Improperly placed tubines and the endorsment by the government

On the eleventh lecture of the political biology series, Professor Scott Petrie talked about his research and the issues that wind turbines bring to many aspects of ecology, especially waterfowl. Petrie gave us various lists to consider, one is the top twelve concerns with onshore and offshore improperly placed wind turbines (IWTs), the second list pertains to the top tree recommendations that the Danish believe it is wise to place wind turbines (WTs) and the last list is the guidelines that the Ontario government uses to place WTs (Table 1).  In my opinion not a lot of people know about the negative effects of wind turbines, especially IWTs. This creates a problem because the government will make decisions without us knowing the consequences. That is when projects such as Prof. Petrie’s research is very important because, it informs the government, other scientist and the public that more thought should go into placing these WTs. The main point of the lecture is that a waterfowl, which is the focus of Petrie’s research, is being affected by these wind farms. One of the main problems is that these types of birds migrate in the fall and return in the spring, and their migrations paths are comprise due to these wind turbines. The other problem that Petrie mentions was that IWTs causes habitat loss and sound impacts to animals. This causes the waterfowl to displace to other areas or not being able to find resting areas.

One would say that the easiest way out for this problem is removing the IWTs but, this is not the case as removing these turbines costs up to a million dollars which the government is not willing to pay. When Prof. Petrie went to a Denmark conference, he learned that the guidelines that they have don’t even match the guidelines that Ontario uses. He found out that the areas of proposition for wind farms are the places that waterfowls use. A survey reveal that around 60% of the waterfowl hang out around the shoreline concluding that onshore wind turbines are more dangerous than offshore. There is not a lot of research in offshore turbines but, the Danish calculated that birds were able to avoid crashing with WTs that were offshore; this shows that offshore is better than onshore. Either way, if the turbines are offshore or onshore Petri blames the Ontario guidelines for all the problems they have caused.

Prof. Petri asks if this research will help prevent the construction of new IWT or at least make the government think where to place them. He sounds a bit skeptical as politicians want things or results as fast as possible and for researchers or ecologist their investigations take them a long time. In my opinion the government should be patient and wait for the research results, so they may know which areas are wildlife conservation areas and not place wind turbines blindly making our biodiversity to decrease. Even though Prof. Petrie seems skeptical about the government looking at his research, as Premier McGuinty seems to have an obsession with placing more and more WTs and using “a lack of science” to justify this practice. I’m positive that if we as scientist and students spread the word about this ongoing issue people will be willing to listen and perhaps vote for governments that are more concern with the well being of our ecosystem specially animals. Also instead of counting the number of animals killed due to wind turbines let’s calculate the number of animals already living in the area so that we can make better decisions of the placement of WTs. 

Table 1. Three lists presented by Professor Scott Petrie