Number: 2004-11
WHEREAS, electricity generated from zero emission wind turbines is a clean source of energy that may help to meet the nation’s increasing energy demand; and
WHEREAS, it is in the public interest that the nation’s energy sources transition from nonrenewable sources, which will provide for cleaner air, cleaner water, energy independence, and improved public health; and
WHEREAS, wind turbines and their associated support and access infrastructure are being promoted and developed on public as well as private lands; and
WHEREAS, loss, degradation and fragmentation of sage steppe habitat are the primary threats to sage grouse populations; and
WHEREAS, concern about declines of sage-steppe habitat and the declines or elimination of sage grouse populations has led to several groups and individuals to petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list sage grouse as threatened or endangered pursuant to the Endangered Species Act; and
WHEREAS, drought, wildfires, overgrazing, encroachment of cheat grass and other invasive weeds, some agricultural practices and urban development have and continue to contribute to the loss of sage grouse habitat and the decline of sage grouse populations which negatively affect the survival of the species; and
WHEREAS, public lands continue to be fragmented and degraded by mining and oil and gas development, electric transmission lines and pipeline development, and road building as well as the noise associated with these activities, resulting in significant declines in sage grouse numbers and individual local extinctions; and
WHEREAS, it is estimated that in the last fifty years, there has been a 50 percent decrease in the total habitat occupied by sage grouse and up to an 80 percent decrease in total numbers in some areas; and
WHEREAS, sage grouse, which once ranged across sixteen western states and three Canadian provinces, have declined far below historic population levels with the loss, degradation and fragmentation of the sage brush habitat to which the species is so closely tied; and
WHEREAS, since 1980 sage grouse populations have declined as much as 45-82 percent and continue to decline in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, California, North and South Dakota and furthermore vanished completely in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and British Columbia; and
WHEREAS, in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Canadian government has listed sage grouse as endangered; and
WHEREAS, healthy sage grouse populations are an indicator of a healthy sagebrush steppe ecosystem; and
WHEREAS, as a result of the loss of sage brush habitat and declining sage grouse populations, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management recently adopted a “no net loss” policy for sage grouse habitat in order to maintain and increase the distribution of the species; and
WHEREAS, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has recognized that wind energy facilities can adversely impact wildlife especially birds and bats and their habitats and as a result proposed “Interim Guidelines to Avoid and Minimize Wildlife Impacts from Wind Turbines”; and
WHEREAS, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management promulgated an Interim Wind Energy Development Policy in 2002 which stated “Negative impacts can be minimized by avoiding special management areas with land use restrictions, avoiding major avian (bird) migration routes and areas of critical habitat of species of concern, establishing siting criteria to minimize soil disturbance and erosion on steep slopes, utilizing visual resource management guidelines to assist in proper siting of facilities, avoiding significant historic and cultural resource sites, and mitigating conflicts with other uses of the public lands”; and
WHEREAS, wind energy projects have been proposed on thousands of acres of sage grouse strongholds on public lands; and
WHEREAS, sage grouse are very intolerant of human disturbance and will abandon leks “strutting grounds” and nests and avoid areas with tall structures, roads, and transmission lines; and
WHEREAS, proposed wind energy projects have hundreds of wind turbines exceeding 200 feet in height, miles of transmission lines and miles of new year-round roads; and
WHEREAS, wind energy projects may further fragment and degrade existing sage steppe habitats, may cause sage grouse to abandon thousands of acres of this habitat, and can negatively impact the use and availability of habitat well beyond project locations and interference with sage grouse migratory pathways in sage grouse strongholds; and
WHEREAS, scientific literature indicates that there should be no manipulation of sage brush habitat within three miles of existing leks,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation, at its annual meeting assembled March 11-13, 2004, in St. Louis, Missouri, urges all federal and state agencies with permitting authority over wind turbine projects to conduct a thorough environmental review of the project’s impacts on wildlife and wildlife habitat including methods to minimize the impacts; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation urges state and federal agencies with authority to permit development on public lands avoid impacts on sage grouse and their habitat; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation calls upon the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to finalize their interim rules and policies and the relevant Resource Management Plans to ensure that: 1) No surface disturbance will be permitted within three miles of occupied sage grouse leks, 2) All sage grouse stronghold areas be given special protection through designation as “Areas of Critical Environmental Concern”, and 3) Replicated long-term studies be immediately initiated, using existing and approved facilities, to determine the effects wind turbines and their associated infrastructure construction, use, and maintenance have on sage grouse use in and around the project areas, including but not limited to the distance of the impacts, the times of the year of the impacts, abundance of predators, and sage grouse breeding behavior, fecundity and mortality.