Endangered Hawk Could Kibosh Big Wind Farm Plan
A plan to build a huge wind farm in Washington — the largest ever in the state — will likely end up much smaller than the original proposal to erect hundreds of turbines across 24 miles. That’s because Horse Heaven Hills wind farm would pose a danger to an already-endangered raptor, the ferruginous hawk.
The hawk (Buteo regalis) with a wingspan close to five feet, is the largest of its genus in North America. Its range covers much of the West in mostly stable population numbers, but in Washington the raptor is endangered, with only about 200 nests in the southeast shrubsteppe areas of the state. Unfortunately that also happens to be nice and windy for the turbines.
It is appearing likely the state will defer to the hawk and cut back on the number of windmills in order to accommodate a 2-mile radius buffer zone around each nesting site. When the plans are finalized in the coming days, it is expected the original plan for 244 bird-killing turbines would be reduced to less than half that. Which is not the end of the world because it would still make Horse Heaven Hills the second-largest wind farm in the state.
Good news for the bird, not so much for Washington’s ambitious plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The Evergreen State (apt name!) is on a mission to reduce its emissions by 45% by 2030 (relative to 1990 levels) and plans to make the state fully carbon-neutral.
It’s a conundrum for environmentalists who value both wildlife and clean energy, but many seem to think they can pull off the tricky balancing act. “We’re really pleased,” Trina Bayard, interim executive director for the National Audubon Society’s Washington office, tells the Seattle Times. “We have to recognize that climate change is a massive threat, and it’s one of the biggest threats there is to birds and people, but that doesn’t mean we can just sacrifice our most important resource in the process of trying to meet those [renewable energy] goals. And we don’t have to.”
Photo credit: Cornell Lab of Ornithology
