From: Save the Eagles International, WCFN (World Council for Nature)
To: Mr. Roak Parker, DOE
Cc: Mr. Matt Butler, OPSB, Mr. Joseph Krawczyk, USACE
Re: Project EA-2045 “Icebreaker”
Dear Sir,
Save the Eagles International is strongly opposed to project Icebreaker, which is likely to kill thousands of protected migrating birds and bats every year. Its location, in the waters of western lake Erie, is a particularly bad one, being a bottleneck for one of the world’s most important migration routes.
In the United States alone, wind turbines are estimated to kill 13-39 million birds and bats every year . Cats and windows may kill more, but they don’t kill bats, raptors and other large birds, most of which are protected, and many endangered. Wind turbines do.
Wind turbines attract bats to their death, even over water. A study in the Baltic by a Swedish professor has revealed this fact.
They also attract raptors, as proven by pictures, a video, and a study from the California Energy Commission. Hirundines (swallows, swifts etc.) are also attracted and, like the others, killed by wind turbines.
Migrating birds that usually fly over water will be tempted to rest on these structures, standing as they do high above the lake’s surface. It’s when attempting to perch on the wind tubines’ nacelles that they stand the highest chances of getting killed.
Birds that normally don’t like to fly long distances over water, like most raptors, will do it if they see tall structures where they can rest half way to the other side. But instead of flying to safety, they would be flying to their death.
Several studies have shown that the location selected for the wind project stands across a major migrating corridor. One says: “In Ohio, the western basin of Lake Erie is a hotbed of migratory activity, supporting some of the largest numbers of land birds found during migration “. In another study we read: “On a single aerial survey done on November 16 of this year, 201,016 water birds were counted, including ducks, geese, swans, cormorants and eagles, all within the offshore waters of western Lake Erie.”
About raptors in particular, the Hawk Migration Association of North America wrote: “The offshore waters of Lake Erie have been documented as an important foraging area for several species of raptors, the coastline also constitutes a landscape feature known to attract raptors. During migration, sometimes large concentrations of migrating raptors are reported over water and may be at risk from offshore windpower development.”
Monarch butterflies too will die by the thousands. They do fly over lake Erie. Wind turbine blades kill butterflies and other insects to the point where performance is reduced and they have to be washed by helicopter.
All bird societies agree that wind developers should avoid migration routes. But conflicts of interest ($$$) often makes them agree to particular projects if profitable mitigation or compensation are part of the deal ($$$).
Mitigation and compensation measures are ineffective, as has been shown (read the last three chapters: MITIGATION, BATS, COMPENSATION)
Conclusion: there will be a carnage of protected birds and bats if wind turbines are erected in lake Erie. I trust you will reject this project, which is nothing short of criminal. This is no exaggeration: migrating birds are protected by law, and it is a criminal offense to allow massacres to occur knowlingly. In this case you do know, if only from this open letter.
Yours, sincerely
Mark Duchamp
President
