Company: Wind farm eagle deaths overestimated

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Cheyenne, Wyo. • The developers of what could become the nation's largest wind energy project say the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has overestimated how many eagles could be killed by wind turbines at the site.

They say they're planning a variety of measures to reduce eagle deaths at the $5 billion Chokecherry/Sierra Madre wind power project south of Rawlins, and those steps will result in fewer deaths than the BLM estimate of 46-64 per year.

The BLM number is "extremely high," Garry Miller, vice president of land and environmental affairs for the Power Company of Wyoming LLC, said at a public scoping meeting for the project last week in Saratoga.

So how many eagles does the company expect will be killed? Miller said he's discussing that with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service while the company prepares to apply for an eagle take permit for the project's 500-turbine first phase. He declined to give a specific number while that's happening.

The Power Company of Wyoming, a wholly owned affiliate of Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz's The Anschutz Corp., plans eventually to install 1,000 turbines on the sagebrush-covered northern foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains. That many turbines would generate enough electricity to power 1 million homes.

Eagle take permits give Fish and Wildlife more say to work with industries to prevent eagle deaths. The agency has yet to issue one for a wind farm.

Nevertheless, Fish and Wildlife expects to receive an eagle take application from the Chokecherry/Sierra Madre developers in the weeks ahead. Fish and Wildlife has laid out a review process for the anticipated permit that will take about a year.

Fish and Wildlife officials are aware of the BLM's eagle death estimate but plan to come up with their own estimate based on their own methodologies, said Dave Carlson, project lead for Fish and Wildlife.

"But that definitely caught our attention, in terms of we really need to pay attention to what's going on with this project," Carlson said.

He said the goal is to keep eagle deaths to a minimum and find ways to offset the eagles that will be killed.