The 22-member Wind Turbine Guidelines Federal Advisory Committee announced on March 5 that it had reached consensus on a set of recommendations (Guidelines) for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to utilize to avoid or minimize the impacts of land-based wind development on wildlife and habitat, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

Submitted to the Secretary of the Interior, the recommended Guidelines describe a tiered approach for evaluating and reducing potential adverse effects of wind energy development. The first three of the five tiers guide developers to evaluate and avoid impacts, beginning at the landscape or ecosystem level and eventually to individual species impacts. The last two tiers establish procedures for post-construction monitoring and mitigation of impacts. The Guidelines also point toward best management practices for development. However, they will be voluntary, calling into question whether they will be universally adopted for future wind development.

The Guidelines document notes: "The Committee believes that the final product reflects a comprehensive and user-friendly risk assessment and decision?making tool that supports Department of the Interior (DOI) priorities with respect to renewable energy development, federal and state trust responsibilities, developer cost and confidentiality concerns, and the needs of federal or state listed wildlife and habitats, without creating new regulations. The Committee recommends that the Secretary direct USFWS to promptly adopt the recommended voluntary Guidelines developed by the Committee."

As wind energy development expanded dramatically in recent years, there has been increasing concern about its negative influences on wildlife and their habitats. In addition, the permitting and siting regulatory process for wind energy projects is highly variable among states, with few offering any framework for reducing potentially adverse environmental impacts. The Federal Advisory Committee was chartered in October 2007 with the intention of creating a cohesive document, with input from wildlife and habitat experts, as well as the wind industry, that would address these growing concerns proactively (see November 2007 ONB).

The Guidelines forwarded this month provide a consistent methodology for both pre- and post-construction analyses, with the intention of increasing predictability and reducing the risk of industry liability under federal wildlife laws. They are further intended to complement state and tribal efforts to address wind/wildlife interactions and provide a voluntary means to coordinate and standardize review of wind projects with the FWS. The Guidelines also include a detailed outline of best management practice for the construction, operational and decommissioning phases of development.

The tiered approach is designed to lead to an intensity of evaluation in appropriate proportion to the anticipated level of risk that the development may pose to wildlife and their habitats. The Committee envisions a feedback loop within each tier, which will advise developers whether a particular landscape or site is an acceptable location for wind energy production. Clearly making avoidance or abandonment of highly sensitive areas the first priority, the Guidelines also point towards impact minimization and compensatory mitigation options when and where negative impacts are anticipated. The process attempts to identify circumstances in which the potential for significant wildlife detriments should guide the developer to abandon the project or identify a different site.

A major facet of the recommendations is FWS' provision for an aggressive outreach and training process for its staff, industry, states, tribes, NGOs and other appropriate participants. The goal of the training is to develop partnerships to minimize adverse impacts to species of concern and their habitats, while allowing flexibility for wind energy development. In addition, the Committee encourages the FWS to improve its ability to evaluate the cumulative impacts on wildlife and habitats within ecological regions to help inform landscape and site-specific assessments. However, one of the greatest concerns about the Guidelines is that they are voluntary and nonregulatory, which could contribute to disparities between developers who commit to the process and those who choose not to follow the Guidelines. While encouraging incentives for adoption of the Guidelines and citing that documented adherence to the Guidelines could reduce legal burdens under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Endangered Species Act, and Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, there is no specific avenue to ensure that all developers will adopt them.

David Stout, Chief of the FWS Division of Habitat and Resource Conservation and Chair of the Federal Advisory Committee downplays this concern: "I believe that the [wind] companies have a good environmental ethic and want to do things right, and now they have a fair and consistent playing field to work from that will encourage them to comply."

Another concern is the application of the Guidelines to the projects currently underway or moving through developers' planning processes. It is likely that the Guidelines will not be finalized until late summer 2010, and the document provides a two-year phase-in before becoming effective, suggesting that online projects adhere only to the portions of the Guidelines that are relevant to their phase of development. Yet, nearly 10,000 megawatts of wind-generating capacity came online in 2009 and the five-year annual growth rate for the industry is 39 percent. In addition, the DOI has made renewable energy development a priority and is fast-tracking wind projects on public lands, with the intention of having them under development by the end of 2010.

The impact of the Committee's work on the future of wind power siting remains to be seen. Integration within the patchwork of local, state and federal permitting processes, lacking in most jurisdictions, could hinder the Guidelines' effectiveness. However, the FWS will be working closely with its partner federal land management agencies, as well as with states, to dovetail the new Guidelines with any existing protocols. Both industry representatives and conservationists invested substantial time and effort in the collaborative process with which the Guidelines were developed. Coupled with the FWS's emphasis on training to implement the Guidelines, the effort may be the best current option for creating a wind power siting process that will ultimately reduce negative impacts to wildlife and their habitats. (jas)