From The Irony Department:

Tree hugger gadgets slaughter birds by the thousands.
(Thanks to The Washington Times.)

When it comes to wind power, few places are more productive -- or more deadly to birds -- than this gusty stretch of rolling hills between the San Francisco Bay area and the San Joaquin Valley.

At a time when demand is rising for greener energy sources, the Altamont Pass has become one of the nation's leading producers of wind power, generating enough pollution-free electricity annually to power 120,000 homes for a year.

But the Altamont, where more than 5,000 windmills line the hilltops, also has become a death trap for thousands of migrating birds that get chopped up in rotating turbine blades as they fly through or hunt for prey.

An estimated 1,700 to 4,700 birds are killed each year in the 50-square-mile Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area. Of those fatalities, between 880 and 1,300 are federally protected raptors such as burrowing owls, red-tailed hawks and golden eagles, said a study released last year by the California Energy Commission.

"Altamont is killing more birds of prey than any other wind farm in North America," said Jeff Miller, a wildlife advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Incredible numbers of raptors are being killed there."
Environmentalists were once reluctant to take on an industry that provides an eco-friendly alternative to fossil fuels blamed for air pollution and global warming. But the bird deaths have prompted wildlife advocates to sue nine wind farm operators and appeal Alameda County's decisions to renew their operating permits without requiring measures to reduce bird collisions.

A county judge this week allowed the lawsuit to move forward; the case could go to trial by late this year. The Board of Supervisors is expected to decide next week whether to force the operators to adopt measures to curb bird deaths.

"This industry has always wrapped itself in the mantle of green power and has sought to use the environmental benefits of wind power as an excuse for not doing anything about the environmental harms it causes," said Rick Wiebe, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs.

When some of the nation's first industrial windmills went up in the Altamont Pass more than two decades ago, few people thought seriously about the birds -- even though the region is a major migratory corridor and hunting ground for raptors that prey on its abundant squirrels, gophers and rabbits.

Industry officials point out that turbines are responsible for only a tiny portion of human-caused bird deaths, compared with buildings, plate-glass windows, automobiles, pesticides and house cats.

If only cats could fly...