KIBBY TOWNSHIP – The effects of a proposed wind farm near the Canadian border on migrating birds and other wildlife are still being studied, according to Steve Timpano of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
TransCanada Corp. is studying the feasibility of constructing more than 100 wind-powered turbines on four mountain peaks: Kibby Mountain, Kibby Ridge, Caribou Mountain and a nearby unnamed mountain. The corporation is in the beginning stages of the permitting process through the Land Use Regulation Commission.
Timpano, an environmental coordinator for the wildlife agency, and Marcia Spencer Famous, a land-use planner for LURC, said the commission will be using some wildlife data collected in the 1990s when another company considered a wind farm there. But other studies are being conducted, Timpano said Tuesday.
Friends of the Boundary Mountains, an environmental group opposing the project, has questioned the potential impact of the project on migrating birds, bats and other mammals in the area. The commission will hold a public hearing Nov. 2 on eight meteorological resource-analysis towers.
The environmental group sent letters to the commission stating its opposition to the proposal. Included was one from biology Professor W. Herbert Wilson Jr. of Colby College, who expressed his concerns for nocturnally migrating birds that may “become lethally disoriented” by lights atop the towers. At the originally proposed height, the Federal Aviation Administration would have required the towers to be lighted.
“The majority of our songbirds are nocturnal migrants,” Wilson wrote. “It seems clear from the application that no assessment of the scale of bird migration along the ridgelines where the towers are to be erected has been done.” Such studies should be conducted before the towers are permitted, he continued.
As originally proposed, the towers would have been 213 feet. TransCanada has agreed to 197-foot towers, avoiding the necessity to light them, according to Spencer Famous.
Radar studies to gauge the numbers of migrating birds have been done and are continuing, according to Timpano, but these studies cannot identify individual species, he said, confirming another of Wilson’s contentions.
Wilson, in his letter, suggested a sound-recording study be undertaken to more accurately identify specific bird species. Of particular concern are the Bicknell’s thrush, an endangered species known to nest above treeline in northern New England. Timpano said there are plans for night recording studies, as suggested by Wilson.
In another letter, Pam Prodan, an attorney for Friends of the Boundary Mountains, argued that the recent radar study period was too limited and may have missed the migration of certain species. The earliest study, she wrote, began on Aug. 31 this year.
The study may have missed a week or two of migration, Timpano admitted. But, he said, the researchers “feel they got the bulk of it.” Timpano said he did not know if that meant the omission of certain bird species.
Prodan was also concerned with mammal habitat.
“The assertion that the applicant can avoid habitats of interest for rare mammals like the northern bog lemming, the yellow-nosed vole and the rock shrew is unsupported,” she wrote.
But Timpano disputes her allegation.
“Where they find (these animals) are very discreet areas and very identifiable,” he said. They are limited areas, and it is reasonable to expect to be able to avoid them.
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