Silence of the Lambs: US govt authorizes kililng endangered bighorn in path of wind project

[Liberty Belle]

Silence of the lambs:US government authorized killing of endangered bighorns in path of wind project

Last edited Sat May 19, 2012, 11:43 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
Source: East County Magazine

May 19, 2012 (Ocotillo) -- In a precedent that has horrified wildlife experts, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has authorized the “take” (meaning harassment, displacement or even death) of 10 endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep – five ewes and five lambs.

The decision comes after federal wildlife officials were provided photographic evidence that the endangered animals were seen in recent weeks on the site of the just-approved Ocotillo Express wind energy facility—a presence federal officials and the project developer have long denied.

Mark Jorgensen is the retired Superintendent of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which shares a five mile border with the Ocotillo Express wind project now under construction on adjacent public property owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). He is horrified at the decision to allow the killing of the sheep on land that until recently was designated as critical bighorn habitat.

Mark Jorgensen, retired Superintendent, Anza-Borrego Desert State ParkJorgensen calls the decision “astounding”, adding that the USF&W “is charged with protecting this endangered population—and it is not showing any leadership in safeguarding the ESA.”


Read more: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/9732


I am sick over this. I sent the USFSW and BLM photos proving the endangered sheep were on the project site or right at the boundary. They included radio tracking tags clearly readable, with numbers. I thought this would save the sheep and stop the project.

Instead, Salazar ordered take permits to kill them!

This is after the BLM cut the designated critical habitat area in half, for no good reason, with no science -- just to accommodate a private corporation taking public land. We are also now seeing "take" permits issued to other wind farm operators to slaughter eagles.

I've written a letter to President Obama. He is the only one with the power to stop this. Please contact the White House and ask him to either halt the project, or at least reverse the "take" permits so that they can't just wantonly slaughter these beautiful endangered animals.

Who can help? Try contacting the President at www.whitehouse.gov. Also call CA Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs an environnmental committee in the Senate: http://boxer.senate.gov/

[xchrom]

1. Salazar is an idiot. Nt

[NYC_SKP]

2. If people really care about sheep, then cut back on energy use, population, dump your SUVs.

The resistance to large scale wind and solar projects is stunning.

Good people with good intentions missing, IMHO, the bigger picture.

I attended a hearing with Salazar, Boxer, Woolsey, and others regarding the offshore development of renewables like wind, wave, etc., and the ignorance of Boxer and Woolsey as regards the alternatives was really disappointing.

I think it's good that people are concerned with wildlife and habitat, but they'd do well to consider the alternatives, and to advocate for other more efficacious efforts, like shining the light on how overpopulated the county and the state are.

How about taxes on McMansions, on SUVs, on utility bills that exceed reasonable levels? How about ending ridiculous wastes of water?

"Oh, hell no, we have a right to water and power.", is heard from both sides of the aisle.

There are, in fact, organized efforts to kill what opponents call "Big Wind" by the fossil fuel industry in ways that use environmental arguments (which is so sad).

Be careful what you read.

[Liberty Belle]

3. I agree on conservation as a goal, but rooftop and parking lot solar is the answer for our region.

100% of San Diego and Imperial Counties is considered prime solar territory. Wind at best could provide only 5% of our power and at terrible cost to the environment, wild and scenic areas, and human health as well as wildlife.

This project will power only 25,000 homes, per the final document signed by Salazar.

PG&E is now paying less for moderate rooftop solar projects' energy than for wind. It's cost effective in our area. The big energy companies don't profit off that though. SDG&E refuses to buy rooftop solar - so we are stuck with the desert wind projects and giant solar farms instead. It's all about corporate greed.

People here WANT the govt. to incentivize locally generated solar. This wind company got millions of tax dollars to destroy public lands.

I've seen a cost comparison by multiple engineers who all say our region, at least, could do without wind and still do our fair share to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

By the way, to calculate "savings" from a wind facility you have to look at the energy it takes to produce all those turbines, then ship them here from across the world. They don't produce power 24/7 so they are building a gas-fired peaker power plant that is NOT green. So just how much energy is this thing really saving? Oh and when they rip out trees (this project tore down an entire ocotillo forest) that is also contributing to warming. Nobody is calculating the true cost savings, if any.

Wind may be appropriate in areas that don't have enough sunshine. But it's certainly not needed in desert areas!

I do agree that conservation should be part of the solution too, of course - and California has done a lot to require more energy efficient building standards. A lot of people here have ripped out lawns and put in water-wise landscaping instead. 50% of the electricity we use nationally is for buildings, so things like building to utilize passive solar energy, double-paned glass, insulation, weatherstripping etc. can all dramatically use energy consumption. These are safer, saner solutions than destroying our once protected public lands and killing endangered animals.

[NYC_SKP]

4. First step and it has yet to be take state-wide, building codes should require additional load

for roof capacity at 5lb/SF and regulate shade caused by landscaping, give owners sun rights, and build into new homes the circuitry to provide for alternative energy.

Additionally, CSI becomes permanent, paid for by building permits and offset by McMansions.

[Liberty Belle]

7. Agreed, these weould make sense as goals.

[kristopher]

6. Every well known, well established environmental group disagrees with your evaluation of wind.

Your suggestions, if taken seriously, are a commitment to the status quo since a distributed renewable grid allowing freedom from fossil fuels will requires large scale development of all renewable energy resources.

By the way, to calculate "savings" from a wind facility you have to look at the energy it takes to produce all those turbines, then ship them here from across the world. They don't produce power 24/7 so they are building a gas-fired peaker power plant that is NOT green. So just how much energy is this thing really saving? Oh and when they rip out trees (this project tore down an entire ocotillo forest) that is also contributing to warming. Nobody is calculating the true cost savings, if any.

We've seen a proliferation of this type of literature since wind started presenting a real threat to the entrenched energy system. There is a well funded network of websites designed to exploit local uneasiness about projects by creating and distributing information specifically designed to create FUD (fear uncertainty doubt).

Goals of the PR Campaign

A) Cause the targeted audience to change its opinion and action based on the messages.
B) Provide credible counter message to the (wind) industry.
C) Disrupt industry message with countermeasures.
D) Cause subversion in message of industry so that it effectively becomes so bad no one wants to admit in public they are for it (much like wind has done to coal, by turning green to black and clean to dirty).

Ultimate Goal: Change policy direction based on the message.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112714465 OP and post #12

This is an intensely studied area and your claims are far more in line with the anti-wind rhetoric developed by campaigns like this than they are with objective analysis. While the specifics of the this and all projects should certainly be scrutinized, I'd suggest that when you include incorrect information in your evaluation of the need for the project, you are skewing the ultimate decision.

[Liberty Belle]

9. Not true - there are MANY environmental groups opposed to these projects.

There are exceptions notably the national leadership of Audobon and Sierra Club. Aubudon, I'm told, has bird experts who are getting hired by the wind industry to do "studies" so sadly they are abrogating their core mission of protecting birds. I don't know why the national Sierra Club is still refusing to oppose any wind projects, perhaps out of an ideological commitment to clean energy without understanding all the consequences, or perhaps they too have been infiltrated or compromised.

Locally we DOhave local Sierra Club leaders in Imperial County and some in San Diego who ARE opposed to these particular projects and have been pushing the state and national chapters to take a stand.

There are other environmental groups strongly opposed to the big desert solar projects. The Desert Protective Council, Anza Borrego Desert State Park Foundation, and Basin & Range Watch to name a few are all publicly on record opposing these projects. Here's a link to the Desert Protective Council's webpage, which has some of their concerns about the Ocotillo project on the homepage: http://dpcinc.org/ Representatives of all four of these groups signed onto a press release sent to media last week denouncing the Ocotillo Express Wind facility specifically and also the fast-tracking of massive energy projects on public lands. Here is a story that includes quotes from these environmental groups as well as Native American tribes (the original conservationists) who also oppose the project due to its impacts on cultural resources, the land and the wildlife especially eagles: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/9679

I will add that most of our information comes not from websites that "spin". Our research on these LOCAL projects comes largely from direct interviews with the people directly impacted and from our own eyewitness reports. I've also personally heard from people living near wind farms around the world about their experiences with various issues.

Corporations are covering this up. For instance in Ontario Canada and in MAssachusetts two studies touted by the wind industry claim there are no health impacts from wind. Turns out the health directors in both areas knew that many people near turbines were ill and refused to talk with a single one -- no interviews with victims, or their doctors. Instead these industry shills did "literature reviews" rather than look at what's happening in their own communities.

A woman from Ontario came here last week to testify at a hearing and talked about the coverup - I heard her, and she read testimony from many other people who are ill. View a portion of her testimony in a video here: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/9651

We have ill people in San Diego's East County. I've heard Manzanita Indian tribal members--impoverished people on a reservation -- plead to keep more turbines away from them because they are already ill from a neighboring tribe's wind turbines. They have asked the federal govt. to do a health study. They have headaches, ear pain, heart problems, cancer, and more. Stray voltage levels 1,000 times normal have been measured in their church and tribal hall by an MD who is an epidemiologist and has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals. So who should you believe - a medical doctor and an entire community of Indians falling ill, or some energy energy executives? This project was built by the same company that is now tearing up the desert to build Ocotillo. So the stray voltage concerns are legitimate - if they did it once, and have never bothered to clean up the mess, it's not a stretch to believe it can happen in Ocotillo too. This company's wind farm in Campo also blew apart in a storm and all 75 blades had to be replaced, only many are still lying rusted in a field. I have photos and interviewed the eyewitnesses and planners in the area. That's not "spin" it's called TRUTH.

These are our neighbors in our own community - not some PR disinformation campaign as you suggest. It's libelous for you to say that about me and I don't want to hear that again here. My degree by the way is Environmental Studies. I've been pro clean energy forever. But this energy source has many negatives that we are only just now learning about. I don't know if you're paid by the wind industry to discredit people telling the truth, but suspect that may be the case. I urge others here to do your own research.

I am now looking at the devastating happening where this wind "farm" is going in and the land will never be the same. It is heartbreaking.

[kristopher]

11. What do you know about the antecedents of those "sources"?

It appears to me that you disparage the only sources that can be counted on to NOT have suspect motives - the established environmental groups. Please see post 10.

[kristopher]

5. Is there a source besides "East County Magazine" that documents these claims?

This source has been less than reliable in the past and I'd like to see some independent verification of the claims made.

[Liberty Belle]

8. Story is now enabled with links to documentation

including US Fish & Wildlife and BLM project documents as well as Jorgensen's comments on the Biological decision. (full html mode was off inadvertently and has now been enabled, so you can check the sources for yourself.)

As to the site being "credible" it has won 45 journalism awards, including last week the League of Women Voters San Diego's Media Award 2012, also many San Diego Press Club awards for investigative reporting and other news categories. East County Magazine was named best general interest news site in San Diego in 2009 by Press Club. The author has won the American Society of Journalists and Authors national "Arlene" award for community reporting that makes a positive difference, as well as several dozen other awards from major journalism organizations and San Diego Press Club's Best of Show award. So overall yes, both the publication and author are considered credible by the major journalism organizations locally and nationally.

[kristopher]

10. Thank you.

Their coverage of wind energy issues is sensationalistic and is grounded in a poor basic understanding of both the role of renewable energy sources and the relative impact of energy generation. It's energy coverage is completely in synch with the antiwind campaign that has been cultivated and run by the right wing for the past 10 years.

Your comments are replete with talking points from this web of misinformation vendors. As previously pointed out to you, every established environmental group disagrees with your take on wind energy. I specify "established environmental groups" because they are staffed with quality analysts that have the resources to do proper research and their environmental bona fides have been established long enough to allow surety that sure they are not creations of the antiwind propaganda effort.

I'm not saying that you or the reporter are active agents by any means, but you are repeating talking points designed to both misrepresent the total picture required to evaluate the positive value of the projects you write about and that are designed specifically to prey on your legitimate local environmental concerns and heighten your sense of anxiety regarding change.

I've read the BO and what I see is a well balanced approach to necessary development.
http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/ca/pdf/elcentro/nepa/ocotilloexpress.Par.35308.File.dat/ROD%20Appendix%20A-BO.pdf

That is, of course, a value based judgement on my part. I'd suggest that if you stripped the information that is incorrect from your personal analysis, you would tend to agree. Wind is an essential element of going carbon free and that isn't a point you can just brush aside. When you come out against wind on the basis of interpretations such as the OP makes of the BLM analysis and decision, you are aligning yourself (deliberately or not is irrelevant) with efforts such as the one described here:

Goals of the PR Campaign

A) Cause the targeted audience to change its opinion and action based on the messages.
B) Provide credible counter message to the (wind) industry.
C) Disrupt industry message with countermeasures.
D) Cause subversion in message of industry so that it effectively becomes so bad no one wants to admit in public they are for it (much like wind has done to coal, by turning green to black and clean to dirty).

Ultimate Goal: Change policy direction based on the message.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112714465#post17

Is that really where your spirit is trying to lead you?

[XemaSab]

12. You never saw a wind farm you didn't like

n/t