A lawsuit for the birds

This lawsuit is one for the birds — literally. Eagles, hawks and owls.

In California, the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit to halt operations of wind turbines at Altamont Pass in northern California. They want them shut down until they no longer kill golden eagles, red-tailed hawks and burrowing owls.

Thousands of wind turbines were built on Altamont Pass during the mid-1980s in response to environmental activists who wanted to increase the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources. At the time, no one considered wind turbines to be an environmental threat.

Yet recent studies show that roughly 1,000 birds are killed each year at the wind farm, which is along a major migratory route for North American birds of prey.

The owners, Florida Power and Light Co. say they have tried to protect the birds from being killed by the rotating wind turbine blades, but the technology does not exist to completely protect them. "We've done everything from installing perch guards to painting rotor blades," Florida Power spokesman Steve Sengal told Environment & Climate News.

But Steve Miller, the spokesman for the Center, says the group wants the judge to throw the book at them. Naturally, the Center for Biological Diversity is asking for mitigation and compensation as part of the suit.

Among the Center's demands is moving the towers and turbines, which would be incredibly expensive, and the new sites would be much less efficient for energy production. Even though wind power benefits from federal subsidies, it is already significantly more expensive to produce than electricity from traditional sources such as oil, coal, natural gas or hydropower.

Ironically, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory say that new technologies designed to reduce bird kills may actually increase them. For example, one proposal to reduce the number of turbines on wind farms but make each turbine bigger would mean the larger turbine blades would sweep through more air space and increase the danger zones for birds — a classic "Catch 22" situation.

In Washington, modern wind farms dot the landscape between Pasco and Walla Walla and soon will be installed near Ellensburg. So far, the problems faced at Altamont Pass have not surfaced in our state.

The controversy in California at the Altamont wind farm illustrates two things:

? Each power source has its advantages and disadvantages

? We must have a diversity of renewable and traditional energy sources to ensure an abundant supply of affordable energy for our homes, schools, hospitals, factories and businesses.

This argument also illustrates an old truism: There are no easy answers.