State environmental officials have endorsed plans to build Maryland's first wind farms on ridgetops in Allegany and Garrett counties, despite fears from ornithologists that the towers and rotating blades could cause major bird kills.
The Department of Natural Resources recommended that the state Public Service Commission approve the wind farms, which could begin operating next year atop mountains near Oakland and Cumberland.
John Sherwell, director of DNR's Power Plant Research Program, said his recommendation this month comes after reviews by eight state agencies of two projects being promoted as a clean source of power and a "constructive addition" to the state's power system.
But a group of ornithologists says the 92 towers pose a potential threat to about 200 species of warblers, thrushes, flycatchers and other songbirds that use the same Allegheny Mountains to migrate each fall from Canada to Texas and Central America.
"We know a lot of birds use that area; what we don't know is whether they'll strike the towers," said Chandler S. Robbins, a respected research biologist for the Federal Patuxent Wildlife Refuge who has studied birds for 57 years and written a widely used bird identification guide.
Robbins said too little is known about migratory flight patterns to determine the numbers of birds that might be killed by the turbines and their blades, which will reach to heights of 380 feet as they rotate. He and other bird experts say studies of flight patterns should be conducted next spring and fall before the towers are approved.
Robbins and William Evans, a New York bird expert, also faulted state and industry surveys that concluded the towers pose no "significant impact" on birds.
"They went out and avoided getting any information that would go against what they were trying to propose," Chandler said.
Sherwell acknowledged that no one is sure how many birds will be killed because scientists lack information about the flight paths that migrating birds use in Western Maryland.
"Details of how they travel are not that well known," he said. But he said there is no need to wait for more studies.
"I'm not sure another year's data is going to tell us anything more," he said.
State officials also agreed to waive a requirement that the PSC spend two years reviewing the proposals, so that the firms could take advantage of federal tax breaks available only to wind farms operating by the end of next year.
Sherwell said the state will pay Edward Gates, a wildlife biologist from the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science in Frostburg, to observe bird kills at the sites for a year.
"It's not a perfect solution, but it is something," Sherwell said.
Clipper Wind Power of Carpinteria, Calif., has submitted plans to the PSC to build 67 wind turbines along a 10-mile stretch of Garrett County near Kelso Gap, east of Oakland. U.S. Wind Force of Pittsburgh has submitted plans for 25 turbines at the site of a former strip mine along a three-mile stretch of Big Savage Mountain in Allegany County near Lonaconing.
Each turbine will generate 1.5 megawatts of electricity, enough power to supply 500 homes.
Plans by Winergy LLC, of Shirley, N.Y., to mount 350 towers on concrete platforms and anchor them in 60 feet of water about 3.5 miles off Ocean City have yet to be submitted to the PSC. Winergy's president said the federal approvals for any ocean-based wind farms are expected to take three to five years.
Developers of the Western Maryland projects hope to win PSC approval and begin construction next spring and start operating by Dec. 31, 2003, when the federal tax break for wind energy expires.
The PSC will hold public hearings next month on the proposals in Western Maryland, which is the only part of the state with the steady wind speeds of 16 mph or more needed to generate sufficient power.
Along with recommending approval of the projects, Sherwell said, the PSC should require continued monitoring for bird kills and the minimum lighting allowed by the Federal Aviation Administration to reduce the potential for attracting birds.
The firms also should be required to notify DNR if more than 200 birds are killed in a 24-hour period and reduce bird fatalities - possibly by shutting down turbines - if industry-funded studies next year find a significant impact on birds, Sherwell said in a PSC filing.
Company officials say they are reviewing the state's conditions but should be able to live with them.
"Our strong belief is there isn't going to be any significant impacts on birds, but if there are, we've offered to mitigate," said Kevin Rackstraw, a Clipper spokesman.
Rackstraw said the project costs roughly $1.1 million for every tower built. He also said Clipper is trying to work with the bird enthusiasts to address their concerns.
"Some folks are never going to agree and are always going to oppose what you do," he said.
Wind power enjoys support among many environmentalists because - unlike oil, coal and natural gas - it produces none of the greenhouse gases that are believed to contribute to global warming.
"Global climate change is going to kill more birds than all of the possible wind farms combined," said Michael Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
State officials also are promoting wind power in Western Maryland.
Wind farms are considered a "constructive addition" to Maryland's power system, said Fred Hoover, director of the Maryland Energy Administration.
David S. Iannucci, secretary of the state department of Business and Economic Development, said he is trying to persuade Japanese and European firms to build a plant that would manufacture wind turbines at the site of a former Pittsburgh Plate Glass plant east of Cumberland.
He said once the wind farms begin operating, they might bring up to a dozen jobs to Western Maryland, but a factory would bring hundreds.
"Our focus has been on getting an assembly plant that would build turbines and maybe employee 200 or 300 people out there," Iannucci said.
The bird experts calling for more studies say they are fighting an uphill battle.
"The strategy seems to be build the windmills now and count the dead birds later, and I don't think that is a very wise strategy," said D. Daniel Boone, a Bowie biologist who owns property in Garrett County.
Wind industry studies estimate that only two birds a year are killed at each of the 15,000 towers operating in the United States. Chandler said he doesn't "believe that estimate for a minute."
Older turbines at Altamont Pass, a 2,000-turbine facility near Oakland, Calif., killed about 1,000 birds, including scores of threatened golden eagles, from 1992 to 1998, according to a recent study.
But wind energy supporters say newer turbines are less of a threat to birds than the lattice-style towers built decades ago at Altamont Pass. Newer blades turn more slowly, and the newer towers have no support wires or lattices, they say.
"The bottom line is that wind is coming, and it's coming in a big way," Tidwell said.