PANTEGO — Eastern North Carolina residents don’t think they’re tilting at windmills as they press for a stringent environmental review of plans in Beaufort County to build 500-foot tall wind turbines near federal refuges that attract hundreds of thousands of geese and swans during the winter.

Can snow geese and 500-foot-tall wind turbines coexist?

Some of the same groups and people who successfully fought Navy plans for a jet landing field in the general area four years ago are now focused on a proposed wind farm with 49 turbines on 11,000 acres near the small farming communities of Terra Ceia and Pantego.  They say an array of turbines almost as tall as the Washington Monument will kill federally protected birds and bats or drive them away by altering foraging grounds.

Dr. Daniel deB. Richter Jr., a professor of soils and forest ecology at Duke University, says the project is “remarkably ill-sited” because of its proximity to Pocosin Lakes, Alligator River and Lake Mattamuskeet national wildlife refuges. Refuge lands and surrounding farm fields are winter havens for migratory waterfowl that fly from as far away as Canada and Alaska.

“A great project in the wrong place will be a bad project,” Richter said.

Pantego Wind Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Invenergy LLC, is seeking approval from the N.C. Utilities Commission to build an 80-megawatt wind farm that could generate enough electricity to serve about 15,000 houses. The commission is expected to render its decision in the next few weeks.

Company officials and supporters say the project would help utilities meet a state law requiring them to obtain a percentage of electricity from renewable sources. In addition, they say, the project would create 100 jobs and $10 million in local spending during construction. With a $160 million capital investment, it would generate $1 million in local revenue each year through property taxes, lease payments to landowners and salaries to five permanent employees.

Tom Thompson, Beaufort County’s economic development director, said the county needs the economic boost the project would bring. He said the wind project is very different from the Navy’s plans for an OLF, which drew strong opposition from county officials. A landing field would have been a year round operation and more hazardous to pilots and area residents, he said.

“Jets flying into birds is a big difference from birds flying into a windmill,” he said.

The county board of commissioners is scheduled to consider a resolution addressing the project at its March 12 meeting.

Highest Structures Around

The turbines, essentially towers with huge swirling blades attached to generators, are designed to catch wind blowing across the saucer-flat terrain about 20 miles east of Washington.  They would be the highest structures for miles around, standing as tall as a 50-story building and looming over elevated water tanks, grain silos and fields of corn and wheat.

The utilities commission is considering a proposed order filed by the company, the commission’s public staff and the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association, a non-profit organization that promotes renewable energy.  The proposed order calls for approval of the project on the condition that it complies with environmental laws and regulations.

Before building turbines, the company would be required to prepare a bird and bat protection plan in consultation with federal wildlife agencies as well as a post-construction monitoring and management plan. The company would also have to file annual reports on the monitoring and management plan.

Paul Quinlan

Paul Quinlan, managing director of the sustainable energy association, said his group supports the project with conditions for further studies because it would be the first large-scale wind farm in the state and would also diversify state energy resources. A proposed wind farm project near Elizabeth City was put on hold earlier this year after the project’s owners couldn’t find a utility willing to buy the power.

Benny Carowan, a Pantego area farmer, said he had no qualms about leasing a portion of his 1,000 acres for five wind turbines. He said lease payments will provide income and he will still be able to grow corn, wheat and soybeans in the flashing shadow of the blades.

Carowan said not all area farmers welcome waterfowl, especially tundra swans that yank their field crops out of the ground and compact the soil. He said the only downside he expected from having turbines near his home were momentary flashes of light from the blades in the morning and late afternoon.

“Wind farming is just a kind of farming,” he said.

On a sunny mild day recently, wind whipped across empty fields and a few turkey vultures and an occasional hawk soared overhead. But during winter months, some fields are covered with thousands of white snow geese and tundra swans that leave the refuges to forage. The swans, large birds with a 5 ½ foot wing span, and other birds are known to fly between roosting and foraging areas at night.

Howard Phillips, manager of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, said the wind farm could cause birds to lose foraging areas by avoiding sites and kill others that strike the turbine blades, especially at night.  He said “detrimental impacts” to tundra swans are likely, and other migratory birds such as bald eagles might be affected.  Deaths from blade strikes could be considered a violation of the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, he said. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which manages the refuges, wrote the utilities commission a letter objecting to the project.

Company officials say they will address concerns about birds and bats following a series of studies in the area before and after the wind turbines are built. According to testimony filed with the utilities commission, the studies will determine bat activity and proximity to the structures. The studies will also count the number of birds, monitor the movement of tundra swans, prepare maps of over-wintering waterfowl and determine if there are raptor nests in the area.

“There are very intense studies targeting the areas where the turbines are proposed,” said David Groberg, an Invenergy vice president in Rockville, Md.

He said the studies, which will be submitted to the commission, will provide sufficient information to deal with potential effects on waterfowl. He scoffed at suggestions that the project will avoid a complete environmental review, saying the company has an obligation to minimize impacts.

Critics: Studies Inadequate

But critics say the studies will be inadequate and a full environmental assessment should be completed.

Joe Albea

Joe Albea, a Greenville writer and television producer who has extensively filmed and photographed waterfowl in the region, said there were fewer snow geese on the refuge this year, apparently because of the unusually mild winter. As many as 82,000 birds have been counted in the past, he said, but there were about 55,000 this year.

“They aren’t getting a true reading,” he said of the wind farm studies.

Albea, who vigorously opposed the Navy plans for an outlying landing field, said he was worried that if the initial wind project is approved additional foraging land would be lost later. “They are taking, incrementally, land away from the birds,” he said.

Doris Morris, another outspoken OLF activist, said a study of bird activity should cover at least three years to properly gauge feeding conditions when different crops are in the fields. In addition, she said, studying the flocks at night is crucial to understand how they move from one area to another.

Morris sees parallels in the wind farm project and the Navy’s attempt to acquire 30,000 acres for jets to practice aircraft carrier landings. She said the Navy and Invenergy contended they could overcome any problems posed by the birds after they finished the projects.

Larry Hodges of Friends of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife National Refuge, a private support group, worries that if the wind farm deters waterfowl from coming to the area the Navy may eventually want to make another attempt to use the land for an OLF.  “That’s the scary part,” he said.

Martin Marietta wants to pump about 9 million gallons of water a day from a proposed limestone quarry in Beaufort County into a creek that feeds the Pamlico River. The discharge is too laden with minerals to be used as drinking water, but critics contend it wouldn’t be very good for plants and animals of Blounts Creek either.

Some say the fresh, mineral-rich discharge will harm the brackish backwater on the south side of the river and make it less attractive to saltwater fish and crabs.

“Fish are mobile and they would probably go somewhere else,” said Dr. Anthony Overton, a biology professor at East Carolina University in Greenville. “The problem lies with those animals and plants that can’t move. They will die.”

Overton said he didn’t know precisely how quarry water would change salinity levels in the creek but he said the volume could “alter the whole system.”

Martin Marietta Materials Inc. wants to build the quarry near the border of Beaufort and Craven counties east of Vanceboro to excavate and crush limestone rock used in highway asphalt and other construction projects. The $25 million project, designed to operate for 50 years, includes an open-pit mine on 649 acres of a 1,600-acre tract.

The Raleigh-based company began studying the pine-covered site seven years ago and received a state mining permit in 2010.  The initial review attracted little public attention.

But that changed markedly when it came to proposals for ground water and creek water.  Concerns raised by area residents prompted a series of public meetings, demands for additional studies and outright opposition.

State and federal agencies are considering company requests for additional permits for work that would affect wetlands and public water.

Company officials say the most feasible way to excavate the limestone deposit 50 to 60 feet underground is to dewater the pit site by pumping out groundwater. The discharge will include water pumped from deep underground and stormwater on the surface. The average discharge would be about 9 million gallons a day, but it could increase to 11 million gallons on some days, company representatives say.

Plans call for the water to travel through 11 miles of manmade ditches and discharge into the creek at two points.

Paxton Badham, a Martin Marietta vice president, said at public informational meeting in January that the water would be acclimated to the surroundings by the time it reaches the creek.

He said the company has a track record of safely operating dozens of mines in the state and would continue it in Beaufort County. “We’re not going to come in this county, make a mess and leave,” he said.  “We plan to operate this quarry responsibly for a long time and be a good neighbor.”

Others are convinced that putting 3.3 billion gallons of water each year into a small creek will inevitably change the neighborhood.

Don Distefano, a mechanical engineer who lives near the mouth of the creek a few miles east of Chocowinity, said he enjoys having flounder, puppy drum and striped bass in the scenic waters near his home where dolphins cavort in the water and ospreys swoop overhead.

Distefano calculated that the quarry discharge would amount to roughly one percent of the creek volume. One percent may not sound like much, he said, but it adds up over time and essentially flushes the creek every 100 days.

“That doesn’t make sense at all,” he said. “You want to make it a freshwater creek, that’s a bad idea.”

Distefano suggested that the water could be sprayed on fields or used by water systems.

He emphasized that while he objected to the water being put into Blounts Creek, he did not oppose the quarry. “I want them to do the right thing to create that mine and do no harm,” he said.

The Pamlico Tar River Foundation, an environmental and educational organization in Washington, says more studies are needed to determine how the discharge will affect downstream areas. The foundation also says the mine will increase the drawdown of groundwater that is the source of drinking water for Washington and Beaufort counties and Vanceboro and for hundreds of people who use wells.

Heather Deck, the foundation’s Riverkeeper, said the company had not adequately studied the effects of the discharge on downstream areas. “It’s a lot of water,” she said. “That changes what organisms will live there.”

She said having the water put to use by area water systems would be a viable option. Another option is to pump the groundwater back into the aquifer, she said, but that is not allowed if it is mixed with stormwater.  The company would still need to address the problems created for individual wells that tap groundwater.

Dr. Richard Spruill, the company’s groundwater consultant, said at the public informational meeting that the groundwater is hard water that would have be treated to remove calcium, iron and magnesium to make it useful in public drinking water systems. He said there have been some discussions with area systems about the possibility of using the water.  So far no agreements have been reached.

Company officials say they will work with area residents to provide new pumps or deeper wells to offset loss of water in individual wells.

But the state Division of Water Quality wants more answers before issuing a draft discharge permit. It asked the company in a Feb. 13 letter for an “expanded” analysis of alternatives to its plan to discharge into the creek. Specifically, the company will have to re-evaluate the feasibility of injecting water drained from the mine back into the aquifer and treating and reusing that water to supply drinking-water systems or some other use.

The division has also asked the company to define a “zone of impact” for its proposed discharge on the creek, including the point downstream where its effects on the hydrology, marine life and the salinity of the creek would be “considered insignificant.”

Martin Marietta Materials has 30 days to respond to letter.

“We’re pleased that the state has taken this step,” Deck said. “In our commenting on this and in our discussions with the state we always our pointed out that the company had failed to do this type of analysis at the front end, particularly reusing the water or injecting it back into the aquifer. We believe those to be reasonable alternatives and potentially feasible.”

A division spokeswoman said a draft permit would then be available for public review and be subject of a public hearing. A hearing date has not been set.

The company is also seeking approval from the Army Corps of Engineers for work that will affect 6.64 acres of wetlands and about 11 miles of ditches under corps jurisdiction.  A corps spokesman said a decision would be made after the company completes additional studies.