To the editor:
In his Aug. 5 letter about the proposed wind turbine for Winter Island, former Mayor Salvo wrote, "many migrating birds will be killed by the blades of the turbine." This is a distressing thought, but I believe I can set Mr. Salvo's mind at ease in this regard. As a graduate student studying Environmental Management at Harvard Extension School, I learned that the myth of turbines killing birds was largely caused by the Altamont Pass wind farm, built in California in 1981. Altamont's turbines were completely different than those built today. They were shaped more like egg beaters, with vertical blades reaching close to the ground, and were spaced close together. Turbine design has improved greatly since then, and by 2006 the average turbine outside California was likely to cause only an average of 1.83 total bird deaths per year. To put this in perspective (if even one bird death sounds like too many), this is only 0.01 percent to 0.02 percent of all U.S. bird deaths caused by collisions with man-made structures—far below cell phone towers and glass buildings.
Claiming that turbines hurt birds is an easy argument to make, and it tugs at the heartstrings, but it is just not true. In fact, Mass Audubon supports the development of responsibly planned and permitted wind energy projects as being "essential to the environmental well being of our nation and planet." Wind power is actually one of the most benign and harmless ways to make electricity. Wind turbines are not nearly as noisy or as much of an eyesore as, say, the coal plant across the street from my house, and they do not have the potential for destructive accidents like boiler explosions, nuclear meltdowns, oil spills or gas explosions. The worst thing that could theoretically happen to a turbine is for it to fall over, and even this extremely unlikely event is accounted for by locating them away from homes.
As a resident of the Derby Street neighborhood living within walking distance of Winter Island, I would welcome a beautiful, harmless wind turbine to my neighborhood, and I hope that others in Salem will take the time to learn the facts, and come to the same conclusion. Salem got its start using wind power to propel its trade ships, and I would love to see our city return to this tradition in a new way.
Katie Giddings
Salem
Vice president, Salem Alliance for the Environment
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