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.
Hey, let’s put up wind farms in all the National Parks, start with Yellowstone. Wow, that should be really nice. Turn Old Faithful into a GeoThermo power station. Go Green!!
The density of wind turbine installations is on the order of 25 acres per unit. Oil wells take up a lot less space. As for hitting a sweet spot in a field, slant drilling af very slight angles will hit whatever they want. The problem as stated by the Indians is bogus.
A related problem: picking up dead carcasses may prevent birds from following instinctual behaviors to avoid places with dead birds visible.
Jakehig said @ur momisugly February 2, 2012 at 3:11 am
Here in Tasmania we have a windfarm that’s killing bats & Tasmanian wedgetail eagles. The wedgetail eagle population is at most 200 breeding pairs and based on death-rate versus breeding rate, when all the planned windfarms are built, our wedgies are doomed to extinction.
The ecologist at the windfarm collects all dead birds so that the turbines do not attract raptors. The population of sea eagles is much larger than wedgies, but relatively few of them are killed; it’s mainly wedgies and bats.
I saw a video of a European migratory raptor flying around a turbine for several minutes before being struck. It was clearly intrigued by the rotor. I suspect that wedgies are more curious than sea eagles. Those referring to radio masts versus turbines need to observe bird behaviour before opining on their effects.
It’s worth noting that the wedgies’ diet includes up to 40% feral cats and the latter are responsible for killing large numbers of our smaller birds, some of which are definitely threatened species.
It’s intriguing to hear the greenies excuses: “studies in Britain show blah, blah, blah…” Of course the number of Tasmanian wedgetail eagles killed in Britain is zero! “There are more than 10,000 wedgetail eagles in South Eastern Australia”. The Tasmanian wedgetail is a distinct sub-species and considerably larger than the mainland group. “The windfarm operators are exaggerating the number of birds and bats killed”. WTF? That’s the exact opposite of what greenies claim other energy generators do.
No online reference available from The Mercury nor Tasmanian Country where numbers and dates for wedgetails & sea eagles, as well as reproduction rates were reported. Andrew Darby wrote a piece with some of the numbers for the SMH.
Dale R. McIntyre said @ur momisugly February 2, 2012 at 10:43 am
That’s a pity. I had this image in what passes for my mind of you “storming or raging with violent gestures; acting in a furious or threatening manner.” Actually, back in the 16th & 17thC you could have used the word rample as a synonym for ramble.
Everyone here that is for Windfarms, ask for them in your backyard. Step up and be green! The baldes are longer than a semi trailer, they manufacture special trailers to haul them around.
Hell its classed as green development, therefore funded by the taxpayer, err? question why do we let them do it? If this was a gas well the loco greenies would have a protest camp on the site and TV crews would be there giving the pitch. Every gov’t tax dollar spent is 50% borrowed so add the interest to any such financial dealings. 2 ways to enslave a people, one is via the gun, the other via debt.
Ever notice the double standard for Green Projects, it’s okay that some birds are killed. It’s better for all the other birds that survive, a better life and CO2 free. It’s okay that the small cave cricket will be flooded out by a new hydro electric project here, we want it. But if the free market wants it, on NO! The snail darter will be wipped off the face of the planet. Let’s all stand up and fight for plants rights for more CO2!!!
jorgekafkazar said @ur momisugly February 2, 2012 at 11:22 am
Instinctual behaviour of raptors, ravens and crows seems to be to eat dead birds rather than avoid them; but that’s in Tasmania.
Having seen the headline a few weeks back “Spanish wind farms kill 6 to 18 million birds & bats a year – The average bird and bat deaths per turbine comes down to 333 – 1,000 deaths annually” I did a bit of digging – it was a completely bogus, puffed up claim by an environmentalist. Read the rest here: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/bs-detector-wind-farm-bird-kills-in-spain/
Most of the studies had very low actual recorded deaths but used well accepted correction methods for things like as low detection rate and high ‘disappearance’ of carcases due to predation. e.g. http://www.inbo.be/files/bibliotheek/56/170556.pdf – actual deaths recorded were about a quarter of the ‘corrected’ figure.
@jorge – good point about the effect of picking up the carcases. I do wonder if anyone is looking at the beneficial effects on predators (not that this is a reason to see wind farms as in a beneficial light). Apparently bats are killed by the vortex not just contact with the blade: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/bs-detector-wind-farm-bird-kills-in-spain/#comment-1765
Steven Hill said @ur momisugly February 2, 2012 at 11:32 am
The Git used to be in favour of them thirty years ago. Here in Tasmania we have hydro-electricity and wind made sense based on when the wind blows it ain’t raining and vice versa. Unfortunately, the efficiency of them was greatly exaggerated & the effect on wildlife minimised.
After ethanol, wind power is the most annoying of the “green industries” to me. Strip away the subsidies and mandated use and see how well these crony capitalists fare in the free market. This whole meme that “they don’t kill many birds or bats” is utter nonsense. A very good friend of mine lives in Amarillo. When I lived in Amarillo 17 years ago I never saw any commercial wind farms. Now they’re all over the place. My friend is friends with one of the ranchers who has wind turbines on his property. He still runs cattle on this property but now gets paid very lucrative lease payments. He took my friend on a little tour of the wind turbines on 4-wheelers. My friend told me the avian carnage around the turbines was unbelievable. The rancher explained that the coyotes and other scavengers will have it all cleared out by morning. You can search the internet and find similar stories (with images) about the wind farms in California. The wind industry and the US government (politicians) doesn’t want this information to be known to the general public.
Now, I think the bird and bat slaughter is probably the least of the reasons to hate wind power. But we’re lied to about almost every other aspect of ethanol, wind and solar power. I think it was someone commenting on this site a couple years ago who really made the light bulb go on in my brain. It was a simple and succinct comment. I’m sure I’m paraphrasing but it was essentially a “follow the money” statement. “Anything that causes the price of electricity to increase causes more money to be spent for the same incremental unit of electricity. That money ends up in somebody’s pocket.” That’s what wind power is all about. The “sustainability”, “renewable” and AGW excuses are pure hooey – it’s ALL about making certain groups very wealthy at the expense of the consumer and taxpayer.
But people LIKE birds. So I encourage all those who have not already done so to take a look at the “Erickson paper”. You don’t have to plod through the pages and pages of opinion. Just zip down to the end and look over Table 2. Look at the footnotes to the table and see how they estimated total avian mortality. Be sure to note how they “estimated” avian deaths due to wind turbines, cats, buildings and power lines. Then convince me the authors didn’t an agenda and were on a “mission”.
Hey, I have an idea….wind farms all up and down the grand canyon edge. Also, add 100 hydro electric damns back to back on the river!
Sorry…I should have included the link again.
http://studentaffairs.case.edu/farm/doc/birdmortality.pdf
Once again: Other peoples mistakes should not be repeated: Spain got broke because of windmills, each job created by them produced two job loses. Now unemployment among young people is about 50% there. Do you want to repeat the experience?
Tom says:
February 2, 2012 at 2:15 am
The Lekuona and Ursua study that Tom cites is paywalled, but I did find two scholarly references to it. Here’s one:
“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 and Ursua (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 lower reproductive rates and long life spans which are unable to replace an accumulative loss of individuals.” That’s from Jose Luis Telleria, Bird Study (2009), 56, 268-271.
Here’s the other:
“High raptor mortality rates—both in terms of absolute numbers and as a proportion of total bird mortality—have also been found at Smola, Norway (Box 3.3), Tarifa in southern Spain (SEO/BirdLife 1995, Marti and Barrios 1995, Janss 2000), and Navarra in northern Spain. In Navarra, 227 dead Eurasian Griffons were found among 13 wind farms in 20002002 (Lekuona and Ursua 2007). This represents an unsustainably high mortality rate for a long-lived, slowly reproducing species with a total breeding population of about 2,000 pairs in Navarra and 20,000 pairs in all of Europe (EEA 2009).” That’s from Page 15 of Greening the Wind, a 2011 report by the World Bank. Both works are on-line and easily Googled.
I’ve seen Griffon vultures in the wild. They’re amazing birds – the European equivalent of the condor.
69.Tom said (February 2, 2012 at 10:14 am)
“…@Everyone who asked me to cite references – Erm… care to read again?…”
I didn’t ask you CITE the references, I asked you to READ them again.
See how they list that 0.6 as deaths per KW?
Comment on THAT.
As I write, it is 8:30pm on 2nd February, I’m on the south coast of England, reckoned to be possessed of a very mild climate compared with the rest of England.
It is minus 2C outside right now, and according to the figures given at
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
the electrical power being generated at present is as follows:-
Coal 22801MW, 43.7% of supply
CCGT 18600 MW, 35.7% of supply
Nuclear 7945 MW, 15.2% of supply
Wind 681 MW, 1.3% of supply.
We across the pond have lots of turbines blighting our land and sea-scapes; we consumers are all having to pay large excesses on our power bills to pay for these rotating follies which contribute so little but which cost so much in every way.
Tom: Sadly, you are pushing the worst sort of disinformation.
The American Bird Conservancy in a recent post, published “Wind Power could Kill Millions of Birds Per Year by 2030”, http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/110202.html
Paul Driessen wrote an essay, Charles Manson Energy”, http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=87b74a936c723115dfa298cf3&id=faf3e2d35c&e=27eec9f7a2
And then there is “Kill a 1000 Eagles–Get a Handout from the Government”: http://www.Real-Science.com/kill-1000-eagles-handout-government
The undeniable fact is that several Federal agencies are derelict for refusing to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty, Endangered Species and Golden and Bald Eagle Protection Acts against wind farm developers and operators. I am outraged. Why aren’t you?
I am curious, do any of the readers of this blog think there are any renewable energy technologies worth subsidizing?
Dr. Dave said @ur momisugly February 2, 2012 at 12:08 pm
Farmers like birds, too. They eat insect pests: army worms, grasshoppers, grass-grubs (cockchafers), and rodents: rabbits, mice, rats… Fifty years ago farmers in Tasmania were persuaded to kill cockchafers with DDT. The magpie population plummeted and the loss of pasture to cockchafers increased since their major predator was so heavily reduced. The magpie population is still recovering; very slowly.
PVE said @ur momisugly February 2, 2012 at 12:50 pm
What’s wrong with a free market?
PVE
No, the last time I looked we are 15 trillion in the hole. We have the most natural gas on the planet, let’s use it. If energy technologies look promising, the free market will make it work.
The next Greece is going to be us if we don’t stop spending money on rat holes……
thepompousgit says:
What’s wrong with a free market?
Nothing, I wish it were.
How is it explained the preference by politicians world wide for windmills? Any brilliant ideas?
Well, in Greek, that preference was called chrematophilia, translated in simple colloquial expression: the love to being “oiled”.
I may be whacked but if there really was something to this windmill stuff, wouldn’t they be using the Government subsidized construction on marginal sites with the weak business case and save the better sites with the strong business case for investor paid construction when the subsidies were discontinued? That’s not what I’m seeing happening, the construction is going into the best sites and they still need subsidies to make it economical.