Wind Power in Maine

“ Location, location, location.” That’s what real estate agents jokingly say are the “three” most important considerations when buying property.

As we’re learning in Maine, location is also the most important consideration when setting up a wind-power facility.

First, the location needs a steady supply of wind. Maine’s mountainous topography makes that easy enough. But there are also a range of economic, environmental and aesthetic perspectives when siting commercial wind-power plants—and for Maine Audubon, the most important is wildlife.

A Wildlife Perspective

Maine Audubon’s foremost concern is how the location of wind-power plants affects wildlife. The plants use resources that humans share with wildlife—mountaintop habitat and airspace. To help them migrate, millions of birds rely on passing weather fronts and thermal air currents that occur around mountains.

Wind power has the potential to minimize major, negative environmental impacts of traditional, nonrenewable energy sources such as fossil fuels — including habitat damage from mining and drilling, oil spills, air and water pollution, acid rain, and global climate change.

But wind power’s history includes well-documented occasions of significant bird kills and, more recently, the deaths of thousands of migrating bats.

Tall, lighted structures such as communications towers have long been known to be collision hazards that attract birds, especially when there’s fog, mist, or low clouds. Problems tend to be most profound where there are abundant bird populations and/or if the site is part of a migratory corridor.

Another way wind-power development, if not sited appropriately, can threaten wildlife in Maine is by fragmenting large blocks of undeveloped habitat that many species need, particularly within the Northern Forest. Cleared land and access roads are necessary to maintain turbines and power lines.

Wildlife advocates and the wind industry agree that correctly siting wind turbines is the best way to minimize their potentially dangerous impact on birds, bats, or other wildlife.

It’s essential that well before breaking ground, wind-power developers collect scientifically sound data on how wildlife uses a proposed site.