Published on January 12, 2005

MONTPELIER — The fight to place four commercial wind towers on East Mountain is increasingly coming down to a fight over an area’s character.

According to depositions recently filed with the Public Service Board (PSB), concerns over the project’s impact on bats and migratory birds and aesthetics do not rise to a level of sufficient magnitude to topple the project.

In the eyes of most experts, the impact of the towers on both wildlife and the environment can be mitigated, and if not mitigated, at least tolerated given the nature of a site where a Cold War radar base was located in the fifties.

What appears to be emerging as the main stickler, however, is whether a wind farm development on the mountain’s ridgeline will fly in the face of a 40-year, multi-million-dollar effort by the state to preserve the natural rugged beauty of the area through outright land purchases and easements like those placed on the former Champion lands.

“Fundamentally, the tenet of undeveloped mountain peaks is a cornerstone to the public investment of the remote and rugged character in this region and throughout Vermont,” testified Tom Decker, a wildlife biologist with Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Vermont has conserved 88.8 percent of its elevations over 3,000 feet, and 61.8 percent of its elevations between 2,000 and 3,000 feet.”

Filed last month, the depositions offer a preview of the evidence that will be presented to the board during hearings in March on East Haven Windfarm’s (EHWF) application for a certificate of public good.  The Montpelier-based company needs the certificate before it can go forward with its plan to erect four towers exceeding 300 feet in height and lit 24 hours a day.

Each tower will generate 1.5 megawatts of power, and when added together, the six megawatts will produce enough power to run 3,000 homes.  The plan calls for the power to be sold to the municipally owned Lyndon Electric Company.

EHWF initially hoped to have the project up and running by November 2004.

But opposition to the project has created delays, and recent testimony from wildlife biologists gives the impression of a scientific community that is guarded and uncertain over how the project will impact bats and migratory birds, as well as a resident and exotic species known as the Bicknell’s thrush.

A hearing date on the project was extended by the board after biologists with the state and The Nature Conservancy criticized the developer’s bird study at the site for being incomplete, and asked for a pre-construction study to run through the fall months of 2004.

At over 3,400 feet, East Mountain is “one of the tallest landscape features in northeastern Vermont,” according to John Austin, a biologist with the Department of Fish and Wildlife who has had roughly ten years' experience assessing how large-scale developments impact migratory birds.

In his testimony filed with the board last month, Mr. Austin said the site’s history as a former radar base “substantially reduces any concerns the department might otherwise have.”

The department’s bat expert, Scott Darling, made a similar if more guarded conclusion.  Because of a lack of data on bats and wind towers, and because of a recent increase in bat mortality on eastern ridge mountains, he concluded it would “difficult at best” to assess the risk at East Mountain.  However since the project consists of only four towers, the biologist tentatively advised there would be relatively few collisions.

Yet Mr. Darling took pains to add that the potential for collisions would be greater if the number of towers were increased.  And in that event, he suggested “the department would perhaps reach a very different conclusion.”

Much of the fall field work for the department was conducted by the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences (VINS).  The department also contracted with a Florida firm, Detect, that specializes in avian surveys using radar technology.

An earlier assessment prepared by the developers suggested that migratory birds would be flying higher than East Mountain, and would not use its summit as a stopover location.  But after tracking 543,062 birds during October and November, Detect reached a dramatically different conclusion.

In its report to the department, the survey firm found that 67 percent of all birds “were at or below 400 feet AGL ( above ground level), and within the rotor sweep area in which the wind turbines would operate.”

Consequently, the study concluded that “the proposed project does present a potential risk to migrant birds.”

Both the lack of available studies on the impact of wind power technology on birds and the lack of time to come up with findings for this project bothered researchers.

“Our cautious professional judgment is that wind turbine development on East Mountain is unlikely to have dramatic, long-term adverse impact on Bicknell’s’ thrush,” testified Christopher Rimmer, VINS Director of Conservation Biology.

To minimize the impact on late-season nesting and fledglings, the VINS scientists recommended that construction at the site be delayed until August 1.

According to Mr. Austin, the department spent roughly $245,000 in state and federal funds on studies of the Bicknell’s thrush and migrating birds at East Mountain.  The Nature Conservancy and the Kingdom Commons Group, a citizens’ advocacy group opposing wind power development on ridgelines, also kicked in money to support the research.

Mr. Austin justified the large expenditure by noting the lack of studies on the subject and the need to do something while awaiting word on the availability of federal grants.

“This represents an unusual position for the department in that it does not typically provide financial support to collect information that is necessary to demonstrate whether the development interests of a private corporation are acceptable,” he said in his testimony.

Overall, however, researchers shied away from concluding that the towers would have an undue adverse impact on the birds of East Mountain.  Instead they gave cautious approval to the project even as they cited discrepancies between the developer’s bird assessment and their own.

“The EHWF testimony and report suggest that few birds would migrate over East Mountain, and fewer still would fly at altitudes that would place them at risk of colliding with the proposed wind towers,” noted Mr. Austin, the department’s expert on birds.

But data from the radar study, he said, “characterizes the spatial and temporal aspects of bird migration at the project site in a way that is entirely contrary to what EHWF had suggested.”

Because the potential risks to migratory birds are higher than anticipated, the department wants the radar survey to continue on East Mountain during the fall and the spring for a minimum of three years.

“The department believes that the lack of knowledge and experience with wind turbines in high elevation boreal environments in the northeastern United States is justification for a careful, yet practical examination of the issue," Mr. Austin testified.

In its guarded conclusion that the four wind towers would not have a significant adverse impact on birds, the department took pains to warn the board about the project’s cumulative impact.

EHWF’s present project to erect only four towers came after opposition began to mount to the company’s initial proposal to build a 50-tower wind farm stretching south and west from East Mountain.

“The department’s position represented in this testimony is in large part a function of the scale and scope of the proposed project," said Mr. Austin.  “That is, a four-turbine wind energy project on a previously developed site with an existing access road is very different than a large project on an undeveloped ridgeline with no existing suitable access.”

East Haven Windfarm recently petitioned the board to erect three new test towers on nearby mountaintops.  The petitions will undoubtedly solidify fears that the case presently before PSB is in essence a fight to define the rural character of an area long on rugged beauty and short on development.

This is the first of a series of articles.  Next, the argument over towers or trees.

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