The town of Falmouth, Massachusetts continues to grapple with noise complaints from a large number of landowners living within a half mile or so of the two wind turbines erected at the town Wastewater Treatment Facility.  Acting Town Manager Heather Harper, who’s been the town’s point person on seeking solutions since the first turbine began operations just about one year ago, is currently dealing with fallout from the State DEP expressing concerns about the analysis presented by the town’s formal noise study, as well as tensions generated by a challenge to the initial permits granted to erect the turbines.

Harper says that while she anticipated some negative reactions to the turbines, the intensity of the response has surprised her.  When the project was proposed, and throughout the planning process, local support was solid.  “Many of the neighbors did participate in that process,” Harper notes in a recent article in the Falmouth Enterprise.

This is very similar the situation in some other communities when setbacks are in the quarter to third of a mile range, where enthusiastic local support is followed by surprise about the noise impacts once the turbines start turning.   In Falmouth, an unusually large number of residents spoke up about their problems with noise: around fifty people participated in early informal community meetings held by neighbors trying to assess how widespread the issues were, and 18 banded together to hire a lawyer to help them address their concerns with the local planning boards.  (See earlier AEI coverage of Falmouth issues)

The town is exploring options for reducing the sound at times, but doesn’t want to jeopardize the value of the turbines to the town, in generating electricity for municipal buildings.  The neighbors rejected a proposal from the town to shut the turbines down between midnight and 3am in high winds, saying that noise issues were problems outside this time range.  They are suggesting that permanent noise or wind monitoring stations be installed, that could trigger curtailments in conditions when noise is most bothersome (no details were offered in the Enterprise article about what these conditions may be). Christopher Senie, the neighbors’ lawyer, admits that there is no perfect solution, but they want to find a middle ground that minimizes neighbor’s negative experiences while making the turbines beneficial to the town.

Meanwhile, the Cape Cod Commission has approved new wind farm regulations for the region, which includes setbacks of 10x the rotor diameter, which for the Falmouth turbines would have amounted to 2700 feet.  While noise problems can persist beyond this range, most complaints about chronic noise impacts come from residents under a half mile away.  The CCC proposal also includes a so-far fairly vague provision that would allow closer siting if a noise study suggests sound will have “minimal impacts” to nearby residents; the plan is that future technical bulletins will clarify what that means.

Unbeknownst to most of us, a long-term National Forest Service approach to managing roads on its millions of acres of non-wilderness lands has been waiting for activation since January 2001, when the Forest Service finalized a plan for the long-term management of their oversized and under-maintained road system. That plan basically directed the agency to identify an ecologically and fiscally sustainable minimum road system that would meet resource management and recreational access needs. The plan projected that the agency might reduce the overall road system by more than 30%, and that as a result “unroaded” acreage might increase by up to 15% nationally.  Wildlands CPR fills us in on the details with this web post and a real nice pdf version of their magazine feature on the story.

A combination of political neglect and other factors has meant that even as the “minimum road system” goal remained on the books, and was part of the Travel Management Plan process that many forests engaged in over the past decade, implementation of the idea has never happened.

Now that has changed, with the release in late 2010 of a directive from the Forest Service Chief. The guidance memo directs all national forests to identify, through a science-based analysis, an ecologically and fiscally sustainable minimum road system by 2015.

In addition to the five years it will take to conduct this analysis nationally, it will likely take decades to actually implement the minimum system on-the-ground. But the plans developed through this process will, over the long-term, create a blueprint for future road maintenance and decommissioning investments, including Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative funding.

For those interested in large landscape connectivity for wildlife, this initiative presents an opportunity to reduce road densities as well as protect and restore linkages and core habitat. For those interested in clean water and fisheries, it is an opportunity to improve water quality and watershed health. And for those interested in fiscal responsibility, it is an opportunity to identify a road system that the Forest Service can afford to maintain.

Senator John McCain has introduced legislation that would derail the National Park Service’s recently-released compromise plan to reduce noise levels in the Grand Canyon.  McCain’s initiative, apparently included in an amendment to another bill (details are sketchy so far, with nothing on McCain’s website so far), would declare that keeping half of Grand Canyon National Park relatively free of noise from air tours is good enough.  By contrast, the NPS proposal, which increased the total number of tourist flights allowed but concentrated them in smaller flight zones, would keep two-thirds of the canyon free of any aircraft noise (including commercial jets and non-tour private aircraft) for most of the day.

McCain seeks to codify what has been the Park’s modus operandi for the past 17 years, a 50% protection standard that was achievable without making major changes.  That interim approach was adopted while Park staff, environmental groups, and air tour operators attempted to come to a consensus on how to move forward.  While the NPS does not and cannot regulate commercial overflights, the sound from high-flying jets does impact the canyon, and the NPS included these sounds in its planning of air tour routes, so as to keep aircraft noise inaudible for 75% of the day in the “quiet” parts of the park (of course, allowing aircraft noise for 25% of the day hardly creates an experience of solitude…but this is part of the compromise that wilderness advocates are being asked to accept).  By not counting commercial flights in the total noise budget of the Park, McCain is rolling things backward.

The McCain approach would also do away with two of the Park Service’s key innovations: seasonal shifts of air tour routes, so that different parts of the park are quiet at different times of the year, and most importantly, the no-fly period that would keep the canyon truly quiet for an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset.

Ironically (or perhaps not, for those tracking the Maverick’s devolution over the past few years), McCain was the main proponent of the 1987 bill that set this process in motion, and called for “substantial restoration of the natural quiet and experience of the park.”

This short story from Australia neatly sums up the divide in many communities over wind farm development.

Black Springs resident Kerry Heinrich (above) is happy to have wind turbines in her backyard. At yesterday’s launch of the Waterloo wind farm – 30km from Clare – Ms Heinrich said the 37 wind turbines created only “background noise”.

“I think they are quite stunning,” she said. “They are just part of the landscape now.”

Yet others were far less happy on the first day of operation. Stop Industrial Wind Turbines chairwoman Ally Fricker said the community was “bitterly divided” about the farm.  A small group of protesters concerned about turbine noise and sleep disruption held signs including saying “turbines kill rural communities” and “more research needed.”

It all comes down to how much, if any, background noise someone is ready for, it seems.  Time will tell whether the homes in this particular community are close enough to the turbines to cause ongoing problems, or only occasionally audible noise.

The biannual Wind Turbine Noise conference, sponsored by the Institute for Noise Control Engineering Europe, is being held from April 11-14 in Rome.   This week, conference organizers announced the line up of papers that will be presented, and as always, it looks to be a greatly informative few days.  I can hardly wait until the proceedings CD is prepared, ordered, and arrives on my doorstep!

See Wind Turbine Noise 2011 website

See list of papers to be presented

Just came across a fairly detailed article looking at wind energy in Holland, and more generally, in Europe.  The article focuses on local resistance to a large windfarm being planned on the coast of Holland, but it included this section, citing the European Wind Energy Association on the long project timelines and high rate of local resistance and legal challenges:

“In Holland, there’s hardly any project that doesn’t get delayed,” said Michiel Muller, the wind unit manager of Ecofys, a research and consultancy firm on sustainable energy, who is not connected with the Urk project.

Across Europe, each installation faces a slew of hurdles, starting from the required Environmental Impact Assessment to regulatory approvals by often more than a dozen authorities. It takes an average of 55 months to wade through the bureaucratic tangle before work can begin, the European Wind Energy Association said.

Of some 200 wind energy projects studied in 2007-8 in Europe, 40 percent were ensnared in lawsuits, and 30 percent more faced slowdowns because of local resistance or questioning from nonprofit environmental groups, the association said. It had no figures on how many projects were killed before they got started.

Down East magazine, a Maine institution, has published a series of stories on wind power in Maine, with enough detail to be valuable to people in any rural state who are trying to find the proper balance on wind development.  The series includes in-depth articles on the University of Maine’s leadership in developing floating far-offshore wind farms and on controversy surrounding the potential for many ridgetop wind farms in the relatively wild mountains of western Maine, and an editorial noting the quick and fearful reactions of many communities to just the thought of a new wind farm.

In the article detailing facts about Maine’s current wind power sites and proposals (which reads as generally supportive of wind development), the short section on noise impacts, noting both the moderate noise levels and big impact reported by some neighbors, was followed by a surprisingly blunt recommendation about setbacks: “Half a mile, at minimum. But most agree that a mile is more advisable, as virtually no complaints have been lodged by neighbors this far from a wind turbine.”

The wildlands article makes the case for protecting Maine’s highest ridgetops (over 2700 feet) from development, and focusing on smaller-scale, distributed alternative energy generation, including solar as well as wind, built closer to existing power infrastructure.

The article on the future of floating offshore wind is especially inspiring.  The UMaine team plans to test three 1/3-scale turbines in 2012, with comprehensive environmental monitoring, including subsea impacts, and follow that with a full-scale 3-5MW turbine by 2014, the first “stepping stone” multi-turbine 25MW wind farm 20-50 miles offshore by 2016, and expansion to 500MW or more by 2020.   Here’s an excerpt:

“This is a one thousand-megawatt farm covering an eight-square-mile area,” says Habib Dagher, the man who created this vision and is now leading a team of engineers, environmental scientists, government policymakers, and offshore construction and energy industry leaders called the DeepCwind Consortium who hope to make it, the world’s first floating wind farm, a reality. “In the Gulf of Maine, that’s like an outhouse in the corner of a football field.”

Make that three outhouses. DeepCwind’s goal is to have three such wind farms bobbing twenty to fifty miles off the Maine coast and generating enough energy to power three million homes by 2030. It’s a breathtaking idea, and still it doesn’t fill the frame that has been drawn by Habib Dagher. He envisions Mainers converting to electricity to heat their homes and power their cars (the cost makes no sense now, he concedes, but it will in two decades, given the price increases predicted for fossil fuels) and the state becoming the Silicon Valley of offshore energy. Towers, blades, and other components will be manufactured right here, using technologies and materials pioneered by the University of Maine’s AEWC Advanced Structures and Composites Center, which he founded and directs.

For the first time, decades of oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico is being challenged in court, on the grounds that the noise of seismic surveys used to pinpoint oil reservoirs has a negative impact on the region’s endangered sperm whales.  A consortium of environmental groups, including the NRDC, CBD, and Sierra Club filed a formal notice of intent to sue, because 10 new oil exploration and development project have been approved in recent months without obtaining permits required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act. “Seismic surveys have a vast environmental footprint, disrupting feeding and breeding of wildlife over great distances,” said Michael Jasny, a senior policy analyst at NRDC. “It is intolerable to think that the same species threatened by the Gulf spill will have to contend with the industry’s constant pounding, without any serious attempt to mitigate the harm.”

This legal challenge is similar to those mounted against Navy mid-frequency active sonar training, in that they are designed to assure that the behavioral impacts of seismic survey noise are considered, and that Incidental Harassment Authorizations are issued, with conditions meant to avoid any injury of animals, and minimize behavioral changes. The MMPA and ESA clearly require careful assessment and permitting of any activity that may negatively affect marine mammals or endangered species.

What is unclear, though, is how (if at all) oil and gas exploration activities might change after going through these proper legal challenges.  The US Navy now prepares full Environmental Impact Statements for all of its active sonar training areas, and receive IHAs from NOAA, but this legal compliance has not reduced their training activities or succeeded in putting any biologically rich areas off limits–in effect, NOAA has issued the permits after long official assessments that the activities have no significant impacts.  LIkewise, the oil and gas industry does have procedures in place to reduce sound output when animals are (very) close, and research into the behavioral effects of noise exposure at greater distances (lower sound levels) is ambiguous, though concerning.  See this earlier post about AEI’s work in this area, assessing research about behavioral impacts of moderate noise, including seismic.

The rhetoric from the litigants is surprisingly personal, implying that Gulf of Mexico exploration activity is being ramped up by this administration.  “Under Salazar’s watch, the Department of the Interior has treated the Gulf of Mexico as a sacrifice zone where laws are disregarded and wildlife protection takes a backseat to oil-company profits,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity.  (See press release) What is unstated, and may in fact be more to the point, is that the Gulf has been a sacrifice zone for decades.  The fact is that these animal populations in this truly industrialized sea have been living with seismic exploration, drilling, and lots of ship traffic for many many years; some populations, including sperm whales, appear stable. While some may suggest this reinforces NOAA’s current stance that the activities do not cause any significant impact on wildlife, and others (including AEI) say it’s clearly long past time to consider the cumulative and long-term impacts of this activity on marine life, the villain is not Ken Salazar.  It’s our continuing addiction to oil, pushing us to search in ever deeper and more hazardous waters to fill our boundless needs.

A group in Maine has petitioned the state Board of Environmental Protection to amend the noise rules in the state Site Location Law to set lower limits for wind farm noise than for other sources of community noise.  The group, the Citizen’s Task Force on Wind Power, is formally asking the state to consider a question that has become central to siting controversies nationwide: is the nature of wind turbine noise different enough from road or factory noise to warrant lower noise limits?  The BEP will hold public hearings to consider the question.

A growing number of acousticians and medical professionals have raised concerns that standard community noise standards are not likely to provide the same level as protection from wind farm noise as they do from other noise sources.  There are several reasons put forward for this, including:

• The prevalence of amplitude modulation.  The pulsing quality to the sound, rising and falling slightly in loudness at about once a second, adds to its noticeability and annoyance (this is often related to the presence of a wind shear, or higher wind speeds at the top of the turbine blade rotation than at the bottom).
• The low-frequency character of turbine noise.  Separate from the controversial question of direct health effects from exposure to moderate levels of infrasound, wind turbine noise is weighted toward lower frequency audible sound as well, which travels farther than higher frequencies, penetrates homes better, and is not fully represented in A-weighted dB measurements.
• The unpredictable 24-hour nature of the sound.  Other common community noise sources quiet down at night, often becoming totally inactive, rather than continuing at the allowed 45dB.
• Large difference of turbine noise and natural ambient at night is disruptive. Night time wind farm noise at current 45dB standard can easily be 15-25dB louder than quiet rural ambient noise level.

Currently, state regulators are relying on the state’s generalized community noise standards in approving wind farms.  According to Cynthia Bertocci, an analyst for the BEP, a public hearing will be held to address the petition to change the regs for wind farms, though a date has not yet been set.  The Citizen’s Task Force proposes nighttime noise limits of 35dB at homes; while turbines would still be audible outside in many cases (night time ambient in rural areas is often 20-25dB, and sometimes even lower), noise inside should be minimal.  This would like require setbacks of close to a mile.

For the sixth year, Francisco Lopez is leading a 2-week workshop at Mamori Lake in the Brazilian Amazon.  For details, see the workshop webpage.

Francisco describes the workshop in a recent email announcement:

Mamori Sound Project
6th Annual Workshop/Residency for sound artists & composers at Mamori Lake (Amazon, Brazil)
October 2011 / 2 weeks

Mamori Sound Project is a 2-week workshop/residency for professional and semi-professional sound artists and composers with previous experience in the area of sound experimentation and field recordings. It takes place at Mamori Lake, in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon, and involves theoretical/discussion presentations, field work and studio work. The workshop/residency has a special focus on creative approaches to the work with field recordings, through an extensive exploration of natural sound environments. It does not have a technical character but is instead conceived and directed towards the development and realization of a collective project of sonic creation with the interaction of all participant artists/composers

Francisco López, director of “Mamori Sound Project”, is internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the experimental music and sound art scene.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Wisconsin legislature has moved quickly to enact most of newly elected GOP governor Scott Walker’s job-creation bills during a special session he called after his inauguration, with one glaring exception: Walker’s proposal to increase wind turbine setbacks from 1250 from homes, to 1800 feet from property lines.  As noted in this earlier post, and in a more detailed commentary on the Renewable Energy World website, Walker’s proposal seems to AEI to be a step in the right direction toward forging a new social framework that will actually support the long-term success of the wind industry, by helping avoid long, costly siting debates, lawsuits, and property-value claims. The proposed larger setbacks would come along with provisions allowing closer placement of turbines if the company works out an agreement with nearby neighbors.

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, negotiations are underway to perhaps come up with some sort of middle ground between the existing regulations and Walker’s proposal, with leaders of the GOP majority sharing Walker’s concerns that the 1250 standard is insufficient.

UPDATE, 2/11/11: The Wisconsin legislature held a hearing to consider suspending the statewide wind farm regulations adopted by the state PSC last year, scheduled to go into effect shortly.  While the GOP-led legislature did not move forward with Governor Walker’s bill to increase setbacks to 1800 feet from property lines, they are considering revisiting the question.

A “border watch group” in Arizona is proposing the installation of underground sensors that will listen for the footsteps of illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico.  They’ve apparently gotten the ear of an Arizona state legislator, who says he’s earmarking $5 million of existing funds to install a 5-mile prototype of the system.

The system, which has been promoted by the group American Patrol, had received some regional press last summer, but was first featured nationally this week by the new Rupert Murdoch iPad-only publication, The Daily, which reports that the sensors would be buried up to 12 feet underground, and are designed to distinguish a variety of activities, including individual people, groups, vehicles, animals, and “likely tunneling.” An American Patrol posting in late January had announced that “We are testing the system now and expect to make a major announcement in late February.”

A new study reveals yet another family of ocean life previously thought to be deaf actually use sound to avoid potentially dangerous areas.  It’s the latest fascinating study from a collaboration between British and Australian scientists that has been revolutionizing our understanding of the role of acoustic ecology in reef habitats. In this study, crustaceans that feed on plankton avoided reef sounds; such reefs are home to fish that would enjoy a crustacean lunch.

Many such small crustaceans are foundations of vast ocean food webs. Co-author Dr Andy Radford, who is leading a major project in Bristol to investigate the impact of anthropogenic noise on marine animals, said: “This highlights just how damaging the impacts of human noise pollution may be for so many different creatures.  Chronic noise from shipping, drilling and mining may mask crucial natural sounds, causing animals to make poor or even fatal decisions, which in turn will threaten vital fisheries and tourism resources.”

Coral reefs are noisy places, and this noise can be an important cue for animal orientation. Dr. Steve Simpson is quoted in a University of Bristol press release: “The combination of clicks, pops, chirps and scrapes produced by resident fish, snapping shrimp, lobsters and urchins can be detected with our hydrophones from many kilometres away.  Our research has already found that reef noise is used by the larvae of fish and even corals to locate and select habitat after their early development in the open ocean, but using noise to avoid reefs, that is a first.”

The mechanism of hearing in these tiny creatures is poorly understood, although co-author Dr Andrew Jeffs and his group from the University of Auckland have found that both tropical and temperate water crabs and lobsters are attracted by the noise of their adult habitat.  Dr Jeffs said: “It is clear that some crustaceans use sounds for orientation, and that noise can induce a downward-swimming response. But this study throws wide open our understanding of crustacean hearing, and much more research is now needed to understand how and what these little critters can hear.”

The National Park Service has released its proposed air tour management rules for the Grand Canyon.  Key features of the plan include increased flight altitudes near North Rim overlooks, reducing flights in Marble Canyon, moving routes away from some key visitor use areas, and establishing an hour-long flight-free period for an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset.  This last change will be especially appreciated by backcountry hikers and river-runners, for it provides two hours a day of true extended natural quiet, at the times when the soft, rich light brings the canyons walls most subtly and dramatically alive.

The proposal caps nearly 25 years of work, initiated in the wake of a 1987 congressional mandate to come up with a plan that “provides for substantial restoration of the natural quiet and experience” of the Canyon.  The proposal would allow slightly more flights than are currently operating, but would largely concentrate them in one long and one short flight loop. The plan is now available for download and public comment through early June.  The NPS press release notes that the plan should increase the area of the park experiencing substantial natural quiet for most of the day from just over half to close to two thirds.  The objective measurement standard used by the Park Service defines substantial natural quiet to mean that in these areas, no aircraft will be audible for at least 75% of the day; so, you might hear a plane for up to one minute of every four, or fifteen minutes of each hour, though undoubtedly there will be some areas of the park far enough from the flight routes that the noise will be very faint and far less common.  Once we have time to read the full Draft EIS, it may become clearer whether there are some areas in the park that are virtually free of air tour noise (commercial airline flights regularly pass directly over the park; the plan does not suggesting shifting these routes).

The busiest year on record, 2005, saw 57,000 air tour flights provide birds-eye-views of the Canyon to over 400,000 visitors annually; the new plan would allow up to 65,000 flights annually, and up to 364 flights a day, 50 more than the busiest day on record.  Initial reactions from the National Parks Conservation Association and the Sierra Club, both of which have pushed for flight regulations, has been supportive.

Update, 2/4/11: Steve Bassett, president of the U.S. Air Tour Association, characterized the National Park Service’s recommendations for the Grand Canyon as “unconscionable” and the document as “designed to drive the industry out of existence.”  His objections are largely centered on the requirement that within ten years, all planes must be modern low-noise aircraft. He also objected to the annual cap of 65,000 flights, claiming that the annual number of “possible flights” is now 94,000 (presumably this totals all current operators, if they all flew the maximum number of flights possible per day; in fact, as noted above, the busiest year on record saw a demand for just 57,000 actual flights).

Update 2/6/11: Good article from Las Vegas newspaper, stressing the role of Grand Canyon tourism as part of what Vegas visitors want to experience, often by air.

Update 2/7/11: Good detailed post from National Parks Traveller, including longer response quotes from Park staff and conservationists.  One key piece: the plan continues the practice of allowing flights over the canyon near Hermit’s Rest, a popular spot for short hikes into the canyon:
“We had advocated that they move the Hermit flight path a little bit further to the west so that it really didn’t affect people who would take a quiet stroll down from Hermit’s Rest, down that little canyon,” said NPCA’s Mr. Nimkin. “That’s where you can sit there and every 90 seconds have a helicopter or a plane flying overhead. It would seem like that’s a pretty highly visited area, maybe one of the only times that people who are taking a shuttle out to the end of the road there would sort of stroll down into the canyon. To have that be the flight path seems inconsistent.”

See earlier AEInews coverage of Grand Canyon overflights here.

The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010, championed by John Kerry and the National Federation for the Blind, was signed in early January by President Obama. Spurred by concerns that new, near-silent vehicles may pose a danger to both the blind and those not paying attention visually, the law will eventually require all vehicles on the road to make some sound to help keep pedestrians safe. For now, the law calls on the Secretary of Transportation to “study and establish a motor vehicle safety standard that provides for a means of alerting blind and other pedestrians of motor vehicle operation.”

This year’s new entrants in the electic car sweepstakes already include features that help with this problem. The Nissan Leaf makes a sound to warn pedestrians when traveling at slow speeds (at higher speeds tire noise is sufficient), and the Chevy Volt includes a chirping sound that can be triggered by the driver (as a subtler alternative to the horn).

For a look at some sound design concepts for electric vehicles, see this AEINews post from about a year ago.

Repost of a column by park staff, printed in the Valley Courier, the local paper in nearby Alamosa, Colorado:

Have you ever heard the rustling sound of a bird’s wings flapping overhead…before you saw the bird? What about the sound of a rabbit chewing on a blade of grass? Most Americans don’t have the opportunity to hear those subtle sounds of nature at home, thanks to the backdrop of human-produced noises which drown them out.

Many people, however, say that the opportunity to hear natural sounds is an important reason to protect national parks, based on a 1998 study of the American public. And most respondents to a 1995 survey of national park visitors said that enjoying the sounds of nature and natural quiet were compelling reasons to visit national parks.

But-what exactly is ‘natural quiet’? Most of us would say that it’s the sounds of nature without an overlay of traffic, airplanes, machinery and other kinds of human-produced sounds. But anyone who has ever spent a windy night camping at the Dunes knows that windy nights might be ‘natural’…but they’re sure not ‘quiet’!

In order to learn just how quiet-or not–the natural world is at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, the National Park Service’s Natural Sounds Program installed a temporary acoustic monitoring station Read the rest of this entry »

Today in Toronto, an Ontario Superior Court will begin hearing a challenge to wind farm siting provisions of the province’s new Green Energy Act, which set a minimum distance from wind turbines to homes at 550 meters.

The Ottawa Citizen has a good, detailed article about the legal challenge, which you can read here.

UPDATE: Here’s a new Citizen story on the day’s proceedings.

What could be interesting about this case is that they are directly challenging the claimed comprehensiveness of key previous studies of the health effects of wind farms. These literature reviews, the court challenge claims, were incomplete, and failed to provide necessary medical evidence of the safety of the current setbacks. The litigants hope to submit expert testimony from two doctors whose own studies have led them to recommend much larger safety zones to protect citizens from sleep disruption, stress, and other health-related effects. Perhaps the most important witness Read the rest of this entry »

Check out the Renewable Energy World front page today, and you’ll find a commentary I submitted over the weekend featured there. If it fades off the front page, here’s the direct link.

Jump on over to Scientific American to read this great overview of the many different ways that animals are using to adapt to increasing human noise in their habitats. The author is an NYU science reporting student, and she promises a new sound blog soon on Scienceline….

Can you hear me now? Animals all over the world are finding interesting ways to get around the human din

After years of “collaborative” work with environmental groups, the Sakhalin Energy Investment Company continues to push aggressive development plans in an oil and gas field off the coast of Sakhalin Island, where the last 130 critically endangered Northern Pacific grey whales come to feed each summer and fall. This week, Sakhalin Energy announced plans to build a third oil platform in the area, even though it had previously decided two were enough, thanks to advances in drilling technology that allows one platform to serve several wells.

“We are astonished by the announcement from Sakhalin Energy that it intends to build a third platform,” said Wendy Elliott, Species Program Manager, WWF-International.  “The company’s own detailed assessments concluded previously that two platforms would be preferable, both for environmental reasons and for the efficiency of the operation.”

Previously, Sakhalin Energy has cooperated with WWF and International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which has organized a panel of scientists to make recommendations about how the oil development can minimize impacts on the whales.  BP and Exxon, by contrast, have proceeded with development activities without consulting the panel.

See previous AEI News coverage of Sakhalin oil and gas development.

Seven years after the Southern resident killer whale population in Puget Sound was declared endangered, US government regulators appear poised to finally enact new regulations to protect orcas from boat noise in key foraging areas. In 2009, NOAA proposed increasing the minimum buffer that boats must give orcas, from 100 yards to 200 yards, and creating a half-mile “no go” zone along the entire west side of San Juan Island, where orcas gather to feed.  After extending the comment period into early 2010, finally – a year later – NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service has formally completed its analysis process; now, the Department of Commerce and Office of Management and Budget must OK the plan before the new rules go into effect, hopefully before this summer’s whalewatching season.

Reducing boat noise is a key piece of the puzzle for orca health.  Several recent research projects have identified impacts of boat noise, including reducing foraging time and interfering with communication.  The primary direct cause of orca decline is malnutrition as salmon runs decline; for this reason, it’s crucial that orcas are not impeded by boat noise as they seek out the fewer salmon that remain.

Seattle’s Q13 Fox News has covered the story well in recent months, including a recent update, along with a three part series that ran in November 2010 (all four stories have video components).

On the Canadian side of the border, things are moving even more slowly.  In December, a Canadian court ruled that the Canadian government’s approach, which uses voluntary guidelines, is not sufficient in dealing with an endangered species.  But Canadian officials have appealed that ruling, and it appears that nothing will change for the foreseeable future.

“It’s another season where we’re allowing more stress to be put on these animals.  You have to start asking how much more they can take?  If you ask anyone, a politician anybody about the Orca they would say they’re wonderful and beautiful and magnificent.  Why is it we can’t turn that into action?” asks Christine Wilhelmson of the Georgia Strait Alliance.

Follow this link for all previous AEI News coverage of orca issues.

Note: See a longer article on I wrote Walker’s move, which was published on the Renewable Energy World website

When Scott Walker was inaugurated as Wisconsin’s new Governor earlier this month, he called a special session of the state legislature, dubbed the “Wisconsin in Open for Business” session.  All bills will be focused on improving the state’s business climate, something that is always a GOP priority, and which in these tough economic times, has widespread support.

But his regulatory reform bill has a wild card tucked inside: a new and stricter setback standard for industrial wind farms.  While the proposal is being attacked as a job-killer, it appears to AEI that the Governor has his pulse on one of the key ways that the wind industry might gain easier acceptance in the years to come.

In response to tough local rules that were seen as anti-wind, the Wisconsin legislature called for statewide standards that localities cannot exceed; after a couple years of meetings, the state’s PRC recently adopted a new statewide standard of 1250 feet from homes.  Governor Walker’s bill would increase setbacks statewide to 1800 feet from property lines.

While this would still not protect neighbors from hearing wind turbines, which are often quite audible at a half mile and can be heard to a mile or more in some situations (many suggest setbacks in these larger ranges), it is a substantial increase.  Wind industry spokesmen immediately slammed the change, claiming that it would basically preclude new wind farms in the state and kill jobs.  These critiques ignore a key provision of the Governor’s proposal: neighbors closer than 1800 feet can agree to let turbines go up, presumably in exchange for some compensation from the wind company.

It appears that Governor Walker understands that what will move the wind industry forward is regulations that may help local communities to feel more comfortable about the likely impacts of new wind farms, rather than standards designed primarily to ease the placement of new wind farms.  The combination of larger setbacks, and provisions for neighbors to sign waivers, is the right direction for growing this industry without sacrificing the quality of life of rural communities.

Here are three articles in the local press on the proposal: Simple announcement of the bill, and statement from Governor A fairly balanced article that includes comments from developers and those supporting the measure Longer, also balanced report, with quotes from AWEA, the Governor, and local supporters of the proposal

A few days ago, Brandon Southall did a presentation on research that took place last year off the southern California coast, in which scientists successfully placed D-Tags on more animals than any previous study, then played sounds into the water, in order to watch for responses, and determine what sound levels trigger behavioral changes.  The Smithsonian talk was streamed live online, and is now posted for viewing at our leisure.

It can be viewed at:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/11956611

(Via Brandon’s SEA-INC blog):
SOCAL-10 presentation at Smithsonian available online – SEA Blog: “”

A few months back, there was a bit of a news and comment flurry when the Shepherd’s Flat wind farm announced plans to pay neighbors $5000 for noise wavers, in order to build turbines closer to homes than Oregon’s unusually strict 36dB noise limit would allow. While the plan was dissed by many as an attempt to buy off neighbors, it seems to me that agreements like this are a valid way of addressing concerns about noise, especially in that they provide local authorities an avenue that may help them justify larger set-backs (or lower decibel limits) to protect residents who don’t want to hear turbines, while allowing developers to arrange exceptions with people who either don’t care about noise or feel that a payment is fair compensation.

But of course, noise waver or easement provisions don’t guarantee that the developer can build turbines closer to every resident.  Caithness Energy is dealing with this in Oregon now, as this unusually frank article details. The entire article is important reading for nearly anyone working on this issue, but here are a few highlights:

Richard and Joanne Goodhead were clear from the start that they were not willing to live with turbine noise of up to 50dB, as the waiver would allow, and told Caithness, the developer, they wanted to be bought out. “(The Caithness representative) said ‘We’re not in the real estate business,’ Goodhead said. ‘I said, fine — I’m not in the windmill business.’” After a month of negotiations, which included offers of $6000 per year for 20 years, and later, the revenue from one turbine, Caithness relented, and bought the Goodhead’s land and home.

Two other homes near the Shepherd’s Flat wind farm, which is still under construction, have been sold; one was bought by an attorney who works for Caithness, acting on behalf of another local landowner who is part of the wind project.

Invenergy’s Willow Creek wind farm, just south of Shepherd’s Flat, has also been struggling with noise issues, finding it difficult at times to meet the 36dB limit.  According to the Goodheads, the local antelope population has noticeably declined since it began operating.

Read more: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20101227/UPDATE/101227031/Wind-farm-splits-neighbors-who-take-cash-or-leave#ixzz19WgqwrR2

Been wondering what’s the latest on the Snowmobiles in Yellowstone front?  Then head on over to this good long article from New West, which sketches the history and explores the current tone in gateway communities.

The short story is that after spending the summer accepting public comments on the latest round of “permanent” winter use planning, the Park is operating this winter is operating under the same temporary plan as last year, which allows 318 snowmobiles per day.  Local businesses are adapting to the changing clientele, which includes more skiers and snow-coach tour riders, and far fewer snowmobilers.  My only quibble with the article’s narrative is that it downplays what appears to have been the key factor that has reduced snowmobile use: while the Bush administration overturned the Clinton-era ban which was about to go into effect, and set much higher daily limits (750 machines), a requirement was added that ALL snowmobilers must be part of guided tours.  The loss of free-wheeling exploration by groups of friends led to several winters in which the daily limits were rarely reached; there is plenty of gorgeous National Forest land in the region where snowmobilers can romp freely, so why putter along on group tours in the Park?