A controversial windfarm on the Black Sea reveals how wellintended, supposedly progressive facilities can lose favour even within the environmental movement - By Ariyoshi Kusumi Photo: MTI DAMMED IF YOU DO: Above, the oldest hydroelectric dam in Hungary still functions after 100 years but no longer enjoys the support it once had from nature conservationists. Since November, Bulgaria’s Minister of Environment Dolores Aresnova has struggled to divine a prevailing political current concerning wind farms. An e-mail campaign initiated by a Bulgarian bird protection society and backed by BirdLife International urged her to revoke an approval for one such facility due to its siting on a migratory bird route. The project, proposed by Bulgarian firm Tessa Energy Ltd near the town of Balchik on the Black Sea, called for the erection of 12 turbines. According to Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB), at least 87,000 storks, 7,000 raptors and 9,000 pelicans passed through the construction site during this past autumn’s migrations. According to the authors of the e-petition, a large number of flying birds are attracted by the specific geomorphological and metheo-physical characteristics of the proposed construction site, which makes it an Important Bird Area of Global Importance. Construction of the wind farm would inevitably lead to the killing of a large number of flying birds, BSPB claimed. The Balchik case is one of many that find different factions of the environmental movement — in this case advocates of renewable energy use and wildlife preservationists — on opposite sides of political spats. An identical case was reported by birdwatchers in Navara, Spain, where in one year a wind farm of 368 wind turbines killed 409 griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus), and 24 other birds of prey including golden and booted eagles (Aquila chrysaetos, Hieraaetus pennatus). Other victims of the whirling blades included 650 bats and 6,450 small birds. Near Altamont Pass, California, some 7,000 wind turbines caused the death of 52 golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) out of 257 that were monitored. Photo: BTA The first wind generator to connect to Bulgaria’s power grid was installed by the Danish company Bonus. Rated at 150kW/h, the facility provides electricity to the only pig farm in the country with a policy of humane treatment of its animals. The windfarm near the town of Burgas is managed by Rumen Karamanov. Wind power is not the only troublemaker. Other known environmental problems caused by renewable energy resources include impacts to animals such as birds, bats and certain species of fish. Power generators that run on clean sources can cause noise, radio interference and visual pollution of the landscape. Judging between contradicting environmental interests is a hard task for the experts and politicians. Renewable energy resources have traditionally been considered environmentally more sustainable than traditional ones. But over the years scientists, activists and politicians have had shifting notions of what constitutes a renewable energy source. As a result nuclear power and large hydropower plants have gradually been ousted from the chart of renewables. Public scepticism has now fallen on once highly favoured solutions such as wind turbines and small river generators. Identifying the public's priority among different environmental problems becomes harder in today's environmentally sceptical world. The more renewable energy facilities become part of everyday life, the more concerned people will be about their environmental impacts. Designing and operating renewable energy production facilities demands extreme care to avoid environmental harm, said Janos Zlinszky, a senior advisor at the REC. — Ariyoshi Kusumi is an associate professor of environmental science at Chukyo University in Japan

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