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Nature Report: Threatening Turbines
Credit: by Richard Moore, www.valleycentral.com 15 August 2011 ~~
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Translate: FROM English | TO English
If you were looking for the absolute worst place in the United States of America to install a massive wind turbine industrial complex, then just offshore from South Padre Island Texas would be the choice.
At least that is the opinion of many who fear the proposed construction of hundreds of huge turbines will kill birds and cause extensive damage to the marine environment.
Baryonyx, an Austin, Texas based corporation, has leased approximately 41,000 acres of state waters offshore from South Padre and are planning to erect some 500 mammoth wind turbines each approximately 500 feet tall.
According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service approximately 440,000 birds are killed by wind turbines each year, and just recently six golden eagles were killed in California at a poorly sited turbine complex.
Michael Montalvo of San Benito has been fishing the Lower Laguna Madre for years, and like many others he wants to see a thorough environmental assessment prior to any construction.
He said, “I think there needs to be some serious studies, independent studies, to go ahead and see the actual results…consequences of the effects of these wind turbines to see how detrimental the effects would be on our ecosystem out here.”
Recent radar studies of bird migration along the lower Texas coast reveals it to be perhaps the most important migratory corridor in the world, and many of these birds fly directly across the Gulf of Mexico from South Padre Island.
Dr. Bart Ballard, Avian Ecologist at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute said, “It is one of the key areas that ties northern breeding birds to their wintering grounds, and with our research we have found probably the highest passage rates in North America for sure, but some of the highest passage rates in the world of migratory birds down thru the coast here.”
This would be the nation’s first offshore wind turbine industrial complex, and if you want to voice your concerns, you need to have your comments mailed to the United States Corps of Engineers in Galveston by August 17th.
With your Nature Report I’m Richard Moore
Comments to the Army Corps of Engineers:
To: Jayson Hudson
Regulatory Branch, CESWG-PE-RE
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
P.O. Box 1229
Galveston, Texas 77553-1229
RE: Permit Application SWG 2011-00511-Barroynz Corporation
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