Εταιρεία στις ΗΠΑ καταδικάζεται σε 8.000.000 $ πρόστιμα για φόνους αετών από ανεμογεννήτριες

Wind energy company pleads guilty to killing at least 150 eagles

Turbine blades owned by ESI Energy hacked many birds to death, a violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act

NextEra Energy subsidiary ESI Energy pleaded guilty Tuesday, April 6, 2022, to three counts of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act during a court appearance in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Photograph: Spenser Heaps/AP

Maya Yang, Mon 11 Apr 2022, από το https://www.theguardian.com/environment

A US wind energy company was ordered to pay $8m in fines after pleading guilty to killing at least 150 bald and golden eagles at its wind farms.

ESI Energy pleaded guilty to three counts of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and was sentenced to five years of probation.

“ESI … acknowledged that at least 150 bald and golden eagles have died in total since 2012, across 50 of its 154 wind energy facilities. 136 of those deaths have been affirmatively determined to be attributable to the eagle being struck by a wind turbine blade,” the Department of Justice said.

According to federal prosecutors, ESI is responsible for the “documented deaths of golden eagles due to blunt force trauma from being struck by a wind turbine blade at a particular facility in Wyoming or New Mexico, where ESI had not applied for the necessary permits”.

The company will implement up to $27m in measures meant to minimize eagle deaths and injuries. ESI will also implement “payment of compensatory mitigation for future eagle deaths and injuries of $29,623 per ball or golden eagle”.

Additionally, ESI will be required over the next 36 months to apply for permits for “any unavoidable take of eagles” at each of 50 of its facilities where take is documented.

According to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, “take” is defined to mean “pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect”, or attempt to do so.

“The justice department will enforce the nation’s wildlife laws to promote Congress’s purposes, including ensuring sustainable populations of bald and golden eagles, and to promote fair competition for companies that comply,” said Todd Kim, assistant attorney general in the DoJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

“For more than a decade,” he added, “ESI has violated those laws, taking eagles without obtaining or even seeking the necessary permit. We are pleased to see ESI now commit to seeking such permits and ultimately ceasing such violations.”

ESI and affiliates chose not to apply for any eagle take permits, or ETPs, according to information surrounding the case. Instead, the company chose to build and operate facilities it knew would take eagles and which did so, federal prosecutors said.

ESI has pushed back against federal policy and defended its actions.

A statement released by Rebecca Kujawa, president of parent company NextEra, said: “We disagree with the government’s underlying enforcement policy, which under most circumstances makes building and operating a wind farm into which certain birds may accidentally fly a violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) – even when the wind farm was developed and sited in a way that sought to avoid avian wildlife collisions.”

She went on to criticize the federal government, arguing that it has “sought to criminalize unavoidable accidents related to collisions of birds into turbines”.

A 2013 study found that up to 328,000 birds are killed annually across the US by monopole turbines, which can spin at up to 200mph.