Biomass and Diversity

From the Chronicle Herald

By CHRISTOPHER MAJKA
T
HERE is a growing con-
troversy in Nova Scotia
with respect to forest
biomass harvesting such
as that being conducted by
Northern Pulp Nova Scotia
Corporation in the Upper Mus-
qudoboit area.
Environmental groups such
as the Ecology Action Centre
have voiced concerns about the
impacts and sustainability of
whole tree harvesting. David
Wheeler, dean of Dalhousie
University's faculty of manage-
ment and leader of the prov-
ince's biomass consultation
team, has encouraged the Nova
Scotia government to consider
the option, if conducted to the
highest possible environmental
standards. Wheeler says bio-
mass could generate 15 per cent
of the province's renewable
energy. Unaddressed and unan-
swered in this debate is how
such forest harvesting practices
affect the biodiversity of forests.
Natural forests are highly
diverse environments that sup-
port an immense number of
plants and animals that interact
with one another. A biodiverse
I,)


forest shelters many species
and is a resilient ecosystem as a
result of this diversity. It func-
tions efficiently as a photosyn-
thetic engine that absorbs car-
bon dioxide, releases oxygen,
and recycles many essential
nutrients through the soil.
This fall, I completed a study
for the Nova Scotia Species at
Risk Conservation Fund in-
vestigating the saproxylic bee-
tles of Nova Scotia. "Saproxyl-
ic" refers to forest animals
responsible for the decomposi-
tion of wood. This research
revealed an astonishing diversi-
ty of such beetles - some 786
species, a third of all the beetles
found in the province. This does
not include foliage-feeding
species, ground beetles, or those
that feed on carrion.
Of the 786 species found, 269
(34 per cent) were placed in the
most vulnerable "may be at
risk" category. This ranking
reflected their limited distribu-
tion within the province, and
hence potential vulnerability to
disturbance. Furthermore,
studies offorest beetles, con-
ducted over the past decade by
myself and several colleagues,
have shown that 33 per cent of


saproxylic beetles are also ap-
parently very rare.
One reason for such apparent
scarcity may be the long history
offorest management practices
in the region. These have em-
phasized short-rotation, mono-
culture plantations, clearcut-
ting, the use of insecticides, and
the virtual elimination of old-
growth forests. Although 73 per
cent of Nova Scotia's land base
is forested,less than 0.6 per cent
of that is composed of old-
growth forests.
Saproxylic beetles live in and
depend on the full spectrum of
forest microhabitats. Some
inhabit rotten wood, old
stumps, fallen branches and
mossy logs. Others are found in
decaying boles of old trees, at
sap flows or in bark. Some are
cambium feeders, eating the
inner bark offallen logs,
branches or dying trees; others
feed on the wood itself.
Ambrosia beetles excavate
galleries under the bark which
they then inoculate with fungal
spores, feeding on the mildews
that subsequently grow. Bracket
fungi, which grow on decaying
wood, are the food source and
home to a large diversity of


beetles. These beetles are, in
turn, fed upon by many forest
denizens such as woodpeckers.
These diverse natural micro-
habitats supply the conditions
and environment that allow
such beetles to thrive. An area
completely denuded of dead
wood for biomass harvesting, or
where only wood chips or shav-
ings cover the soil, is very dif-
ferent. It is not suitable for the
vast majority of saproxylic
beetles to survive in. The re-
moval of all dead wood, logs,
stumps and branches dramat-
ically alters the habitat. Such
concerns apply to both clear-
cutting and biomass harvesting.
Recent research on the West
Coast has shown it can take 100
years for the woody debris in a
forest to stabilize after a clear-
cut, and that fungi, which many
saproxylic beetles depend on,
declines up to 97 per cent in
clearcut areas.
Other concerns aside, if we
wish to protect the biodiversity
offorests in Nova Scotia, and
ensure that they function as
vibrant ecological environ-
ments, we need to cultivate
forest management practices
that are much more selective in


their impact, and preserve fea-
tures of the natural environ-
ment. Old stands need to be
spared,large clearcuts should
be avoided, corridors or clumps
of trees should remain where
forest species can survive and
disperse from, and dead wood -
not chips or shavings - needs
to be left on the ground.
My research on the forest
beetles of Nova Scotia indicates
there are reasons to be appre-
hensive about the consequences
of clearcutting and biomass
harvesting, particularly since
many beetles in the province
appear to be clinging precari-
ously to their existence. A 2004
study issued by the World Wild-
life Fund, called Deadwood -
Living Forests, noted that
"standing dead or dying trees,
fallen logs, and branches form
one of the most important - yet
often unrecognized - habitats
for biodiversity." In Nova Sco-
tia, we need to heed this lesson,
and not only let the tree fall in
the forest, but let it stay.
Christopher Majka is a biologist who
conducts research on the ecology and
biodiversity of beetles in Atlantic
Canada.
r

Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia

Update from Eastlink

Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia Home
Project and Service Updates
FAQ's
System Requirements
Zone Map
Check Availability in your area
Technology and Installation Steps


EastLink is on target to provide 100% coverage to its service areas in Zones 5 and 6.
This past summer, EastLink wrapped up a series of well attended public meetings in each of the counties where EastLink representatives shared information and answered questions about the construction and commissioning (connecting) of sites and telecommunications towers.

While the project completion date has moved, we remain on target to provide 100% coverage in our service areas (Zones 5 and 6). We expect that almost 30 of our sites will be connected and serviceable by the end of the year with the remaining sites expected to be connected between January 2010 and May 2010.

We are currently in negotiations with Rogers and Allstream on co-location towers.

Zones 5 and 6: Lunenburg, Queens, Shelburne, Yarmouth, Digby, Annapolis, Kings, Hants

.

Service Launch Update
Service launch is planned for the end of December 2009 in the following areas:

The following outlines how many sites are constructed by county (column a) and how many will be serviceable, by county, by the end of December, 2009 (column b).


(a)
(b)

Lunenburg
12
2
Baker Settlement

Italy Cross

Queens
10
7
Broham Road

Granite Village

Meagher

Molega

North Bookfield

Port Joli

Wellington

Shelburne
7
5
East Sable River

Lower SandyPoint

Middle Ohio

Mikes Point

Shelburne Annapolis Road

Yarmouth
6
3
East Kemptville

Moody's Corner

Tusket Falls

Digby
9
2
Landsdowne

Morganville

Annapolis
12
5
Hannamville

Keji

Nictaux

Stronach Mountain

Trout Lake

Kings
6
5
Aylesford Mountain

Harbourville

Lake George

Lake View

Whites Corner

Hants
6
0

187 ton Windmill Collapses

From the Observer-Dispatch

By JENNIFER BOGDAN
Observer-Dispatch
Posted Dec 27, 2009 @ 07:41 PM
Last update Dec 28, 2009 @ 12:03 PM
FENNER — A wind turbine weighing nearly 190 tons collapsed early Sunday morning in rural Madison County , leaving experts stumped as to what could have brought down the towering structure.

The windmill, located on Buyea Road in Fenner, northeast of Cazenovia and several miles south of Canastota, fell into a cornfield at about 4 a.m., shutting down the 19 other turbines in the wind farm operated by Enel North America, officials said.

No one was injured.

It was the first time the company had seen one of its turbines topple.

“This is just not an everyday occurrence,” Enel North America spokesman Hank Sennott said. “I'd rather wait until we have a chance to investigate rather than speculating as to what could have happened.”

However, Sennott said he doesn't believe sabotage occurred. He also said he doesn't believe the force of the wind could have knocked over the turbine, which soared more than 200 feet above the town's rolling countryside. But he would not answer questions about what possibilities the company is considering for the cause of the collapse.

Buyea Road resident David Kalenak said the crumpled remains of the wind turbine attracted hundreds of onlookers throughout the day on the rural road, which usually sees just one or two cars each hour.

“I think a couple of my neighbors are a little nervous,” said Kalenak, who didn't hear the crash. “This one was in a field, but others are in the line of homes.”

The turbine was one of 20 erected at Fenner Wind Farm in 2001. The farm's turbines produce enough electricity to serve at least 10,000 homes, Sennott said.

Wind turbines have become an increasingly common feature of the Central New York landscape. In Lewis and Madison counties, there are five established projects, most along U.S. Route 20 or in the Lowville area.

There are no wind farms in Oneida or Herkimer counties, but three projects are pending in Herkimer County, according to data from New York Independent System Operator, a nonprofit organization that operates New York's electrical grid. One plan for the Herkimer County town of Litchfield has raised the ire of residents near Sauquoit in Oneida County; they say turbines would mar the landscape and pose possible risks to home values and health.

Fenner town Supervisor Russell Cary he was shocked by the incident, but didn't think it should spark cause for concern.

“I think it's a freak thing,” said Cary, who noted he fielded calls from concerned residents throughout the day.

“This isn't something that normally happens,” he said. “It's been an exciting day.”

Sennott said the company is not concerned about the possibility of another turbine collapsing. Instead, he said, the company's efforts will be directed toward securing the site of the crash and discovering what caused it.

Safety fencing was erected around the site of the crash Sunday night, and company workers planned to stand guard to ensure no one would be able to remove debris from the site. The company plans to hire security officers in the coming days to protect the site.

Replacing the turbine would likely cost between $2 million and $3 million, but it's not likely a replacement turbine would be installed immediately, Sennott said.

“It's not like we have an extra one of these things sitting in the backyard,” Sennott said.

Digby Area Events and Listings

From ADEDA

THE HISTORIC GARDENS
An annual membership makes a great (and value-packed) gift anytime of the year. And make sure to save this date … Saturday, May 29 for the 2010 Spring Gala & Auction in support of the Historic Gardens!

SISSIBOO COFFEE ROASTER
Creative entrepreneurs Jon Welch and partner Erin have set up shop in Bear River offering a variety of organic coffee beans that are roasted on-site in small, flavourful batches! Their renovated Rebekah building also houses an amazing concert space, bicycle repair shop and art gallery.

TIMOTHY HARPS
Having relocated from Ontario, Timothy Habinski is a world-renowned harp luthier — one of only six full-time makers in Canada — who has now set up shop in Bridgetown.

VINTAGE VACATIONS
Designer/craftsman Craig Dorsey, newly arrived to Annapolis Digby from southern California, restores classic trailers for celebrities and travel buffs alike!

TAMRA DORSEY DESIGNS
A gifted designer in her own right, Tamra Dorsey brings a wealth of graphic design talent to our region, holding an impressive portfolio that includes branding, advertising and packaging work. Check it out!

DIGBY AREA TOURISM ASSOCIATION
A must-view for anyone planning a trip to the Digby area, and a great reference site for all our tourism operators and retailers to share with visitors!

Remember, there’s always something new at annapolisdigby.com.

Are Your Area Turbines Old or New in Design?

Blogger's Note: Are your area politicians planning to install old design turbines?
Also note the reference to not installing turbines in migratory bird pathways or areas with large bird populations, and, I would add an area noted for rare bird species.


from howstuffworks
The Problem with Wind Turbines

It's easy to see why wind turbines are at least potentially hazardous for birds: Massive blades with tips spinning at up to 179 mph (80 meters per second), hundreds of feet (at least 30 meters) in the air, are an obvious problem for anything flying near them [source: MIT]. The fact is, birds do fly into the path of the blades and die a grisly death. Most of the affected birds are songbirds, and about 10 percent are birds of prey like raptors [source: ABC]. It's the raptors that started all the protests, when hundreds of carcasses were found strewn across Northern California's Altamont Pass wind farm.


Phil Schermeister/National Geographic/Getty Images
The Altamont Pass in California is known for its outdated turbines and high avian mortality rate.

Bird conservationists took great interest, and the misconception that wind turbines pose a major threat to bird populations grew from there. By applying the mortality rates at Altamont Pass to every wind farm in the United States, the bird-mortality figures became extremely inflated. In fact, Altamont Pass is a unique case of a wind farm that is truly a significant hazard to birds.

Altamont Pass is different for two main reasons: turbine location and turbine design.

There are more than 4,000 wind turbines at the Altamont Pass energy farm in California. It's one of the first wind farms in the United States, and its 20-year-old turbines are accordingly out-of-date. Their design has long since been abandoned: Latticework blades with small surface area are far from efficient for energy generation, and far from safe for birds. The lattice structure actually attracts large birds, because the frame makes for an excellent perch. Large birds like raptors are drawn to the blades, and collision rates are high as a result.

The other design issue is the blades' low surface area, because less surface area means the blades have to spin faster to turn the electricity-generating turbines. The faster the blades spin, the more dangerous they are to birds flying near them. It's unlikely that a bird that finds itself in the vicinity of the blades could ever make it through when they're spinning so fast.

As if this weren't enough to make old wind farms a bird nightmare, the Altamont Pass power plant was built smack dab in the middle of a major migratory route for large birds. The area also houses the world's largest single population of golden eagles [source: USA Today]. With thousands of dated wind turbines sprawling across a super-high-population bird area, it's inevitable that birds and turbines will meet. A current estimate puts the number of birds killed by turbines at Altamont Pass to be about 4,700 each year, several hundred of which are raptors [source: USA Today].

The Altamont Pass wind farm kills far more birds than any other farm in the United States. The total at that single wind farm with 4,000 turbines is 4,700 fatalities; the total for all wind farms in the United States, with more than 25,000 turbines in operation at any given time, is 10,000 to 40,000 per year [source: Reuters].

­Even though up to 1 billion birds die each year by flying into windows, no one is brushing off the tens of thousands of turbine-related deaths every year. So what are we doing to lower that number? On the next page, we'll see what changes are being implemented to save the birds.

Location, Location and Surface Area

In the past couple of decades, turbine designs have changed dramatically. Turbine blades are now solid, meaning no lattice structure to attract birds looking to perch. Also, the blades' surface area is much larger, so they don't have to spin as fast to generate power. Slower-moving blades mean fewer bird collisions.


Frank Whitney/Photographer's Choice/Getty Images
Newer turbines, like those on Tug Hill in New York, have a larger surface area and cause fewer bird deaths.

Perhaps the biggest change in wind-farm safety, though, has to do with location. Now, all new turbine proposals are reviewed for ideal, bird-friendly placement. Wind farms cannot be built in migratory pathways, in areas with high bird populations, or in areas with special features that could possibly attract high bird populations in the future. Also, the growing trend toward offshore turbine construction bodes well for birds, since offshore wind farms have fewer bird collisions than land-based farms.

Possibly the greatest indicator that wind turbines are not, in fact, bird-o-matics, is the growing number of endorsements by bird conservation groups. The American Bird Conservancy supports wind power with the caveat that bird-friendly placement and design be primary factors in construction [source: ABC]. The Wisconsin Bird Initiative states that wind turbines have a "low impact" on avian mortality compared to window glass and communication towers [source: WBCI]. And in 2006, the Audubon Society gave its figurative seal of approval to the American Wind Energy Association. The president of the national organization is quoted by Renewable Energy World as stating, "When you look at a wind turbine, you can find the bird carcasses and count them. With a coal-fired power plant, you can't count the carcasses, but it's going to kill a lot more birds" [source: REW].

Of course, zero turbine-related bird deaths would be the best-case scenario, but as far as energy production goes, that seems to be an unrealistic goal. The best we can hope for is smarter placement of wind turbines and more bird-friendly design in order to further reduce the number of bird deaths resulting from one of the best alternative energy sources available right now. Altamont Pass, for its part, is in the process of slowly replacing its turbines with newer models.

BEFORE Wind Turbines Are Allowed...

From theindependant.com

With development up, area counties add wind power regulations

By Mark Coddington
mark.coddington@theindependent.com
Published: Saturday, December 26, 2009 9:15 PM CST
As two Central Nebraska counties prepare for proposed commercial wind farms, several others are adding zoning regulations to cover wind turbines.

Most of the counties have not been approached by private wind developers like the ones who are planning wind farms near Petersburg in Boone County and Broken Bow in Custer County, though they have had residents ask about installing small-scale wind turbines.

The new regulations are being driven instead by a desire to be prepared should significant requests for wind development arrive.

"It looks like it's a trend that's going to be moving forward," said Jerry Hoegh, chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners, which passed regulations earlier this month. "And we just want to be ready for it when our citizens approach us about it."

Hamilton County's new regulations cover only small-scale wind projects of fewer than 100 kilowatts. North of Grand Island, Valley and Wheeler counties have passed regulations this fall encompassing both small-scale and commercial wind development, and Sherman County is working on regulations for both, as well.

Orval Stahr, who runs the York zoning consulting firm Stahr and Associates, said he has worked with about a half-dozen counties on wind regulations within the past year, including Valley, Wheeler and Sherman counties.

Stahr said counties' interest in regulating wind power picked up after two events last spring.

First, the state's first commercially developed wind project, Elkhorn Ridge near Bloomfield in northeast Nebraska, went online in March.

Second, the state Legislature passed a bill in May enabling net metering, which allows residents who generate their own power to sell the excess back to public utilities.

That doesn't necessarily mean we'll be seeing small wind turbines dotting the countryside anytime soon, Stahr said.

"I honestly don't think we're going to see a lot of small units," Stahr said. "At today's cost and efficiency, it just doesn't make a lot of sense."

Still, counties are interested in making sure that if that small-scale wind power develops, they have a handle on it.

"We just kind of want to be prepared instead of waiting until people are already doing something," said Dan Hruza, zoning administrator in Valley and Wheeler counties, as well as Garfield County, which hasn't looked at wind regulations yet.

Stahr said two of the most important issues in regulations are the beating that county roads take when the turbine equipment is driven into the county and the turbines' decommissioning years down the road.

He recommends that counties require that commercial developers have an arrangement with city or county roads officials about where they are allowed to drive as part of a conditional-use permit process.

Regulations on decommissioning are intended to prevent turbines from turning into an eyesore once their useful life is past, though Stahr said he's not sure that county zoning departments have the power to demand a surety in case the turbines aren't cleaned up properly.

Several zoning administrators said another of their primary concerns is setback distances from both residences and others' property.

Those regulations are intended to keep the turbines' noise away from residents and to ensure that if they fall down, they land only on their owners' property.

Sherman County Zoning Administrator Marie Fredrick said her county is looking at basing the setbacks on the length of the blade, rather than the length of the entire tower, to allow turbines to be placed on pivot corners in fields.

Sherman County held a public hearing Monday on its proposed regulations with Stahr present. No members of the public showed up.

That's been typical of the public response (or lack thereof) in many counties, Stahr said, since the regulations are dealing with hypothetical situations at this point.

Hamilton County Zoning Administrator Darla Svoboda said she hopes that once those hypotheticals turn into actual cases, the county will have the ability to tweak the regulations to make sure they work, especially since it's an area of zoning the county has never dealt with.

"This is all new, and we're not sure that we're covering everything," Svoboda said. "It may be that we'll take a look at it and decide that we're including something that didn't work that well for that particular issue. ... It's kind of a trial and error process."

Santa Claus> yikes! wind farms!!

from Examiner.com

Santa Claus reports close call travelling over wind farms
Santa, as captured by one young boy in Iowa this morning
Heavy snows and poor visibility provided some tense moments for Santa Claus and his team of reindeer, while traveling over Iowa early this morning. Without realizing it, Santa and his sleigh were headed directly into a series of wind turbines in rural Iowa.

As they neared the wind farm, Santa reported Rudolph's nose began blinking erratically in a distress signal and Santa quickly turned the sleigh upwards, narrowly missing the giant blades of a wind turbine.

At his next stop, Santa made a note on his "to do" list for next year. Add radar to sleigh. He delivered gifts and picked up a few extra cookies for his reindeer, saving the biggest one for Rudolph.

Thanks to the efforts of the red nosed reindeer, Rudolph, a Christmas tragedy was avoided. Children all around the world will be able to enjoy their Christmas morning because of this remarkable reindeer.