A wind farm is to be built near a nature preserve despite Osage Indian protests
Guest post by Dale R. McIntyre
A big-city corporation rams through industrial development on a pristine landscape against the wishes of the local Native Americans, who fear their burial grounds and traditional use of the land will be impaired. Sound familiar?
There are twists, however, and irony enough to make it a “three-pipe problem”.
The corporation is Wind Capital Group LLC, of St. Louis, building a wind farm west of Pawhuska, Oklahoma.
The Native Americans are the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, and the traditional land use they see threatened is oil and gas drilling.
On Thursday, Dec. 15th, 2011, Wind Capital Group won a ruling from US district judge Gregory Frizzel that the wind farm could proceed despite the protests of the Osages.
Wind Capital wants to rush construction of the wind farm to qualify for a 2.2 cent/kW-hr federal tax subsidy, loss of which would “jeopardize the very existence of the wind facility.” (Tulsa World, Dec. 16th, 2011, p. 1)
Osage Nation Principal Chief John Red Eagle has stated that”…the target area for wind development would intrude upon sacred Osage burial sites, posing a major threat to the tribe’s culture.”(Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Dec. 16th, 2011,, p.1)
The eastern edge of the proposed wind farm site is about 3 miles from the boundary of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, home to 2500 bison on one of the last remnants of pristine tallgrass prairie left on the continent. To the east, Bluestem Lake hosts Canadian geese, pelicans, red-tailed hawks and peregrine falcons. Bald eagles winter over at Kaw Lake to the west.
I own land, fish, hunt and[ ramble] in the area so I know it as a majestic rolling grassland. In spring the Indian Paint Brushes, the red clover, bluebonnets and a dozen varieties of sunflower paint the landscape in a riot of color bold enough to delight Chagall. Deer and puma, wild turkey and coyotes play deadly games of hide and seek in the thick groves of cottonwood, cedar and blackjack oak along the creek beds.
The sight and sound of large wind turbines grates the nerves in such a place, as does their grisly record of killing birds. But the Osage Nation has another very pragmatic objection; they fear the wind farm will interfere with their oil and gas drilling.
In 1906, the Osage Nation took control of all mineral rights in the 1.5 million acre Osage Indian Reservation, now Oklahoma’s Osage County. Since then, surface rights pass by sale from owner to owner, but the mineral rights stay with the Osage tribe.
Thus for over 100 years, oil and gas have been critical to the economy of Osage County. The royalties are shared out among tribal members every year, and make a welcome addition to hardscrabble incomes from ranching and farming. “Big Oil” has no presence in Osage County. Small local companies produce the wells and many very welcome local jobs. Osage County wells are small “stripper wells”, pumped by nodding “pump jacks”. They typically make 2 to 10 barrels of crude per day.
(Larger firms may join in future as more complicated horizontal wells are drilled to exploit the “shale gas revolution.”)
Chief Red Eagle insisted in court that the wind farm would impair this vital tribal revenue stream by intefering with access to key drilling sites.
Wind Capital Croup brought experts to court who testified that the inconvenience to oil and gas drillers would be small. The judge agreed.
Wind Capital Group spokesmen say they are eager to work with the Osage Nation. They point out that the wind farm will create jobs (Construction will require 150-200 workers, but the construction contractor, RMT Inc., is from out of state. Permanent jobs are estimated as “12-15”. The believe property taxes on the wind farm will be a windfall to the tiny nearby rural school district of Shidler.
Tales with devilish villains and saintly heroes are for movies. Wind Capital Group is playing by the rules, and building on private land, whose owners have the right to exploit their property for lawful gain. The Osage Nation is not a collection of beggarly blanket Indians. They are well-represented, well-connected politically, with a shrewd sense of their rights and a determination to assert them. On January 24th, 2012, Chief Red Eagle announced a formal appeal of Judge Frizzell’s ruling (Lucinda Bray, Pawhuska Journal-Capital, Jan 25th, 2012)
As for those burial grounds, well, they are not so sensitive that oil and gas drilling disturbs them.
But all who dream of low-carbon energy should recognize that wind farms will intrude on huge areas considering the small amount of intermittent power they produce. The areas thus intruded upon are not sterile desert or blighted brownfield urban sites. The Osage County Wind Project is cheek-by-jowl with one of the most idyllic nature preserves in mid-continental America. Another wind farm, near Woodward, Oklahoma, is a prime suspect in the disappearance of the bats from neary Alabaster Caverns.
Since these wind farms do not proceed at all in the absence of whacking great federal subsidies, wind farm projects seem to be creating a new special interest group, with its own lobbyists, its own pet legislators, and its own corporate sponsors determined to preserve a very high rate of return on capital.
Call it “Big Wind”.
Meanwhile, the bison in the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve will just have to learn to graze, fight, breed and give birth to the high-pitched whine and stroboscopic “swish” of the turbines.
As for the birds, the geese, the pelicans, the eagles and those graceful, soaring hawks making their “lazy circles in the sky”, well, they’ll just have to watch where they’re going. Inattention will get them chopped into coyote sashimi by the turbine blades.
So to sum up: If a wind farm destroys the natural landscape, that is okay. But if an oil derrick does so, it is a mortal sin to the earth.
The hypocrisy by Big Environment is sickening.
The solution is to get the Congress, via the Oklahoma congressional delegation, to repeal the wind-power subsidy. Unfortunately, the Democrat-controlled Senate would probably stymie that effort, but after the November elections, there’s a good chance we’ll have a Republican Senate. Make sure your candidates pledge to get the federal government out of subsidizing, and thereby distorting, the energy marketplace.
/Mr Lynn
Tom,
Given the fact that wind turbines are completely unnecessary, then so are the bird deaths, as well as all of the other wasteful and annoying aspects. You can’t say the same for radio towers, buildings, etc. Here are the stats for the 86 turbine facility at Wolfe Island in Ontario (data from engineering report):
Details on Fatalities:
703 birds were killed in this 2H2010 period, compared to 602 in 2H2009. For the year 2010 an estimated total of 1,207 birds were killed, a rate of 6.28 birds/MW. For the entire 2010 a total of 21 raptors were killed, a rate of 0.096, which is above the threshold.
1,878 bats were killed in this 2H2010 period. This compares to 1,270 killed during 2H2009. For the year 2010 an estimated total of 2,327 bats were killed, an annual rate of 11.75 bats/MW.
Furthermore, the bird mortality studies were conducted on low-wind days (i.e. the chopper blades were moving quite slowly). One critique indicated there was a 1% chance that the sample periods could have been randomly selected to coincide with such wind conidtions. I would also add that once the local populations are wiped out, mortality will certainly decline, becuase there wll be nothing left to kill.
John Marshall says:
February 2, 2012 at 2:13 am
“Desperate for the subsidies they ride rough shod over all.”
_________________
That about sums it up, that and cries of: “Oh, but jobs and money for the school district.”
It’s a money thing.
Mr.McIntyre has fairly summed up the pros and cons of the coming wind farms and I thank him for it.
I was born and raised in the Osage tall grass and it was home to my ancestors since my Great- Greats arrived by covered wagon in the 1800s. I return every chance I get.
While the prairie is no longer pristine- there remains scarcely a view without phone towers or remnant oil- field leases- there is very little opportunity for jobs, etc. and the residents of the dying towns are eager for any injection of cash that may come along.
I’ve stayed out of the fight, since I’m no longer a resident, having left the night I graduated from high school, but to my remaining friends and family who could not leave the beauty of the place, I only say: be careful what you wish for.
Oh, and be sure to try for some guarantee of removal when it comes time to de- commission those machines… you’ll need it.
“Osage Nation has another very pragmatic objection; they fear the wind farm will interfere with their oil and gas drilling.”
HEH! I LOVE it! Of course, most people in the climate/green industries don’t care about other people’s jobs, particularly those in the oil and gas industries, just as long as they get their large slice of the climate ca$h pie.
2.Tom said: (February 2, 2012 at 2:15 am)
“Can we *please* drop the “grisly record of killing birds” line? Any actual research that’s been done has found that a wind turbine could kill as much as… er… 0.6 birds per year. And that’s the upper limit – the average is more like 0.2…”
Better re-read your sources. That “0.6” figure you throw out is the birds per MW per year.
So if Spain, for example, was scheduled to bring bird-shredders on line capable of producing 20,155 MW per year (according to their five-year Spanish Plan for Renewable Energies), that paltry 0.6 becomes 12,093 birds per year.
And it’s not just the blades, either – it’s the whole package.
From here: http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/birds-bats-edkins2008.pdf
“…Direct mortality at wind farms results from birds striking rotors, towers, nacelles, guy cables, power lines, and meteorological masts. There is also evidence of birds being forced to the ground by turbulence created by the moving rotor…”
“pologies for being an ignorant Englishman but what’s a “Rample”? “I own land, fish, hunt and rample in the area so“
In post above, I should have said, “It’s an ‘other people’s money’ thing.”
FYI: The largest producing oil field in Osage county (Burbank Field) was at one time the world’s third largest producing field, now having been heavily depleted. The people of the Osage Nation were at one time the world’s wealthiest per capita, since they were shrewd enough to maintain mineral rights in perpetuity. The Osages obviously have an interest in whether oil/gas production is curtailed by the wind farms.
Then it is the right time for the noble knight Anthony the Quixote to take his spear and make tumble down all those towers of infamy, to kill all those big monsters borned from greed and deceit. Make them be “Gone with the wind”!
Sancho! Dogs bark, that´s a signal we are advancing!
DirkH says:
February 2, 2012 at 2:51 am
“I found Lekuona and Ursa 2007.
http://www.ucm.es/info/zoo/bcv/pdf/2009_BirdStudy_56_268.pdf
”
It’s really not my day. That paper is not Lekuona and Ursa 2007; it only quotes them:
“No data are
available on the total number of vultures killed each
year by wind power plants in Spain, but the numbers
may be high since these raptors patrol across mountain
ridges and highlands usually selected by wind
power industry. Lekuona (2001) estimated at least
eight Griffon Vultures killed per turbine per year in
the area occupied by the Salajones wind plant
(Navarre, northern Spain) and Lekuona & Ursúa
(2007) reported that Griffon Vultures were the main
species found dead at the wind plants of Navarre,
representing 63.1% of all bird fatalities. These losses
may be particularly damaging to vultures and other
animals with low reproductive rates and long life
spans which are unable to replace an accumulative
loss of individuals.”
I don’t know, Tom, this does sound pretty, uhm, alarming; at least for Griffon Vultures; I can see them congregating in the sky, forming a kind of Vulture Panel on Climate Change, pondering the mysterious correlation between Global Warming and the plague of the giant Helter Skelters… for them, depending on thermal updraft, warming would be the good part… if only it didn’t lead to the Scourge Of The Birdwackers…
Interesting citations on those articles. 2009_BIRDSTUDY_56, etc. universidad complutense de madrid and British Ornithology Trust. I wonder where the funding comes from? 2009-2010 saw a big push in Spain for wind turbines, and this study is on only one species of birds, the Griffon Vulture, which has only 20,000 breeding pairs in Spain. This is a normal range for large raptors which subsist on carrion and very small prey, if it were birds of prey, such as Eagles, the numbers would be even lower. I would find a study more helpful if it were about the impact on all species, rather than one species.
However, my main objection to windpower is design vs. use, i.e. wind turbines when first visualized, were conceived as backup power charging banks of batteries and capacitors.
If your main power was off line for maintenance, for example, you would draw on the batteries until the main generator(s) came back on line. In that regard they work perfectly. They were designed for individual operation: one, operating alone, providing power to a single source, which would provide it’s own maintenance on site: i.e., a radio station transmitter, a factory, a hospital. You will note that most of these places do not have a wind turbine, as reliability was always an issue, but rather has diesel, propane, gasoline or natural gas power generators.
My parents and the guy on the next ranch over both put up windmills in about 1980 in Osage county. The other guy’s lasted until it was introduced to a tornado in about ’89. My parents’ conked out on its’ own just a few years later in spite of the fact that the literature touted the brand’s durability and had a photo of a mill, still whirling away, somewhere in the former Dust Bowl after 50 or so years. They never bothered to fix it because of the expense.
I’ve got nothing against them but they sure aren’t the panacea that the greenies are claiming and those huge windfarms are blight. Federal dollars for them, don’t get me started.
A few years back while hiking in wilderness old growth, I watched an owl fly through thick canopy in its persuit of a smaller bird. The ability of both birds to miss and thread through the trunk, branch and leaf tangle was amazing. And bat sonar is unbelievably accurate down to a gnat. We have large picture windows at our ranch house. Day birds hit those windows on at least a monthly basis. Bats never do. The bird thing is a non-issue for me.
The things I don’t like about wind turbines are this: The foot print is HUGE relative to the juice they produce, and they are…fugly. Dams are fugly too and their foot print is equally large, but they produce lots and lots of continuous juice and do a pretty damned good job of controlling flood waters and providing irrigation water.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-01-03/wind-farm-a-black-hole-for-endangered-eagles/1001600
There are less than 1,500 Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles left.
An Australian bird expert has labelled the country’s biggest wind farm a “black hole” for endangered wedge-tailed eagles.
The Woolnorth farm in north-west Tasmania has 62 wind turbines and is one of the largest wind
farms in the Southern Hemisphere, but the group Birds Tasmania says the farm could already have killed 18 endangered eagles.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-08-20/concerns-over-wedge-tailed-eagle-numbers/483022
There are growing concerns the nesting sites of Tasmania’s endangered wedged-tailed eagle are no longer being monitored.
Wildlfe carers say there has been a marked increase in the number of injured eagles over the last two years.
A three-year old male wedge-tailed eagle was released back into the wild yesterday after being restored to health.
Wildlife carers say the logging of the eagle’s old-growth forest habitat has resulted in a decline in populations.
Wildlife carer, Vicki Silcock, says Forestry Tasmania’s 10-hectare buffer zone around eagle nesting sites is not enough.
“The whole forest should be a buffer zone for the eagle, the eagle doesn’t know that it has a buffer zone,” she said.
Forestry Tasmania is defending its measures to protect the endangered wedge-tailed eagle.
Pamela-I hear Cricket Flat is next to be covered in NE Oregon, Re; Dams Governor
Hayduke of Oregon is woking to get the Snake undammed-then it’s lights out and no
flood control if that happens not to mention the tons of silt relased…
“Split Atoms not birds.”
Who needs efficient energy when you can borrow $1.6 trillion a year?
Neil Jones says:
February 2, 2012 at 5:39 am
“pologies for being an ignorant Englishman but what’s a “Rample”? “I own land, fish, hunt and rample in the area so“
==============================================
lol, Neil, I live only an hour away from there. I fish and hunt. I’m part Osage. I have no idea what “rample” is………..ramble + trample?
Wind turbines receive big subsidies because wind turbines are symbols of the enviornmental left. Because they are symbolic, they want as many of these things built as they can, and built in rural locations which tend to lean to the right. Its the left saying “In your face” to those evil righty’s. And once they are up, you can’t get them down for decades.
Wind turbines don’t deliver much power, but they give the lefty’s a warm and fuzzy feeling when they see them on a far hillside spinning away. Thats about all they deliver.
Wind Capital (C)roup brought experts to court who testified that the inconvenience to oil and gas drillers would be small. The judge agreed.
We have a minor whooping cough, similar to Croup, in our area.
People are usually the first to be sacrificed in the name of vested interests.
Bob wrote:
“The same thing has already happened in Kansas, with the Elk River wind farm. Southeast Kansas has some truly beautiful scenery but the big wind farm pollutes it for miles and miles. ”
I know the family that owns the ranch that wind farm is on. That project took over 20 years to get into place and was the idea of the landowner long before subsidies. He carefully kept logs of the wind for decades to make sure the project would stand on its own. That ranch is in phenomenal shape as well compared to the bigger ones around it owned by absentee owners who get there money from non-ranching activities. There are 500 year old walnut trees in the canyons. And thousands of prairie chickens. Deer and turkey. But first and foremost, the family are realists and are very sharp businesspeople.
I am always amused by people who enjoy the “beautiful landscape” but do not know the horrors that lie in the balance sheets of most ranches or the backbreaking despair of a long drought or the misery of constant rains. You get to enjoy the beauty but contribute NOTHING to making ranching work. Then one day show up to tell us how to run our place or try to stop us from doing what we have to do to pass the land on to the next generation.
I am a critic of wind power. But there are a lot of projects that make sense and each must be examined on its own merits. Elk River, and based on what I know about the wind in the pawhuska area, make sense.
I think if you dig deeper, you will find a Big Green group behind this article. You do not have to dig far.
Tom says:
February 2, 2012 at 2:15 am
If you have a slavish objection to windmills and are looking for any objection – sorry for interrupting, go right ahead.
I do have a “slavish” objection to windmills. I donot want to pay twice for the same electricity. Every wind farm must be backed up by a power plant to supply electricity for when wind = zero.
The foot prints are large the output is small and you need a backup. So whats not to love.
As wind turbines are built in the windiest places, they are often in valleys and passes which funnel the air. These also tend to be migratory routes, so the bird kill rate is seasonal. Some wind farms are now being shut down during certain times of year.
How anyone can think that such a low tech, 18th century, energy source that would have so many negative impacts, as well as being just a lousy energy source, would be worth spending billions on is beyond me. It is a boon for the builders as millions are funneled to them and to the owners as they rake in taxpayer subsidies. The taxpayer and the customers get hurt.
Wind energy is the least green of all energy sources. Topping the list of negatives is the fact that the electricity from these disparate energy sources can only be sent about 50 miles. It is simply not the case that Europe could rely on wind power by assuming that the wind is blowing somewhere in Europe at any given time. The energy cannot be distributed that far to make it work. The same is true for photovoltaic.
Solar heat electricity is a higher power energy source and can be sent further, but it tends to be built in deserts with lots of sunlight and requires lots of water which deserts do not have. So, they have to take water from local regions who already have water usage problems and cannot spare water for an energy source that is a fair weather source and only during the day. They can store energy for the night, but again there are huge losses as they are not built near the usage sites, as nuclear and coal power can be.
I live in California… I’ll trade them our high-speed rail for their wind farm.
Pamela Gray says:
The ability of both birds to miss and thread through the trunk, branch and leaf tangle was amazing. And bat sonar is unbelievably accurate down to a gnat.
The wind turbine blades are moving and the turbulence behind them is awful.
Even wind turbines operating in the wakes of other wind turbines suffer ‘premature death’
http://www.ecn.nl/docs/library/report/2009/e09016.pdf