impacts of wind farms in the state.
So what are the potential impacts in Nebraska? To start with, Nebraska sits in the middle of the Central Flyway, one of the primary migratory corridors in North America. Spring and fall finds millions of migrating waterfowl, shorebirds and cranes moving through Nebraska, with the spring sandhill crane and waterfowl migration being the most obvious example, as this is a world-class migration spectacle in the Central Platter River and Rainwater Basins. The endangered whooping cranes are a high profile example of the importance of the Central Flyway in Nebraska, with less than 270 whooping cranes making the migration south from Canada to the wintering grounds on the Gulf Coast of Texas this fall. In addition, the Nebraska Sand Hills provide the core distribution of greater prairie chicken population in the U.S., and Nebraska has many grassland habitats (including the Sand Hills) that provide important breeding areas for grassland birds, the most strongly declining group of birds in North America. This risk can be easiest avoided by placing towers in cropland or other disturbed lands, avoiding native prairies.
The most obvious impacts of wind farms are the direct impacts from collisions with turbines and towers by birds and bats, which typically result in death or injuries that lead to death of individuals. Generally speaking, the direct impacts from turbine collisions for birds are relatively minor in relation to overall populations. Information from current studies on Nebraska wind farms indicates that, to date, direct-collision impacts from our existing farms are minimal. However, that does not mean there are no risks.
The areas of highest concern for collision impacts are for raptors and other long-lived species, as well as the potential for collisions with threatened or endangered species, such as the whooping cranes that migrate annually through Nebraska. In Nebraska, nesting bald and golden eagles, along with ferruginous hawks, could be at risk of collisions with towers that are placed close to nesting sites. With the importance of wetlands for migrating waterfowl, shorebirds and cranes, there are large concerns about placing wind farms in close proximity to wetlands and rivers, especially those areas with a history of high use by those migratory waterbirds. There are also concerns that wind farms could have larger impacts on migrating songbirds, especially forest songbirds, if farms are located within or very close to key migratory stopover areas along the floodplain forest and wooded bluffs of the Missouri, lower Platte, Elkhorn and Niobrara rivers.
Direct impacts on bats have also been noted at several wind farms across the U.S., but the information available on impacts to bats lags behind that on birds. In Nebraska, the areas for highest collision risk for bats appear to be in the Wildcat Hills and Pine Ridge areas of the panhandle, where we have two forest-dwelling bats, the fringe-tailed myotis and Townsend’s big-eared bat. The addition of wind towers in these landscapes could have potential to attract and kill both species, and since populations of both are low, the potential impact could be large on the populations we do have in the state.
Typical discussions of the concerns about the impact of wind farms are focused on the direct-collision risks; however, the impacts on wildlife habitat and potential avoidance of habitat due to the presence of towers are generally expected to be much larger and more likely to impact wildlife populations. Studies have indicated that grassland songbirds may avoid using areas within 100 meters of any tower, and studies of greater prairie chickens in Oklahoma have identified they avoided using suitable habitat within one-third mile of large transmission lines. However, information gathered from the Ainsworth wind farm in Nebraska has indicated greater prairie chicken and sharptail grouse leks continue to be used in the area covered by that small commercial wind facility. These studies do raise concerns for the impacts to grassland bird populations when
towers are placed in grassland areas, and the turbines and towers that have been studied so far are typically smaller (smaller turbines and shorter towers) than newer towers being built or proposed. We do not yet know, but suspect, that bigger turbines and higher turbines may cause birds to avoid a larger area around the tower. Because Nebraska does have large areas of grassland that are used by grassland birds, this is a concern throughout the state.
Another example of potential indirect impacts in Nebraska is for bighorn sheep in the panhandle. The concern for bighorn sheep is the disturbance associated with building and maintaining wind towers (roads, traffic, new fences, maintenance activities). In these key areas of rough topography, and especially during the lambing season, these disturbances could result in further restricting the available habitat, of which there is precious little, for bighorn sheep.
Over one year ago, efforts were undertaken by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission to become more proactive in helping identify how we can minimize risks to wildlife from expanding wind-energy development in the state. The result of that effort is a map that shows, based on current information, the relative wildlife risk across the state. This map is a first step to help wind-energy developers assess the wildlife risk, as the only way to really assess the risk is to work with the commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to identify what the concerns are and what can be done to reduce those risks. In many cases, the reduction of risk may be as simple as modifying where towers are sited on the property or, in some cases, selecting an alternate site that has greatly reduced wildlife risks.
The initial effort for the map led to the formation of the Nebraska Wind and Wildlife Working Group to provide input on the map and develop additional voluntary guidelines for wind-energy developments that are wildlife-friendly. The group is now at a point where we plan to work with conservation interests, public power and wind developers to see if we can jointly develop voluntary guidelines to ensure that wildlife impacts and concerns are adequately addressed as wind farms expand across the state. Conservation interests, public power and wind developers have all indicated genuine interest in working together to come up with guidelines to minimize the risks and impacts to wildlife.
In this increasingly politicized world, where typically issues are not dealt with by working together but rather by producing sound bites to move opinion to one or the other extreme, there really is a common interest in directly addressing the wildlife issues from wind power. That is a true testament to the wind industry and our public power utilities not just talking the talk of green energy but also walking the walk. Rather than focusing on fighting and politics, the focus is on how we can work together to help move wind power forward in the state while minimizing undesirable negative impacts on wildlife. Hopefully, as we move forward, we can expand the development of wind power in Nebraska and do it right.
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