The
Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club consists of over 25,000 members.
The Chapter spans the entire state of Texas, excepting El Paso, which
is part of the Rio Grande Chapter.
Located in Austin, the Lone Star Chapter's State Conservation Office
serves Sierrans as their grassroots communications center. We also provide
Sierrans with a full time professional activist staff employed to represent
Sierrans as we fight at the state level to protect and conserve Texas'
diverse and valuable natural heritage.
GLO Accepting Public Comment on Wind Power Research Plan
The Texas General Land Office (GLO)
is accepting public comment through August 17 on a Research
Plan submitted recently by Superior Renewable Energy
(SRE), the second wind energy company to lease lands
offshore from Texas.
For information about the plan, go to the GLO website – www.glo.state.tx.us.
Send comments to:
Michelle Warren,
Texas General Land Office,
P. O. Box 12873,
Austin,
TX 78711-2873,
or e-mail to
michelle.warren@glo.state.tx.us.
The company’s plans to build a 100-500
turbine wind farm on an almost 40,000-acre block
two to eight miles out from Padre Island National
Seashore present difficult questions to the conservation
community.
Last fall when GLO announced its first
offshore wind lease – to Galveston Offshore
Wind – several groups joined together as
the Texas Offshore Wind Coalition to address such
questions.
While supporting the development of
clean, renewable energy, the Coalition is monitoring
the offshore wind projects to assure the conservation
of the vast populations of diverse species of migratory
and other ocean-going birds that have inhabited
the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico for over
100,000 years.
Concerns about Coastal and Migratory Birds
Individual ornithologists in the Coalition who
are daily involved in the science of observing
and documenting Texas coastal and migratory birds
question whether any location offshore of Texas
is an appropriate site for wind turbines.
They
are concerned about the cumulative effect of hundreds
of turbines offshore.
Turbines placed in the Gulf
will attract fish, which in turn will attract pelicans
and other ocean-going birds such as gannets, boobies,
and frigates.
At the very least, Texas bird scientists
in the Coalition discourage the Public Utility
Commission from designating a Competitive Renewable
Energy Zone offshore of Texas.
GLO’s Perspective
This view contrasts with GLO’s intention
to encourage wind energy development up and down
the Texas coast.
In an article in the Lafayette Independent, GLO’s Jim Suydam stated, “We’re
already making money off this [for the Permanent School Fund]. We’ve
got 367 miles of coast, 10 miles out. We would
hope to lease a good portion of that to wind energy
development because it makes sense.”
One option that may make sense for the Texas Offshore
Wind Coalition would be to designate “appropriate”, “more appropriate”, “less appropriate”, or “not appropriate” areas
on the Texas Coast for siting wind farms based
on conservation criteria.
To better determine how the Texas coast
measures against that criteria, the ornithology
community would like to see additional bird research
using newer radar technologies capable of “seeing” the
areas where the turbines might be located.
Nexrad,
the U.S. Weather Service Doppler radar which has
supplied data for much of our understanding of
where birds fly in the Northern Gulf of Mexico,
is located onshore and “looks” higher
above and further beyond the range of where turbines
would be located. It is inadequate to base siting
on that information alone.
To its credit GLO has met twice with representatives of the Coalition and has been open to input. For example, the second GLO lease requires an avian specialist with five years experience and set a four-year research and analysis phase.
GLO has also made the Superior Research Plan available
to the Coalition, has agreed to review public comments,
and has supported Superior’s plan to meet with
stakeholders in September.
GLO Energy Resources
has also researched an emergeant technology which
can be used to monitor bird activity during turbine
operation and trigger a switch-off of the turbines
when a migratory flock is approaching.
Superior’s
Research Plan
Superior appears to have responded to input from
the Coalition in its Research Plan. They have contracted
with noted ornithologist Sidney Gauthreaux who
has conducted bird research in the northern Gulf
of Mexico; they have outlined a two-year research
period, including four migratory seasons of bird
research; and they have located new radar technologies
to mount on the meteorological towers during the
research phase.
Superior can adjust the Research Plan by specifying
that bird research will be conducted year-round.
To be complete, the research must also take into
consideration the large numbers of sea birds that
inhabit the coastal area in between migration seasons.
The Research Plan should also state that Superior
will conduct monitoring and documentation of bird
activity during any post-construction Operation
Phase.
Taking the Long View
The ornithologists participating in the Texas
Offshore Wind Coalition fully recognize that converting
to renewable energy is one of the critical steps
to reversing the impacts of global warming. They
understand that global warming which is caused
in large part by emissions from old technology
coal plants will have serious effects on bird populations.
At the same time, they insist that we make the
conversion to wind energy in a thoroughly careful
way and they are showing up at the table to make
sure that doesn’t happen to the detriment
of thousands of years of natural tradition.
