SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1MINUTES
WASHINGTON COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
&
ZONING BOARD OF ADJUSTMENTS
WIND SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING
Thursday
2:00 p.m.- 5:00 p.m.
Washington County Operations and Maintenance Center
Conference Room
2615 Brink Drive
Fayetteville, Arkansas, 72701
The members of the Wind Subcommittee are:
Robert Daugherty (Chair) - present
Cheryl West - present
Jim Gallagher - present
Other members that could attend:
Randy Laney - present
Kenley Haley
Roy Hummel - present
Larry Walker
Jim Gallagher made a motion to approve the agenda. Cheryl West seconded. Motion passes.
a. Discussion of potential bat, bird, and other environmental topics in Washington County with regards to commercial wind farm development.
Juliet Richey, Washington County Planning Director, stated, “This is a subcommittee of the Washington County Planning Board. We are looking at an ordinance for commercial wind development in Washington County. We have some representatives from Wild Fish and Wildlife (Erin Leone, Marge Harney, and David Kampwerth - US Fish and Wildlife). Barbara Fitzpatrick (District 6) and Butch Pond (District 9) are Quorum Court members from Washington County. Robyn Reed is the Environmental Affairs director for Washington County.”
Special guest speakers:
· Jenny Ahlen-Renewable Energy Programs Coordinator/ Energy Policy Analyst, Arkansas Energy Office, Arkansas Economic Development Commission
a. Ms. Ahlen will give a synopsis of her/Arkansas Energy Office involvement with commercial wind in Arkansas
Jenny Ahlen and Karen Rowe were present by phone. Ahlen commented, “I am in a period of transition going from being the Renewable Energy Programs Coordinator to focusing more on Energy Policy. The background and where our interaction has occurred with commercial developers is that our office hosted a Wind Conference in 2008 in Fort Smith. We started building some relationships with two of the commercial wind developers prospecting in the State. Moving forward, more interaction has actually been through the wind manufacturing side of things in terms of having LM Glasfiber, Nordex and Mitsubishi either building or planning on building manufacturing facilities in this state. In doing that, I think it has probably raised awareness within the Energy Office, Economic Development and the Governor’s Office in terms of broader energy policy as it relates to wind, and it is important to the manufacturing sector. It has been coming up more and more in meetings. We are also planning on using some of the stimulus funding that the Energy Office has received to complete a tall tower wind measurement study. One of the issues we find is there’s still a fair amount of speculation about whether or not the wind resource in the State is truly adequate enough for commercial wind development that is economically viable, and while we know that there are companies collecting data they’re not going to share that data with us and that kind of leaves room for people to argue that it is not a viable option, which becomes problematic when you start talking about energy planning and energy policy long term. That is kind of my history and background and where my interest is coming from. As a general rule, I try to keep track of what’s going on in the State and act as the repository for as much of what’s going on with renewable energy as I can. David has been very instrumental in keeping me abreast of who the new prospectors are in the State because of their contact with him and central wildlife issues.”
Birds
· Karen Rowe- Bird Conservation Program Coordinator, Wildlife Management Division, Hampton Waterfowl Research Center (Arkansas Game and Fish)
Rowe stated, “Birds in Arkansas are protected by State law. Our State law generally mimics the Federal law.”
a. What is a migratory bird
Rowe stated, “We use the term migratory bird to refer to all birds in Arkansas whether or not they migrate through the air.”
b. What bird species are not protected
Rowe also stated, “Birds in Arkansas that are not protected by State and Federal law are basically non-native birds that have been brought into the United States. Birds that are not protected by State and Federal law are English or House Sparrows, European Starlings, Pigeons, and Black Birds; other than that all birds: Eagles, Hawks, Owls, Song Birds, Cardinals, and other wild birds are protected by State and Federal law.”
c. General explanation of bird migration (see map handout)
Rowe added, “We have birds in Northwest Arkansas that migrate through during the winter and summer, but don’t spend a significant portion of time there. They spend anything from a few hours to a few days or a few weeks. As a Biologist a common misconception we see is that the birds have a specific route that we can chart or map that shows their migration pathway. The handout shows the very detailed pathway because birds actually don’t have a detailed migration pathway. Birds will migrate through flyways. Atlantic flyways, Mississippi flyways - which is what we are in, and the Central flyway - which comes close to Northwest Arkansas, and then the Pacific flyway. Depending on weather conditions and food resources migration routes are several states wide. If you are trying to plan a wind project you can not say I want to make sure we locate a development not in the pathway of birds.”
Rowe commented, “In the Central flyway there’s a lot of open areas – less habitat for birds. In flyways or pathways we’re talking hundreds if not thousands of miles width of a path. Locating wind projects; how high up do these birds migrate some birds will migrate as low as 1,000 or 2,000’. Some birds will migrate 5,000 or 6,000’. Depending on weather conditions and wind currents they can be migrating lower than 6,000 or 2,000’ depending on fog or such. The height above ground is infamous by wind conditions as well as type of earth.”
Rowe stated, “Timing of migration. We have birds that will spend the winter in Northwest Arkansas. These birds usually come from northern states and Canada they arrive some time between October and December and leave between February and March. This includes everything from Song Birds, Hawks, Owls, and Eagles.”
Rowe commented, “In Northwest Arkansas we will have wintering Eagles generally along rivers and the edges of large lakes. When someone creates an artificial type of supply line, such as an illegal chicken dump, you have large numbers of Eagles roosting very close and can identify those illegal chicken dumps.”
Rowe added, “Summer breeding birds are tropical migrates. They actually winter in central South America and return to Northwest Arkansas during the summer. They will usually return from the tropics in April or May and leave sometime during August or September. These are birds like Purple Martins, Mississippi Kites, and almost all of our warbler species. Transition migrates are birds that are migrating through the State going from their breeding ground to their wintering grounds. These are shore birds that move through February and March and again July and late October. Song birds move in April and May and then again back through the State again in September and October maybe spending a few days, few hours, or a few weeks.”
Rowe stated, “Every month of the year we’ve got some species of bird migrating into, out of, or through the sky of Northwest Arkansas. It is very difficult to say lets have wind towers only at this time of year or this month or these days of the week because of birds migrating. Unfortunately, usually there is some type of bird migration going on all months of the year.”
Courtney McNair, Washington County Senior Planner, asked, “You mentioned that the height was roughly 1,000-6,000’ when they migrate. Do they ever go any lower than that because that is not the range or level that we would be looking at wind development?” Rowe replied, “If fog or a storm comes in; they will fly at lower levels and they will come down from those heights and down from roosts in order to rest. They are migrating at the levels of turbines there still are a lot of activity at that level.”
Richey asked, “When you have the impact on birds that you have from wind farms in general is that usually when the birds are migrating versus just like if they are here for a certain amount of time if they are hunting. What is the impact during a migration?”
Erin Leone, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, commented, “I have done a lot of research on wind farms. I had found sometimes they just don’t know; are they resident birds that are being hit or are they migrate depending on the time of the year? In watching bird behavior it’s the resident birds a lot of times because they become so habituated that they see the turbines everyday that they are flying in them, but when they get distracted and they start hunting that’s when they don’t see that blade coming around or when they become aggressive with their territory they are not paying attention to their surroundings as much, but there’s still a lot that we don’t know. Wind farms are so new to everybody. We learned a lot of things not to do from California.”
Laney stated, “I would almost call the wind farms that I saw in California in the ‘80’s brown turbines. They were sitting on slopes of hills and literally 10’ off the ground.” Leone commented, “I think there were a couple of thousand. We have learned a lot from there. A lot of the research I looked at actually discluded California when they were looking at total numbers because if you add California in; that skews all of your data because close to about 100 Eagles, Owls, and all kinds of birds are killed. It does happen in other areas, too. There is one wind farm in Vermont that in a five month period did not document any kills. It is possible.”
Barbara Fitzpatrick commented, “There was an older study that dealt with the problem of young birds nesting in the towers’ lattice and then they were not able to control their flight well enough to avoid it. They resolved that issue by using poles and solid towers so that the birds couldn’t nest in them.”
Leone stated, “From what I understand you can still use the lattice towers, however, you are encouraging birds to nest and especially raptors hunt from perches. Not only are they using them to hunt from you are increasing the predation on the other birds that maybe aren’t going to be influenced by the towers, but because you are giving these raptors a place to hunt, so you are creating artificial habitat for them and then you are also drawing them in. In the future, you can ask perspective companies that are coming in for no lattice. I think a lot of companies are moving away from that.”
Rowe commented, “I think it is important for areas to discuss the Federal regulations because it really is the official line of service that has the regulatory authority and is the lead in the laws regarding Bald Eagles and migratory birds.”
Leone stated, “I just read the Department of Interior is working on some guidelines and they just finalized the guidelines last week. The Department of Fish and Wildlife Service is under the Department of Interior. No one has seen those finalized guidelines. It will be awhile before we will see it and then the Fish and Wildlife Service will break it down farther and make it something that we can use. It is going to be an evolving document especially for us.”
Leone also stated, “When a wind farm comes you can ask them to follow these best management practices and to follow the ones that you have developed and that is what we’re here to help you with.”
d. Arkansas Game and Fish’s monitoring of Bald Eagle nests
Rowe stated, “Birds are a pretty big issue especially here because of our wintering Bald Eagle population and we do have nesting Bald Eagles; not right here in Washington County, but with all of the water and chicken farms they think they’ve got a buffet.”
e. Other bird-related information
f. Q&A
· Erin Leone- Endangered Species Biologist, US Fish and Wildlife Service
a. Legal aspects of the Migratory Bird Treaty act
Leone stated, “Bald Eagles are covered under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and they are no longer a listed species, but now they are covered under the Bald and Golden Eagle Act, which gives them more protection. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act only pretty much covers the take of birds. You can not go out and shoot a Cardinal because it is bothering you it doesn’t say anything about the tree that it is nesting in or it doesn’t say anything about its nest, you can’t take their eggs, you can’t harm them in any way and that includes Eagles.”
Leone also stated, “The Bald Eagle Act gives the actual nest protection and it says that you can’t harass them. That includes not only when they’re sitting on their nest, but also their wintering ground, too. Pre-construction monitoring is going to be really important as these companies come in. I think it is very important to know what you have in the area before you come in and start because maybe they are miles from a lake and there’s no nest, but if it is a suitable place for towers and there’s not many birds there; its not a good habitat.”
b. US Fish and Wildlife’s role in regulating wind towers as it applies to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Act.
Leone stated, “I think it is really important to know what’s going on and that is in some of the guidelines of the best management practices. We could ask for two years pre-construction monitoring and that is what they are recommending because if you go out for a week and sit there you don’t know what kind of birds we have. We have birds like most of our raptors that migrate during the day because they are very visual. A lot of the smaller birds migrate at night. That brings in the whole issue of the bats because they are active at night.”
Laney asked, “Is there any organized or required recording standards of kills where the wind farms have been for awhile? Report this or don’t report that?” Leone replied, “Most of them require post-construction monitoring for a couple of years afterwards. There is data, but whether it is available. There is a wind farm in Vermont that for five months they didn’t have any kills, but there’s another one in Tennessee and they had a pretty high 11.8 birds per megawatt, which is how they record the number of kills.” Laney asked, “Over what period of time?” Leone replied, “The study was like 5-8 months.” Laney asked, “Did they take it and analyze it?” Leone replied, “Standardized it is more what they did.”
Butch Pond commented, “You got to do it per megawatt because just try to measure it by time there is a lot of time the wind is not blowing, so the turbine must turn.” Leone stated, “That is kind of the problem; it is not standardized the Vermont study was over a five month period and the Tennessee one was longer, but it wasn’t a full year and the time of year is going to change, too. Some people do a check every five days and some do every three days and a lot of the problem with that is that they’re finding what happens between those checks. Every time you create what we call edge habitat and there’s a lot of scavengers coming in and taking those small carcasses that we don’t know about, so you do see the Eagles, raptors, and big birds, but you don’t always see those small perching birds. They’ve done some research to see how much is missed.”
Richey stated, “We’re looking at an ordinance and this is sort of one piece of it, but one of my goals is to try to understand that if a wind developer came in what they are going to be required to do already at the State and Federal level and to see if there would be anything additional or gaps that we need to look at. State and Federal levels tend to be very generalized and they say give us this data, but there’s no on-site studies. How big of an issue could it be if hundreds of birds are on the ground? We are also trying to balance encouraging development and renewable resources in our County and how we do that and allow for that, what is the detrimental, and how can we try to make a decision on ordinances that we would want to pass or not pass.”
Leone commented, “These are guidelines; we recommend them. We can’t say you have to, but if you could adopt for two years of post-construction monitoring because if no one goes out there and hires a Biologist to come and monitor nobody knows what is going on.”
Laney asked, “I guess this is the equivalent to a best management, but the other part that I would be looking for would be best practices pre-construction what do you do to minimize the upfront?” Gallagher stated, “Before the investment is made.”
Richey commented, “No legislation that mandates that people do certain things. If you start killing Eagles, bats, or whatever then that’s when you can actually step in and mandate that you have to do this or that or fine them.”
David Kampwerth stated, “There is some Federal that the commercial wind developer is getting on a federal power line like Southwest power administration. There is some other type upfront that Federal government says you will versus post-construction when we say we told you not to do that.”
c. Other bird-related information
d. Q &A
· David Kampwerth- Karst Biologist, US Fish and Wildlife Service
a. General information on bats, their habits, habitat, yearly migrations, etc.
Kampwerth stated, “I second Karen’s thanks and appreciation for everybody’s interest in renewable resource energy and trying to take an advanced approach to it. I’m going to have a couple of things that will be a little disappointing. There are quite a few commercial wind developers looking at the State of Arkansas right now. Until just recently there were seven sites with five companies now there are six sites with four companies. Locally Invenergy was looking at this County. They have a judgment against them in West Virginia. Their consultants told me that they have decided not to pursue the two large developments in Washington County.”
Richey commented, “Just to be clear I haven’t heard anything officially from them.”
Daugherty asked, “What area of the County where they targeting?” Richey replied, “It is more like south central southwest Skylight Mountain (WC #4) and Sunset area.”
Kampwerth stated, “One other piece of information for Washington County Ms. Ahlen and I had worked on an anemometer loan program, so we’re talking home scale small turbine type operations and there were several of those to be known around the State. We looked at those from a wildlife standpoint; birds and bats and rated it high, medium, or low potential risk. It is a potential risk based on my professional knowledge, but I can’t tell you you’re going to kill a bird or a bat; caution should be applied.”
Kampwerth also stated, “We had one who wanted to come in this area and we decided not have that small turbine on that property because of the extremely high potential risk. There was habitat there. If there were bats flying around they would go right up over the ridge and down the valley guiding them into where they wanted to put the turbine. If they happen to harm an animal then they’re in trouble and you and I are in trouble for approving it and it just goes down hill. Let’s put them where they’re good, they’re useful, and they’re sited appropriately. We’re very supportive of it, and we just want to make sure we’re not causing harm while we’re doing something good for the community, nation, or County.”
b. What are the endangered species of bats found in Washington County
Kampwerth stated, “We have three endangered bats. The Ozark Big Eared Bat is the rarest bat in the world and it lives right here. These areas would be their primary habitat and just over into the State of Oklahoma. They’re extricated from Missouri and they only live right along the Crawford County and Oklahoma State line. There is a very small population in Marion County. We believe that there are less than 1,700 Ozark Big Eared Bats in the world. Like anything else you and me are changing them now. A lot of the time it is internal disturbance where people go in a cave and it is very disturbing to this particular species. They will leave a cave and never return.”
Kampwerth also stated, “We have the Ozark Big Eared Bat, the Gray Bat, and the Indiana Bat that all live in Washington County. We also have some ground water animals. I think we can easily work with wind developers on the roads, power lines, and things like that to make sure the ground water is not disturbed with construction. I don’t believe that ground water is going to be as big as an issue as things flying around. We will be working with Ms. Ahlen in producing a list of where we think good opportunity sighting counties are in the State and Washington County will probably not be on a recommended list. I am expressing potential concern.”
Kampwerth commented, “We are extremely concerned for the Ozark Big Eared Bat. They live only within about a 10 square mile of its summer and winter habitats and that pretty much covers half of Washington County. We know that by genetics and banding data that they live here and don’t go anywhere else. The Indiana Bat is more of a migrant. It lives in winter caves and then it summers in trees. If we’re going to take trees off the top of a mountain; we want to make sure that you’re not pulling down their habitat. As you and I are destroying an endangered species habitat, so you better know what you are pulling down before you go and take the trees off the top of the ridge to put up a wind farm. The Ozark Big Eared Bat is total summer and winter cave dweller. The Indiana Bat is a winter cave dweller and summer forest rooster.”
Richey asked, “You said there are three endangered bats. There are other bats that are not endangered.” Kampwerth stated, “Whether you kill endangered bats or not in Washington County if we get to the point of bringing in commercial wind to our County you will kill bats there are no if’s, and’s, or but’s. You are likely to kill big brown bats, which are resident forest dwellers living in roofs and buildings. You are very likely to kill Hoary, Silver-Hairs, and Red Bats those are very common forest dwelling bats. I don’t know of any farms on the eastern side of U.S. that are not killing those readily. You can expect mortality on your resident bats. Each bat eats 3,000 insects a night, so they eat forest, agricultural, and human pests such as mosquitoes. Their value to our society is high.”
Kampwerth commented, “The Gray Bat is a different species altogether. It is a full time winter and summer cave dweller, but it has large scale migration and it also has large numbers. Indiana Bats are going to be your least populous bat in this County, Ozark Big Eared will be your second most common endangered bat, and your Gray Bat will be the most common. There are lots of Gray Bats and the risk to them is still high, but the risk to an Ozark Big Eared Bat is substantial you can’t afford to inadvertently kill 1-10 a year.”
Pond asked, “How do you estimate these numbers of bats?” Kampwerth replied, “We actually do counts, we go into the caves in the winter we do not go in the summer because most of the time they are wide awake. We go in every two years and we best estimate by square foot of Ozark Big Eared Bats. Some people use the number 90 some use 110 per square foot. Gray Bats are 180 per square foot. Indiana Bats are about 400 per square foot and that is because of the size of the bat and the way they stack up on top of each other. We also do exit counts in the summer they go out every night and you can sit there with night vision goggles or thermal imaging cameras and count. You can get very good estimates of counts. Those three species are completely different in the way they act, behave, and move through this County. They think those are very concerting at least the Ozark Big Eared Bat in particular.”
Kampwerth stated, “One issue that we have is White Nose Syndrome. We have over a million possibly 2 million dead bats contributed to it. It started in New York and now is in Tennessee. It is a fungus and it is killing all bat species it gets on; upwards of 100% of mortality in caves. We do think we can spread it around on our cave gear. Be certain to know that bat to bat contact is primary route of dispersal. We’ve been petitioned to list two more bat species now that have generally been very common and only because of White Nose Syndrome we hear that a third petition is coming and you have all three of those in this county as well makes it more complex. It is in Tennessee we think its coming and when we get to the point of it killing off whatever bats that it may; take care the idea of even more being contributed to a commercial wind developer is something that we are very concerned about. We have Habitat Conservation Plans that can be done with the commercial developer and developing what they call Incidental Take permits if they are willing to do all the work.”
Fitzpatrick asked, “The reproduction rate is greater than the kill rate?” Kampwerth replied, “Generally, one pup per year for the females and that’s under very good conditions. We know that they have bachelor colonies and maternity colonies and come back in the fall to reproduce. It is pretty low production one per year and after they are several years old.”
Fitzpatrick asked, “Anything that I’ve read about White Nose Syndrome we don’t really know what it is and we don’t know what to do about it. Is that still correct?” Kampwerth replied, “We do know what it is, but we absolutely don’t know what to do about it. It is a fungus. What we think it does and we’re getting close to believing it is that as bats hibernate they burn up their fat reserves throughout the season. They become trimmer and trimmer in the middle of winter and eventually their fat reserves can’t hold them in their state of hibernation and then they wake up early and they’re looking for food. What we think happens with this fungus is it gets on them in a low state of sleep and reduces their fat reserves even quicker because it is trying to take nutrients out of the animal. They wake up early and start flying around in the middle of the winter, which completely burns up their fat reserves and then they end up dying due to starvation.”
Fitzpatrick asked, “Is there a way to supplement food? I put out bird seed all winter long.” Kampwerth replied, “If you can figure out a way to put out moths, bugs, and beetles in the air in the middle of winter.” Fitzpatrick asked, “They will not feed on a standing site like birds? I put out suet balls for the bug eaters.” Kampwerth replied, “We just had a very disappointing study where we pulled in Virginia Big Eared Bats, which are about 15,000, into a very prominent zoo and the 40 they brought in there to make sure they got them out of the way of White Nose Syndrome; 30 are dead and 10 aren’t looking very good because they don’t do very good in captivity.”
c. How commercial wind towers may effect bats
d. How bats are protected on the State and Federal levels
Kampwerth stated, “The levels of protection if there is any kind of a Federal mandate where they have their hands in Federal money we can definitely tell them this is what you need to do upfront if they want to be cooperative. They at least listen to what we have done; they haven’t done everything that we’ve asked of them, which is where I think we have a big problem in their pre-construction monitoring. There are many things we would ask that a company would do pre to them making a final decision and you would be assisting with that as well as us and the State Fish and Wildlife Game and Fish commission. We would look at least two years of study if not three years of study in this particular area because of the Ozark Big Eared Bat to make sure that any decisions that are made are going to have zero to no effect on that species.”
Richey asked, “We know that they are very prevalent in the southern part of Washington County. Is there a difference between southern and northern Washington County as far as the Ozark Big Eared Bat; 10 square mile?” Kampwerth replied, “You have a big population in the Forest Service, a pretty good population at Devil’s Den, and some right on the State line, so literally from West Fork down you are probably in a fairly conservation area. Gray Bat is less endangered, but still endangered.”
Hummel commented, “The wind turbulence is not enough to justify a wind farm up north.” Richey stated, “We haven’t had anybody interested in the north. I know that Benton County has had some inquiries around Siloam Springs. Depending on what type of legislation gets passed, prompting people to look at our marginal wind resources if it would be a different story to the north.” Kampwerth commented, “It is still very risky. Washington, Benton, Stone, and Independence I consider counties to really discourage people.” Hummel asked, “You’re saying that the data that you have gathered if you had to make a recommendation there is no place in Washington County that you would say that we can risk a wind farm?” Kampwerth replied, “Without the data to prove me wrong, yes sir.”
Fitzpatrick asked, “Is there some method to keep the bats away from the turbines?” Kampwerth replied, “We have asked that question time and time again. There are studies and efforts, but there is nothing to date that has any ability to dissuade, deter, or keep them away from the turbines, One of the things that we are using you may have seen them on ships for pirates where they have the big sound wave machines that will blow you off your feet. There actually is a company trying to develop those; I think they are very successful for birds, but they never tested them on bats and get the echo location frequency of these animals. It is a valid question how can we keep them away from there when it is something that we need to bring here with jobs, energy, and things like that. There is no answer for that right now. You have to be really careful you wouldn’t want to monkey with their hearing echo location system that they now don’t behave properly.”
Fitzpatrick stated, “We’re doing a balancing act how much havoc we’re destroying with going after coal and etc. destroying habitat; that kills them. Putting up wind turbines and mass killing them; what is killing the least of them?” Leone stated, “I think it is great that you guys are coming now ahead of the ball saying what can you do. What can we do before they get here to immediate this problem so that we don’t have the problems that they had in California and get ahead of it.”
Fitzpatrick commented, “The only thing that they’ve basically done in California is they started trying stuff. This is such a balancing act green brings in jobs and green stops a whole lot of polluting issues for water, soil, and air. Habitat destruction is habitat destruction no matter what we do. We’re going to have to worry about what does the least amount of damage because whatever we do is some damage.”
Richey asked, “I know you work for a Federal agency. It sounds like you’re doing some State specific work and I’m not sure how it works if you work in Arkansas you work for a Federal agency. You have these Federal draft guidelines somewhat adopted whatever the status is now, but I would be interested to know how to evaluate things on a site specific level or County specific level and make sure things are evaluated well for that site, but also offer some amount of predictability for developers so that you don’t put somebody in the position where they have to spend a unreasonable amount of money upfront and there’s no pay off in the end and they did all these studies and in the end take out the Ozark Big Eared Bats and Bald Eagles and done everything right and trying to find a balance there, too. It sounds like you’re going to be making at least County specific policy decisions. I wondered how far that would go and if you would have some specific recommendations and maybe some outcomes for people for all specific recommendations for counties.”
Kampwerth replied, “They are going to be doing wind monitoring for 2-5 years prior to making a wind decision they should be doing those biological studies during that same time and at the end get wind and biological data they can make a confident decision. Is this worth the risks and tradeoffs to put a site here? What we and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission are considering developing is a county by county list for the State of Arkansas. This is not a good place it really puts a lot of threat and risk to these animals.”
Fitzpatrick asked, “If they put cameras on the same sites that they have their wind testing towers to record this data and Biologists review; would that be a viable thing, if it ran long enough? Either a video camera or a time lapse camera to be able to monitor that concurrently?” Kampwerth replied, “Not for bats.” Leone stated, “The initial setup might be cheap and you’ll get some birds coming through the flight path but then somebody has to go through all that data. It might be a cheap initial setup to get it going, but then you have a lot of time and manpower going through and picking out the birds and then you’re still getting a pretty narrow field of view to the area.” Fitzpatrick commented, “I’m thinking pre-construction while they’ve got their test towers up there testing wind speed to also have cameras and feed into a computer.” Richey stated, “You’re talking about a huge area. They’re talking about hundreds and thousands of acres. I don’t know that would be feasible.” Fitzpatrick asked, “Economically feasible if it is scientifically feasible would this give good data; would this be something that we can trust?” Leone replied, “People can do point count surveys and there is actually a man on the ground visually you’re counting the number of birds that you see and hear.”
Daugherty asked, “What period of time would you like for them to examine for getting solid data?” Richey asked, “Like a 2-3 study period is that somebody going out once a week?” Kampwerth replied, “No, it’s stratified throughout the season. You have a spring and fall migration that’s when large potential numbers could be harmed. Radar onsite it is a huge investment, but $100,000 per animal you kill is also a huge investment.” Leone commented, “You can use the radar for birds.” Kampwerth stated, “You can sit it on site and it can remotely send you data. They are very expensive depending on the size of the company you can use them from site to site that would be put in place for 1-2 months in the spring and fall to try to catch those periods of time when the bats are migrating. What we’re working towards is a possible win; win solution is if you can figure out when they are migrating and then peg it with MET tower data and know when these bats are flying and peg it together so that the blades are not spinning during one or two week periods in the spring and fall when all those bats are moving through the area. That is one tool for bats; certainly video is not going to work there is thermal imaging camera, echo location gauges and meters set up you put them in elevation you don’t run them off the ground because they only run about 100’ if I’m looking at a 20,000 acre project and all I have is 100’ I don’t think that’s a real good set of data, so there’s cave searches in those areas and talk to landowners and go look to make sure there’s not a whole lot of bats adjacent to that area. We know where they are at now, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know everything. That comes over a long period of time cave searches will occur winter and summer for that three year period and however long it takes to scan the area. The other surveys will be spring, summer, and fall except for the radar, which we will definitely try to figure out when waking and going back to sleep. Swarm in fall back to hibernate they are mating and this is when they are not thinking straight the males are chasing the females and flying all over. When you have a congregation of animals coming back to one hole in the ground that’s when a potential increase in mortality does occur.” Fitzpatrick commented, “Same thing with cats getting hit on the road. They normally watch what’s going on. When they’re chasing a rabbit they don’t care.”
Daugherty asked, “The fine for these endangered bats is $1,000 a piece?” Kampwerth replied, “$100,000 a piece. I don’t honestly think that will ever happen, but that is what is on the books per animal.” Pond asked, “If some windmill operators being fined for killing?” Kampwerth replied, “Only recently did we have somebody acknowledge that they killed an endangered bat. A lot of it they are doing their own monitoring; trustworthy.”
Richey stated, “It is encouraging to me that you are getting together and making some county by county recommendations that give us a little bit of guidance. It sounds like you will continue to expound on that in the future. That is helpful to me and other counties. As a County Planning Department in Arkansas sometimes we’re like the lone people out there doing anything. Lots of counties don’t have a Planning Board and in Arkansas there is a choice whether you want to have one or not or even do any planning. There are not that many counties in Arkansas that do and if you keep in pretty good touch with several counties that are trying to move ahead and make regulations on different things. I usually talk to Faulkner, Pulaski, and Baxter County I would be interested if you could keep me posted on information of any of those counties to pass that along to their Planning officials or Boards.” Kampwerth commented, “Baxter County has actually come up in the last three years in my trial run as a very hot spot for Gray Bats.”
Fitzpatrick asked, “Do we know what wind speed creates that condition into the blades?” Kampwerth replied, “It takes 7 kilometers per hour to turn a large 1.5 megawatt turbine.” Richey stated, “She’s asking about the pressure situation.” Kampwerth commented, “That is rated at that we assume if you’re spinning 7 kilometers per hour the turbine and tip blade is like 200 miles per hour added in. Those things are 160’ long. We would believe based on limited data that it doesn’t take the minimum to turn them to whack them and cause severe trauma. You stand below them and you can feel it there are actually a lot of incidental things out there without human health risks.”
Fitzpatrick stated, “It may have something to do with the surrounding area the coastal mountain area where there’s mountains right behind them and kind of funnels it in there versus wide open flat. Is this true also of the residential sites selling to off grid?” Kampwerth replied, “No, in fact people have asked me why I am concerned about it because it never has become an issue small home scale turbines. They probably ought to not put the lights on them at night; don’t bait the bugs onto your turbine because the bats are going to go right up there to get them. Maybe some concerns for wind there are several alternative energy sources out there that aren’t wind that pose little to no risks solar being one of them. It takes up a little more area, but if you’re going to cover up a 20,000 acre ridge top with a bunch of turbines why would you cover a 20,000 acre ridge top with a bunch of solar panels? Do the math. Does one produce more energy than others? Birds and bats are no longer a potential issue.”
Fitzpatrick asked, “There was a process started here in Fayetteville for turning potentially anything carbon based into ethanol and a side product was electricity they reached the point where they were trying to go commercial with it about 6 or 7 years ago couldn’t get funding. They sold it to Petroleum Re-energy Division just last year. It drives me up the wall because we could be making ethanol and electricity out of chicken litter and the City’s sewage because it is there and it is green. I used to work for an engineering firm that built mostly in other countries because the utilities in the U.S. didn’t particularly want to do this. Gas, fire, and power plants using land fuel gas that’s still green that is not a fossil fuel that is not a net carbon gain and yet it is being done in other countries and not here by an engineering firm. Wind is wonderful in many ways and most of what I have seen about wind residential systems and mid-sized systems more prevalent in Europe. The U.S. residential systems have to be sized so that still have to have utility company one time or another, whereas in Europe there they like to have a larger one household needs into the grid. How big does a wind turbine have to be before this effect is found?”
Daugherty asked, “Say a company gives us solid data and we allow them to do this windmill system and all of a sudden they have a bat kill; do you have the power to come in and shut them down?” Kampwerth replied, “I don’t think that we would become involved in that situation done the research cooperated with everybody including the County. We would probably not come and shut them down. What changed between the three year of work you did and now and how can we figure out some more answers to try to keep that from 1-5 and get it back down to zero. You’re talking about 300+ million dollar investment. Common sense applies here. This is a risky County. If it happens during a period when we know they’re migrating because we’ve done radar survey for that 2-3 week period just shut them off at night and save yourself potential penalty boxes and let the bats move on through here and turn them into the wind so that they don’t spin and then turn them back on.”
Ahlen commented, “The little bit that I know about the vertical axis turbines have not been good. There is a big annual wind conference last year in Chicago. I went to a session and it was geared more towards small wind because usually you see those vertical axis turbines being promoted for small wind applications and it was kind of a horror story of poorly designed wind turbines and, basically, the need for the small wind industry to really get more advanced in terms of having third party verification and technology. They went through and showed some communities who had purchased some vertical axis turbines and when they actually got them up and looked at production there were some that had 100 and 1,000 year payback because they were not the winds or energy that they promised and a lot of them saw them as being good as low wind speed or attach them to your roof or to your building. Generally speaking, I would steer clear of vertical axis turbines until there are some third party verification so if see projects with those I would ask for a whole lot of information just to make sure that it is legitimate.”
Pond asked, “Sounds like the technology needs to be improved. Are they killing birds or bats?” Ahlen replied, “I don’t know if there are enough of the vertical axis turbines out there I haven’t heard any particular stories about vertical axis turbines.”
Richey stated, “It sounds like on a State level your office and maybe some other offices that you are affiliated with are really just ramping it up on research on different types of renewable resources looking at making a county by county policy or recommendation on wind and to me it would be really interesting to see what you have to say about other renewables, too, and get recommendations county by county on that. We’re just a Planning Board we’re not economic development corporation. Ways to promote what does work best with our environment up here and what the drawbacks are for certain other things because big question about the area in Washington County in general and a lot of it is associated with Fayetteville, but not just with Fayetteville, but be a part of the green movement and a lot of political support up here for that type of thing and certainly something that I think that we would want to look into and I think politically it is going to continue to be a driving force. I would be really interested in how you progress with other types of renewable. What could possibly be driving people to Arkansas in the first place with our marginal wind resources and I’ve also talked to some utility providers about that same thing and everybody’s got kind of an idea and a lot of it is legislation driven mainly on the Federal level and people aren’t sure what’s going to happen with that, but speculating in that direction.”
Ahlen commented, “One of the things we are starting to work on is developing a State Energy Plan and kind of in concert with that starting to identify some potential policy ideas for the next legislative session and also looking at what maybe can’t be done State wide, but what could be done more on a local level and knowing that you are being so proactive. I will definitely keep you up to breast on what we have going on and if we are kicking around ideas letting you know what some of those might be and I’m really intrigued in doing some pilots sort of things where we try in one community and get the community involved and collect the data and take to the rest of the State and have good information so that we’re making good decisions, so I’ll definitely keep you in mind.”
Richey stated, “I mentioned that our subcommittee is looking at all parts of our potential ordinance in pieces and this happens to be our environmental meeting day.”
e. Other bat-related information
f. Q &A
Our next meeting is April 8, 2010 we’re meeting with utility companies: AEP-SWEPCO, Ozarks Electric, and AECC. Staff has had some preliminary discussions with them and this whole process it sounds like for all renewable electricity sources is understanding how that power even fits into the grid and what it can supply,basically, a lot of these renewables right now they feed directly into the grid and you have to have stable power sources be gas or coal plant and you can’t just shut coal plant down when you get a lot of wind because it logistically doesn’t work that way. Limited only percentage how much renewables can feed into the grid. If we run into hiccups with environmental issues it could all work together to some degree having people turn off their wind turbines at night may not be the worse thing that ever happened. We may be able to work together and still do some development and things that seem like they might be extremely detrimental to somebody building a wind farm might really not.”
Pond stated, “We don’t have a super grid in Northwest Arkansas and we need the wind turbines during the peak time in daylight hours when the bats are not out. They’re not wanting to shut the turbines down at night.”
Fitzpatrick commented, “$100,000 you can convince them it is a lot more financially viable.” Kampwerth stated, “They will probably not come if that is what the tradeoff is.”
Fitzpatrick stated, “We don’t know where the wind is best yet because we don’t have those numbers. One of the things that I have noticed just by watching flags is first thing in the morning they’re hanging there. The big flag is flying; there is enough wind to power an utility power turbine no problem, but they are not flying when the sun is coming up. It might not turn out to be an issue anyway, but again we don’t have the data yet.”
Hummel asked, “What would you do right now if you got a call from one of the windmill companies and they wanted to put a two trial windmills on Sunset Mountain. Who would make the decision; Quorum Court or Juliet? Would you tell them $100,000 if you kill one of these little creatures? They would make the decision. Who makes the decision?” Richey replied, “Right now, this gets into some logistics that I don’t really want to talk about today just because we have a lot of guests focused on environmental it would be the Planning Board and if it is in a zoning area, which would probably be a CUP ratified by the Quorum Court, so it would be both the Board and Quorum Court that would be making a decision of course Staff would make a recommendation to you like we always do. A part of this wind ordinance is also going to come to the discussion about zoning and whether we would allow wind farms by right in certain areas of the County and that is the discussion that I don’t want to have today because that discussion will go on for hours.”
Leone commented, “I’ve pulled guidelines off of the National Wind Coordinating Committee for birds and bats they know they should be doing these studies, but would I do a study if I didn’t have to? If you’re out to make money you don’t want to put the time in if you don’t have to, but they are aware of it.” West stated, “Big companies are bound to.” Gallagher commented, “We do projects all over the country and we never walk into a Planning Board or Planning Commission or City Council and say we want to do a project and we would like to do some studies. It just doesn’t happen.” Leone stated, “If you told them that they have to do this. They wouldn’t be caught off guard they probably wouldn’t be angry.” Richey commented, “Whether or not Invenergy is still on the table or not we’ve had a good working relationship with them. Our entire ordinance that we’ve worked on to this point; we gone over a lot with them and they think it is very reasonable I think and they work all over the country and so they know what other people are requiring. The places that don’t require things they are doing some studies on the front end. They had a judgment in West Virginia they’re not going to chance it somewhere else. I have no idea how they compare to other large wind energy companies because I haven’t meet with anybody but them. The only other developers that we have been approached by have been smaller more local developers and to me I worry more about what they’re doing or what their plans are because they don’t seem nearly as organized and it seems like you want the best intentions more likely to jump into something.”
Richey added, “Same problem with cell towers; some guy decides he’s going to get into the power rental business and goes to Oklahoma and dismantles some 30 year old tower and erects it in Washington County. We went to an Oklahoma Wind Energy Conference, they have one annually, the American Wind Energy Association they seem to be beginning to touch on some of these environmental issues. It seems like the data is really slow in coming. Something we found in this whole process is the data is few and far between whereas you can find some weird articles from random places and to me those are hard to pick out as how much truth there is in them whether it is an environmental issue or what you’re talking about the vibration noise somebody can’t sleep every night. It’s hard to know what all the facts are in those. How to incorporate those things. We’ve been keeping a good file of them and the lack of standardized data on wind to me is hard to make decisions because you can’t separate that stuff out.” Gallagher stated, “To new of a discipline to have standardized way to referring. Whereas, they’ve been studying bat species for a couple of hundred years, and they’ve been studying electricity and water flow. This is a relatively new study.”
Kampwerth commented, “We have a lot of good places in the State. I talked to another developer that is looking at a small commercial turbine facility not in your County, but he asked me what I thought about a ridge already gone through my office and we more or less told him we don’t see a big problem at all and it is on a ridge top. We do want him to do a little bit of work or I can ask him to do all of these full blown studies because we know there’s some things there, but its not Washington County. There are places and we think that is maybe one way that we should be proactive to help these folks get some stuff going. I know that the Service and myself we’re very supportive of wind we think it is a good alternative and we need to start doing that. It really comes down to siteing. Is that a good place for your resources, our resources, and if it is a good tradeoff on both then get it going? We have another one in the State that is very interesting it has good wind resources they definitely have a few bats. They are proposing a significant commercial farm 10 miles from half a million endangered bats and I’ve got band data if I took a ruler and said from here I know I banded them so there they showed up they go right over the ridge are you seriously proposing that? I’d love to know what I’m seeing is not valid, but you have a half million endangered bats and that doesn’t count all the other bats that live right there. They haven’t done the radar study and that’s the piece that is missing. One of those machines is half a million dollars, but you can use it from site to site or you can lease it for a whole lot less for short periods of time.”
Pond asked, “Does the radar need to be on the tower?” Kampwerth replied, “No, it is sitting on a little trailer and it can be run horizontally or vertically and it will go out miles and miles it picks up everything and anything. Do those studies concurrently so at the end of your 2-3 year study period being wind and biological you have all the data for all of us to look at. We’re slowly getting there; it takes time.”
Fitzpatrick asked, “The radar gives you a size and you estimate what you’re looking at?” Kampwerth replied, “They’re actually getting it down to wing beats to where we can determine bat species. Bats have certain flight patterns. I know that it picks up one individual bat.” Leone asked, “It picks up insects?” Kampwerth replied, “Yes, it does pick up insects that is one of the studies are the turbines humming attracting insects, and they’re going up to get those insects.”
Fitzpatrick asked, “Depending on what the data comes up with if the tower itself is drawing the bugs and that’s what’s drawing the bats then 200 yards over puts something that will draw the bugs even more and that draws the bats out of the flight pattern. We got to get the data.”
Kampwerth stated, “The karst publication deals more with roads, transmission lines, and things like that because these are going to be large scale things to get everything to the top of the hill. All of Washington County is karst and to do a feature study to determine impact of wind farms on sink holes, caves, springs, and streams.”
Pond asked, “Is there any kind of strobe or anything that would discourage the bats?” Kampwerth replied, “I don’t have the answer to that. These guidelines talks about the kind of lights that we would recommend to put on top of them. We don’t want them a certain color to attract, but it has to be something that a pilot won’t fly near.”
Ahlen asked, “I know you have been focusing on commercial scale wind, but do you have anything as the county for more small scale wind development?” Richey replied, “The only things that we’ve talked about so far is trying not to regulate it to the most degree and then possibly depending on your lot size and getting an area where there is a smaller lot size in the incorporated parts of the county that maybe have a fall zone depending on the height of the towers, so maybe regulating of the personal towers get above a certain height. I’d actually like more information. It’s one of the things that we don’t have a lot of information on. If you have information or recommendation on that I would be interested in those. We try to leave things alone that we don’t perceive becoming completely catastrophic. We’re not trying to over regulate anybody by any means.”
Gallagher commented, “I found an article in a Portland newspaper and they are having a lot of controversy what they are going to do about wind farms and they were discussing a lot of the issues that we talked about today and talked about in the past. I thought it was interesting to have another perspective and see what folks are talking about elsewhere. It seemed relevant to what we are doing and worthy of further review on our part.”
West stated, “Good meeting; informative.” Daugherty commented, “Not exactly what I wanted to hear.”
Cheryl West moved to adjourn. Jim Gallagher seconded. Motion passes.
Wind Subcommittee meeting adjourned.
Minutes submitted by: Amanda Kimbel and Courtney McNair
Approved by the Planning Board on:
_______Randy Laney____________ Date: _05/06/10_________
Randy Laney, Planning Board Chairman