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PS – 06:

11-May-2015
(PS-06: Clive Hambler Offers Support & Contacts To Oppose Stroat Wind Turbine)

• You may find this correspondence of value with both its invaluable facts and quotes and its many links:

This gentleman (Clive Hambler) is an author and lecturer at Oxford, I emailed him today and he responded in 20 minutes with so useful information for me.

I have emailed a few more organisations linked to bats, birds and bees and will email James Delingpole tomorrow about his article http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100227983/wind-turbines-are-a-human-health-hazard-the-smoking-gun/ to see whether he may wish to comment on the application.

At 18:16 10/05/2015 +0100, you wrote:
Hello Clive My name is Claire and I live on in a house along the A48 just 3 miles out of Chepstow, and am lucky enough to be surrounded by all kinds of wildlife.

We can see the River Severn from our windows and we felt very lucky that our 3 young boys were able to take advantage of their surroundings.

However last week we were sent a planning application from our local council, Forest of Dean (Ref: P0365/15/FUL ) suggesting that a 87m wind turbine be placed just 455m from our home. On researching this proposal I found that it was just one of a handful that is being planned by the same company (resilience) up this side of the severn all within just a few miles of each other.

<http://www.saynotosevernturbines.org.uk/>http://www.saynotosevernturbines.org.uk/(as shown in the link)

There are many objecting groups in the area but I fear that they are not being listened to and even when the planning application is refused, the application has gone to appeal and won.

We have a long battle ahead of us and I discovered a article you wrote in 2013
<http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8807761/wind-farms-vs-wildlife/>http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8807761/wind-farms-vs-wildlife/
which I felt highlighted all of the issues that these wind turbine will impact.

I worry not just about the impact on my children and our lifestyle but also about the wildlife that we see every day and also the birds that return here to nest each year.

We have a family of swallows who return to one of our sheds, they have done this for the last 10 years. I would be ever so grateful if you could help in any way, even a letter of objection or comment would be very much appreciated, also if you know of anyone else or any organisation that may wish to help.

We only found out on May 1st and have until May 18th to respond and try to get the message to more people that they may affect, it is a mammoth task when there is so much to research .

Anyway I thank you for taking the time to read this email and hope to hear from you soon.

Kind Regards
Claire Ford

Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 19:00:00 +0100

To: dinkey_4d@hotmail.co.uk
From: clive.hambler@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Severn Estuary Wind Turbines

Hi Claire,

I’m sorry to hear of your problem.

Putting wind turbines near such an important wildlife site (one of the best in Britain) is more daft than the usual plan.

I’m very glad the Spectator article has proved useful.

I will have a look at the plan and might send the planning officers a note.

It’s risky commenting on sites one is remote from.

I have suggested that swallows and relatives are at relatively high risk from wind turbines: http://wcfn.org/2013/07/01/tip-of-the-iceberg/

Have you seen these articles, and the references in them: http://www.swlg.org.uk/uploads/6/3/3/8/6338077/spwln_final_small.pdf.

There are reports you can find on Google of seabirds (‘seagulls’) being killed by wind turbines.

They are a treat to terns, shawaters, swans, scoter, geese etc etc.

For other detrimental impacts of wind power, see Hambler, C. & Canney, S. M. (2013).

Conservation. Cambridge University Press.

Here’s the section from it on wind farms; sorry the formatting may come out a mess: “Solar power and wind power have a low energy density, and thus require very extensive collecting surfaces, and can be particularly problematic if they are to feed into grids designed for centralised power generation.

Wind turbines and their cables kill birds and bats – many of which breed slowly and range widely – with impacts far beyond the site boundaries.

Wind farms can be population sinks or traps (Section 6.1), attracting and killing predators and bats (Long et al., 2011).

Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles are threatened with global extinction by wind farms.

In North America, wind farms kill protected species (such as bald and golden eagles, and migrants) and will become a grave threat to numerous species unless adequately regulated (Drewitt & Langston, 2008; American Bird Conservancy, 2011). In California, tens of thousands of raptors have been killed, threatening the golden eagle population. Similarly, in Spain, millions of birds and bats are killed each year, threatening the Egyptian vulture population, and over 400 Griffon vultures were killed in 1 year at Navarra alone (Plate 3). Norwegian wind farms kill over 10 white-tailed eagles per year, and the population of Smøla has been severely impacted by turbines built against opposition by ornithologists.

Densities of a range of upland birds are reduced within about 500 m of wind turbines in Scotland, whilst in North America tall structures displace sage grouse.

Offshore wind farms (with associated lighting and maintenance ships) are a growing threat to seabirds and migratory birds, reducing habitat availability for marine birds (such as common scoter and eider ducks) and risking interference with navigation.

Bats are killed by impacts, and by pressure shocks near the blades of turbines (Nicholls & Racey, 2007; Arnett et al., 2008), with migratory and forest species being highly vulnerable.

There are also substantial impacts from the turbines’ foundations, cables, cable trenches, lighting, construction and access roads, with important montane forests being destroyed – as in Vermont, USA.”

Are there any bat colonies within about 10km of the area, or woods or caves which might host them?

I think it’s far from ethical to put structures known to attract and kill bats within several kilometers of colonies, especially for very rare species.

It might be argued that deaths can reasonably be anticipated, and it’s thus illegal.

That argument has worked in a prosecution in the USA involving birds of prey: http://news.yahoo.com/guilty-plea-bird-deaths-wind-farms-first-081651963–finance.html http://www.thegwpf.org/wind-turbines-killed-600000-bats-year/

I think the British guidelines for bats are inadequate, given attraction to turbines from over 14 km: http://wcfn.org/2013/07/01/tip-of-the-iceberg/

For the study of Europe’s bats being killed in wind farms in Germany, see: The catchment area of wind farms for European bats: A plea for international regulations Voigt, C. C. et al 2012 Biological Conservation 153, 80-86.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320712002091

http://www.alphagalileo.org/Organisations/ViewItem.aspx?OrganisationId=1120&ItemId=122066&CultureCode=en

Other sources:
http://windfarmaction.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/brief-summary-of-recent-international-research-on-the-risk-to-bats-from-wind-turbines/

Bats in Greece:
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3161/150811012×661765

Bats stop wind farm in Wales:
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2013/01/05/giant-wind-turbine-plan-on-anglesey-halted-by-bats-55578-32548018/

The expert / NGO who can best advise on the continental figures for wind farm mortality for birds and bats is Mark Duchamp, of Save the Eagles international and formerly the European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW):
Mark Duchamp <save.the.eagles2@gmail.com>
Paying reliable consultants to do bat surveys might be a good investment.

For example, Bioscan UK do bat surveys.

I’ve recently had similar correspondence from other people concerned about wind farms, bats and birds, who might be able to share their experiences with you.

Pooling information seems sensible.

You can say I gave you their contact details, in the hope it’s to mutual benefit sharing relevant knowledge:
John Yelland <yelland.john@live.fr> trying to save bats on the Isle of Wight
Anthony J Trewavas <trewavas@ed.ac.uk> bats in Scotland
Peter Gardner <peter.gardner@indecon.co.uk> bats Bedfordshire
Oliver Sheard <olivers100@hotmail.co.uk> Huddersfield
See also the huge argument over Navitus Bay and wind farms – offshore sites might have similar issues to onshore ones near key wildlife sites.

There are a lot of comments on the plans which you might track down though here: http://www.challengenavitus.org.uk/

Hope that helps. Sorry if the above focus on bats is less useful – but I had compiled the references above for a similar enquiry, so you might as well have them in case they are relevant!

Bats are relatively strictly protected, but wind farms are often permitted in places which show little real planning concern for at-risk species.

Best wishes,
Clive

 

We believe the information gathered on this site can act to bring the truth, regarding the dishonesty of the claimed benefits of Wind Turbines (WT) to the front of people’s minds as they are regularly taxed, in a hidden tax, on their energy bills to fund these politically correct and fundamentally all but useless monstrosities.

We have gathered a great deal of information in our efforts to prevent the industrialisation of Stroat and the banks of the Severn Estuary and across the wider area including the Forest of Dean (FoD) as administered by The Forest of Dean District Council (FoDDC), areas of outstanding natural beauty (AoONB), sites of special scientific interest (SSI) & wildlife habitats.

Please help to spread the truth about the Wind Turbine scam and the fundamental flaws and lies of the ‘Warmists’ & self proclaimed ‘Greens’, which are presented as ‘fact’, regarding the anthropogenic influence of mankind on Global Warming and Climate Chance.

Arm yourself with facts to defeat the biggest con of the late 20th and early 21st Century, and do please spread the truth and the URL of this site as widely as you can.

Posted by: Greg Lance – Watkins (site owner)

If you would like more information about Stroat see: http://Stroat-Gloucestershire.com/

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