Rise in Wind Farm\u2019s Bat Take <\/strong><\/p>\n Spurs Environmental Review <\/strong><\/p>\n On October 27, the Land Board approved a recommendation by the DLNR\u2019s Division of Forestry and Wildlife to require a Maui wind farm to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for a proposed amendment to its Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) and Incidental Take License (ITL) to allow a 10-fold increase in the number of endangered Hawaiian hoary bats that can be killed by the facility. The board also delegated to its chair the authority to determine whether SEISs are required for other wind farms.<\/p>\n Auwahi Wind Energy\u2019s 21-megawatt wind farm at Ulupalakua Ranch was originally authorized to take 19 adult and eight juvenile bats over 25 years under HCP and ITL, which were approved by the Land Board in January 2012. In April 2015, DOFAW and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) agreed to allow Auwahi to \u201cconvert 8 juvenile bats to the equivalent of three adults, resulting in an adjusted approved take permit for 22 bats,\u201d according to a DOFAW report to the Land Board. Even so, the FWS estimates there is an 80 percent chance that the bat take to date \u201cdoes not exceed 45,\u201d which suggests that more than 22 bats may already have been killed in the few years the farm has been operating.<\/p>\n To ensure the farm doesn\u2019t exceed its permitted take of bats, Auwahi has sought a major amendment to its HCP and ITL. Although still in draft form, the amendment \u201cis expected to request take of bats as high as 10-fold the number represented in the current ITL,\u201d DOFAW\u2019s report states.<\/p>\n DOFAW administrator Dave Smith told the Land Board that Auwahi\u2019s proposed change in the scope of the wind farm\u2019s environmental impacts require an SEIS.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re finding out now, some of the [wind] projects are taking significantly more bats [than anticipated],\u201d he said. In addition to Auwahi\u2019s proposal to increase allowable bat take, he said several more will be coming from other wind farms.<\/p>\n Given that, board member Chris Yuen asked Smith, \u201cDo we know enough about bats to know how much it would affect the population to have a certain amount of bats killed by turbines?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo we don\u2019t. … We don\u2019t know if there\u2019s way more bats than we ever thought or if we\u2019re killing them all,\u201d Smith replied. He added that his division doesn\u2019t think the wind farms are driving the bats to extinction, at least not yet, given that bat takes have not started to decline.<\/p>\n Board member Keone Downing asked how high the take limit needs to be to keep Auwahi\u2019s facility operating.<\/p>\n \u201cHow many is going to be enough? I call it \u2018bats per kilowatt hour,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Smith said the company is negotiating that level based on its current rate of take, adding that the state\u2019s Endangered Species Recovery Committee will be discussing the best science available to help determine the best number.<\/p>\n \u201cIsn\u2019t that something they\u2019ve done already?\u201d Downing asked.<\/p>\n Smith said that new evidence has since come to light. Certain wind conditions and certain speeds may increase the likelihood of taking bats, he continued, adding, \u201cWe\u2019re hoping to be able to target wind speeds and seasonality to decease bat take by 90 percent. We\u2019re hoping to get to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n Marilyn Teague of Sempra, Auwahi\u2019s parent company, said that her company was prepared to immediately start writing the SEIS. \u2014 Teresa Dawson <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Land Board Approves Rule Changes Banning Feeding, Abandoning Animals According to testimony from some of the women who manage feral cat colonies on O‘ahu, cat numbers can be dramatically reduced with proper care — not leaving food out, trapping, spaying … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[428],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-10023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-november-2017","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/bat_upsidedown_CPinzari.jpg\")
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