(Washington, D.C.,
June 26, 2012) In a lawsuit filed today in Washington D.C. District Court
American Bird Conservancy has accused the federal government of suppressing
information about wind energy projects and their potential negative impact on America's
wildlife. ABC is being represented in the suit by the Washington D.C.
public-interest law firm of Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal.
ABC charges that
two Interior Department (DOI) agencies flagrantly violated the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) by failing to comply with statutory deadlines for
disclosure of information, and by failing to provide their correspondence with
wind developers and other information related to potential impacts on birds and
bats, and bird and bat deaths at controversial wind developments in 10 states.
"It’s
ridiculous that Americans have to sue in order to find out what their
government is saying to wind companies about our wildlife—a public trust,” said
Kelly Fuller, Wind Campaign Coordinator for ABC. “ABC is concerned that many of
these projects have the potential to take a devastating toll on songbirds,
majestic eagles, and threatened and endangered species,” she added.
ABC filed six
requests under FOIA – all of them more than eight months ago. ABC’s FOIA
requests asked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s correspondence with
wind developers regarding birds and bats, as well as related information about
wildlife impacts, such as studies showing which bird and bat species were in
the area and how many had been killed by the facilities. ABC’s FOIA requests
were to be processed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which
subsequently referred one request to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).
Under FOIA’s strict deadlines, the agencies were required to fulfill the
requests or claim exemptions within 20 working days.
“In President
Obama’s first month in office, he directed federal agencies to respond to the
public’s FOIA requests promptly and in a spirit of cooperation. The President
said, ‘A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires
transparency.’ With this lawsuit, ABC is asking the Department of the
Interior to carry out the President’s promise,” said Fuller. “Some DOI offices
have not sent a single document that we asked for, even though the agencies
were legally required to do so more than seven months ago.”
Many
organizations are concerned about the U.S. government’s management of
wind energy’s impacts on wildlife. In May 2012, ABC and 60 other organizations
asked committees in the U.S. House and Senate for Congressional oversight of
FWS’s implementation of new voluntary guidelines for avoiding, minimizing, and
mitigating the impacts of wind energy on wildlife. Ninety-one organizations
endorsed an extensive rulemaking petition submitted by ABC requesting that FWS
establish mandatory wildlife protection regulations in lieu of the voluntary
approach favored by the industry.
In a March 2012
letter rejecting ABC’s petition, FWS Director Daniel Ashe asserted that FWS was
being “meticulously transparent” in how the Service was addressing the impact
of wind power on wildlife, and asked for ABC’s help in assessing the
effectiveness of the voluntary wind guidelines. “But stonewalling FOIA
requests is hardly ‘transparency,’ and without timely access to the crucial
information held by the Service, evaluating the effectiveness of the guidelines
will be impossible. ABC also will not be able to properly fulfill our mission
to protect native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas,” said
Fuller.
ABC’s FOIA
requests were in regard to proposed and existing wind energy developments in Arizona, California, Florida, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota,
South Dakota, and Texas. Birds that could potentially be
harmed include Bald and Golden Eagles, as well as birds that have been
federally designated as threatened and endangered, such as Whooping
Cranes, Northern Aplomado Falcons, Least Terns, Piping Plovers, Marbled
Murrelets, Snail Kites, Wood Storks, and Northern Crested Caracaras.
Other birds that could potentially be harmed include night-migrating
songbirds, birds of prey, and candidates for listing under the Endangered
Species Act such as Greater Sage-Grouse and Sprague’s Pipit.
ABC supports
Bird-Smart Wind Power, which employs careful siting, operation and construction
mitigation, bird monitoring, and compensatory mitigation to reduce and redress
any unavoidable bird mortality and habitat loss. In May 2012, ABC released an
interactive web map to help wind energy development become more Bird-Smart. The
map shows more than 2,000 locations in the United States where birds will be
particularly vulnerable to the impacts of wind energy development.