The Problems with Clean Energy

Washington Governor Jay Inslee says tackling climate change is our state’s “hour to shine,” but we should be under no illusions about new forms of so-called “clean energy,” especially from wind turbines.

But they look so clean! There they are, dotting the ridge lines across the landscape, turning their blades in the fresh breeze, harkening back to old-fashioned Dutch windmills or a brightly colored pinwheel toy from our childhood. What’s not to like? Much.

I have just finished writing a set of public comments critical of the Skookumchuck Wind Energy Project—a 38 wind-turbine facility proposed to be built in Lewis County (south of Olympia, east of Centralia). Why do I get to criticize this project? Because the Lewis County Community Development Department determined the project will have a significant adverse impact on the environment. How ironic! Under state laws, this determination triggers an environmental review, In this case, the “environment” encompasses the habitat of several species of wildlife listed by the state or federal government as threatened, endangered, or in need of special protection and so these species are expected to be adversely impacted by the project. “Adverse impacts” generally means the species are at risk of being directly or indirectly killed or harmed by the project.

And by “project” we are talking about not only the 38 wind turbines (each 500 feet tall) but also the 120 towers and 17 miles of transmission lines that carry the energy produced by the turbines to Puget Sound Energy’s substation where it is fed into the grid. The towers will look something like this:

An estimated 17 miles of energy generator transmission tie lines (“gen-tie lines”) and and 120 towers are included in the Skookumchuck Wind Energy Project.. Photo by Stefan Andrej Shambora (St_A_Sh), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9431898

Why am I concerned? Because this project, located on Weyerhaeuser property, is sited in the Pacific Flyway for migratory birds (68 species document at the site), is a place where both Bald and Golden Eagles are common, and is on the commuting route of the endangered Marbled Murrelet—the seabird that flies through the project area en route between the Pacific Ocean and/or Puget Sound to the west and north and its nesting habitat on federal forestland at the eastern edge of the project. The proponents of the project, RES-Americas, estimates that 2.496 Marbled Murrelets will be “taken” (killed) each year as well as 4.86 Bald Eagles and 1.65 Golden Eagles during turbine operations. They are not willing to take responsibility for adverse impacts to these birds or any other wildlife during the year-long construction phase of the project when birds could be at risk for colliding with turbines, towers, and get tie-lines. This means that over the 30-year lifespan of this “clean” energy project, we are likely to lose 75 Marbled Murrelets, 66 Bald Eagles, and 23 Golden Eagles, not to mention untold numbers of migratory birds as well as bats that occur in the project area.

To its credit, RES-Americas has worked diligently to figure out ways to minimize the toll on these special-status birds and they have grappled nobly with the strange and somewhat unpredictable breeding behavior of the Marbled Murrelet, whose remarkable life history hovers on the edge of possibility. Since 2001, Washington state has lost 44% of our murrelet population. The loss of its nesting habitat—our coastal old-growth and mature forests—as well as the depletion of the fisheries that supply its food, oil pollution, and entrapment in fishing nets, and a host of habitat-degrading problems have all caused this decline. And then there’s climate change and its impacts on both the marine and forest ecosystems to which murrelets belong.

To some the murrelet is doomed and therefore why not throw 38 spinning turbines and 120 transmission towers in its way? Why not log this parcel of land, or this one, or this one? There are so many forces at work against the murrelet’s survival that no one person, agency, or corporation could possibly be accused of dealing the fatal blow. If no one can prove that the Skookumchuck Wind Energy Project caused of the deaths of the murrelets nesting nearby, or contributed to the loss of the murrelet population barely hanging on in Southwest Washington, or proverbially hammered the nail in the coffin of the 4,913 murrelets left inWashington —then who is? The Washington Department of Natural Resources? The U.S. Forest Service? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? Private timber companies? The salmon gill-net fisheries? There will be such a feast of finger pointing that guilt for this crime won’t stick to anyone. But we’ll all feel it.

We’ll tell ourselves that we address climate change NOW! We must reduce human impacts on the environment NOW! We must wean ourselves from fossil fuels NOW! We need to divest our money and our souls from the dirty oil and the dirty coal that visibly pollutes our water, air, and soil. We need to tax the polluters, educate the wasteful, and “green” our economy! We need to install big, beautiful, white wind turbines across our landscape. Everyone for miles around needs to see us conspicuously generating clean energy!

Few of us will see the hundreds of bird carcasses on the ground beneath these symbols of clean energy. That job will be left to an unlucky few hired to conduct carcass searches beneath the turbines. Has any one considered that the birds using the Pacific Flyway to move northward into a cooler climate may not be able to navigate through this clean-energy obstacle course? How many birds will fatally collide with the very turbines installed in part to reduce the fatal impacts of climate change on these birds?

When operational, the proposed Skookumchuck Wind Energy Project will produce 137 megawatts of electricity. My annual electrical bill from Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is TK kilowatts. So this project could potentially power TK homes. Given the population growth in our region, this energy will not be used to replace but to supplement our current energy needs. The Evergreen State may become forested with forests of wind turbines—sterile forests where no trees grow and no birds sing.

So, Governor Inslee, how about some truly conservative policies—that is, ones based on actually conserving energy? Remember former President Jimmy Carter asking the American people to waste less energy? This was in 1979—forty years ago! (Interesting Carter didn’t ask us to use less, just to waste less!) Watch a short excerpt from his speech to the American people on energy here.

Frumpy cardigan aside, what’s wrong with an extra layer of fleece? How about turning your thermostat down to 65F in the day and 55F at night (you’ll sleep better, trust me!). How about unplugging a few energy-sucking appliances, electronics, and gizmos? Would you not make some minor life-style changes to save a Marbled Murrelet? A Bald or Golden Eagle? What about a Peregrine Falcon, Pileated Woodpecker, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Vaux’s Swift, special-status bats, and any of the 68 migratory bird species flying in harm’s way?

We expect bird, bats, and other wildlife to change their habits, to fly around or over thousands of acres of enormous turbines and towers and electrical lines, to forage and nest elsewhere, and to adapt quickly and successfully to whatever impediments we decided to place in their environment. As we modify and degrade wildlife habitat in the name of “clean energy” and “progress,” we are forcing our wildlife to spend get by with less. Because we refuse to do so ourselves. This is the dirty little secret clean energy. We can do better.

Despite my criticism, the Skookumchuck Wind Energy Project has the potential to be a model project for Washington state and for any place where wildlife is abundant, imperiled, at risk. So everywhere. In my view, the project needs to be downsized. Operations of turbines needs to be curtailed during murrelet breeding season. And the investors need to rethink their expected (large) profits.

There are plenty of very smart and motivated people developing new wind-energy technologies that don’t cause more harm than good. The American Wind and Wildlife Association is leading the way on this front. Check out this uplifting video that gives a glimmer of hope as we navigate our way through our energy crisis. Skookumchuck Wind Energy Project can help us find the win-win in wind energy.

Gratitude for This Bird

There are no holidays celebrating the Marbled Murrelet, unless you count my recent attempt to start “Nest Discovery Day” to honor the date of August 7, 1974, when the nest of this unique seabird was first discovered and documented by scientists. My celebration was just really a “whoohoo!” on social media and silly video involving a friend in a chicken suit, but that’s because I didn’t think to consult anyone at Hallmark, Inc.

The traditional Thanksgiving holiday is mostly about turkey, but the much much smaller and seriously endangered Marbled Murrelet has been the focus of my attention these days and I’m grateful for that. This little wisp of a bird is in the middle of a fight for its life and for the future of the forests where it nests in the Pacific Northwest. The forests murrelets need are described with various terms: old-growth, older, late seral, late successional, mature. The murrelet needs these trees not because of the age or size of the tree itself, but because of the size of the upper branches of these trees. A murrelet doesn’t build a nest but lays its one egg directly on the branch (usually moss covered, but sometimes bare) and so it needs a wide branch where its chicken-sized egg can be safely nestled. And it needs these branches to be at least 50 feet off the ground to keep the nest safe from ground-based predators. Such branches are found in big old trees—coastal redwood, Douglas fir, western hemlock, western red-cedar, Sitka spruce, and other varieties (including the rare occurrence in a big-leaf maple and red alder).

These trees are vanishing and so are the murrelets. Since 2001, we have lost 44% of the murrelet population in Washington state alone. The population continues to decline at the rate of about 4% every year. That might not sound like much, but if you lose 4 of every 100 murrelets every year, it doesn’t take long to get to zero. Zero is not acceptable. This is why, nearly 20 years since I first met the Marbled Murrelet in a photo on the Internet (teehee), 12 years since my book, Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet was published, and 5 years since it was reissued in paperback…I am still talking about this bird.

I am not talking about Marbled Murrelets to sell copies of Rare Bird. I am talking about this bird because I cannot bear the thought of “losing my marbled”—of having this bird vanish from our oceans and coastal forests. By talking about the Marbled Murrelet I mean I am speaking out for it—to forest management agencies, conservation organizations, library patrons, bookshop audiences, nature-writing workshop attendees, interested friends, and tolerant family members who know I have a difficult time stopping once I start talking about this crazy little bird.

I am grateful to everyone who listens and to everyone who talks about this bird themselves. The most difficult conversations being had right now are the ones between the many people who manage the forests where the murrelet nests, the people who must generate revenue by logging these forests, and those intent on protecting these forest for murrelets. Not that opinions break cleanly along these lines. The subject of how to manage murrelets makes for complex, messy, fraught, long, interrupted, and frustrating conversations. I have been part of many of these conversations. Everyone feels trapped between a rock and hard place, facing a binary choice between saving the murrelets from extinction (possibly in our lifetime) or merely slowing down the decline to a rate we define as tolerable—the rate that will keep our children or grandchildren from cursing us.

I am grateful for the Marbled Murrelet itself for luring me to the west coast, into the deep forests where it nests and into these conversations about others about biodiversity, old-growth ecosystems, the Endangered Species Act, why birds matter, and the subtle and serious impacts of climate change on murrelets and our forest. The murrelet has given me the opportunity to think long and hard about my role as a steward and advocate, about how to walk the talk, how to resist “slacktivism” and eco-burnout, and how to let my heart go “zing” whenever I see this rare bird in the wild or in a photograph.

Who ever you are and how ever long your “life list,” let a bird into your heart. Let it live there a while. Soon it will let you know what it needs from you to survive. And what it needs is likely to be exactly what we need to survive. Listen. And give thanks.

Mid-Term Re-Centering

Here at the end of Daylight Savings Time and just days before the mid-term elections, we may have the opportunity to turn inward for some peace, reflection, and the coziness of home and hearth.

These twinkling bells on my back garden gate in Olympia, Washington, used to hang on the white-picket gate of my late aunt’s home in Richmond, Virginia, where she lived from 1957 until her death in 2013. For those many decades, the bells were the welcoming sound to me and my three brothers, who spent many summers and holidays with my aunt, uncle, and two older cousins. The bells announced the transition from the driveway and the flagstone patio, backyard, and cozy Cape-Cod-style home where good cheer and real hospitality suffused the very air.

These bells conjure up so many pleasant memories for me—but a book’s worth for my aunt’s daughter—my cousin—author and philosopher Marietta McCarty, who has just published a touching and tender memoir about loving and leaving her cherished childhood home.

Bereaved following her mother’s death, Marietta faces the daunting task of emptying her family home—number 1203 on a narrow avenue (really a lane). How, she asks, might she find her way through the emotional turmoil and the accumulation of more than five decades in the house at 1203? Call an appraiser? Schedule an estate sale? Call the Goodwill? Where to begin sorting the furniture, the objects, the intangible memories, the valuables, the junk, the items useful to someone somewhere? What to keep, what to let go?

Overwhelmed at times—and justifiably so—Marietta takes one day at a time, one room at a time, one corner of the pantry, basement, and garage at a time. With the help of friends, families, and strangers, she navigates her way through the months-long process, balancing tears and laughter all along the way.

Each chapter of Leaving 1203 is dedicated to a set of objects that inspire memories of Marietta’s childhood and upbringing. “Three Baseball Bats and One Tennis Racket,” “Cast Iron Skillets and a Songbook,” “Picnic Baskets and Camping Gear,” for instance. But this isn’t just about Marietta. Her book includes loving portraits of her father (my uncle) and their conversations about philosophy, literature, the passage of time, selflessness, sorry, generosity, peace, and humility. And similarly loving portraits of her mother (my aunt, my mother’s only sister) and our grandmother—born Nelly Eliza Williamson, but also known in various stages if her life as Hilda Swenson, Hilda Smith, and, to her grandchildren, "“Plum.”

Putting myself in my cousin’s shoes, I believe I would have boxed up most everything in 1203 and made room for it in my house. I would have gotten rid of all my furniture and made space for the pine tables and cabinets and handprinted furniture. I would have attempted to recreate my blissful childhood by keeping all the things that transported back through the decades of life and to a simpler time. But no. The is not the philosopher’s way.

Marietta gives it all away. (You’ll have to read the book to find out how). And in so doing, honors the memory of her mother, father, grandmother, and all those who will forever hear the bells welcoming them to 1203 and bidding them a sweet farewell after a beautiful visit, a beautiful time.

To read more about Leaving 1203 (and to order a copy) and about Marietta and her other books, click here. We need more books like this one now—more than ever.

BOOK CLUB IN THE CLOUDS

This past Sunday I was the guest hiker-speaker for the monthly adventure of the Alpine Trails Book Club, a high-energy group of hikers who love hiking and reading and talking about books in equal measure.

The trip leader had thoughtfully selected the Chain Lakes hike on Mt. Baker because of it’s elevation (5,400 feet) and stunning views of Mt. Baker, Mt. Shuksan, alpine meadows and lakes, and—ideally—cloudscape. The clouds did not cooperate but this did not matter one bit. This happy group literally laughed at the rain and the nimbostratus clouds that brought it all. A good thing I had dedicated a large chuck of my book, A Sideways Look at Clouds, to nimbostratus clouds and how it rains.

It was this kind of cloud, after all, that not only rained on us but that filled the lakes and created the waterfalls and nourished the wild blueberries that graced this lovely alpine trail.

The ten of us were pretty much soaked from the rain when we found our way to a covered porch at the Heather Meadows Visitor Center. The hot tea was poured into mugs and china (yes, real china!) cups and then out came the homemade cloud-shaped cookies (putting to shame my dozen donut holes I brought along as a visual aid while describing the origin of the word “cloud”—from “clod.”) And then one of the trip leaders brought out a pocket sling psychrometer—an old-fashioned (non digital) but time-honored tool for measuring relative humidity and calculating dew point—the temperature below which water vapor condenses into liquid water. This is critical information for hikers interested in knowing at what point they are going to be hiking in the clouds instead of under them.

Just as I was about to launch into a short reading from my book, we all smelled the sweet fragrance of wood smoke. The volunteers at the Heather Meadows Visitor Center had built a snap-crackling fire in the beautiful stone fireplace in this historic building crafted in the 1930s by workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps. So in we went to shed our wet gear and cozy up for a fireside reading about the marvels of nimbostratus clouds and the rain drops. It was a real pleasure as an author to have such an engaged group to talk and hike with—and flattering to hear their thoughtful comments and questions about my ramblings in the clouds.

The rain continued so we didn’t hike higher up into the clouds. Though we had a different kind of cloudy day in mind for this hike (like the one that happened the very next day) it was crystal clear that the clouds control the narrative and this was our day to fully embrace the nimbostratus. My rain hat is off to the fair- and foul-weather outdoorswomen literati of the Alpine Trails Book Club!

To learn more about the Alpine Trials Book Club (book list, adventure tales) please visit their wonderful website here.