The AEF Board of Directors wisely voted in July to move forward with an adjudicatory appeal of the ADEQ’s brand new industrial stormwater general permit, which had become effective July 1.  Federation concerns are technical, financial and philosophical.  The technical issues are deliniated in the Water Committee section of this website (members only).  The financial issue can be summed up in 6 million reasons–as in dollars of expenditures for new compliance efforts statewide.  Philosophically, we believe that a requirement by ADEQ that has broad-based application to a large category of facilities is a “rule”…whether it’s called a “regulation,” or a “general permit.”  If it walks like a rule and talks like a rule…chances are it is a rule.  Rules in Arkansas can only become such after formal public hearings, cost/benefit analysis, analysis of small business impacts, Legislative analysis and Legislative review.  Even EPA has recently been slapped down by a federal court on this same issue and has quietly moved to a formal rulemaking process for its own general permits.

ADEQ thinks otherwise, and reportedly is taking steps to eliminate all general permits if the AEF’s appeal is successful.  This is not the only response the Department could take, and furthermore it is not an appropriate response.  A quickie Google search finds at least 15 states that already require general permits to go through a rulemaking process.

The AEF believes that general permits are needed, they are a cost effictive method of regulating permittees and they are beneficial to the environment when appropriately applied.  Threatening to toss that regulatory tool from their toolbox in a pique over losing on the issue of “process” is delitorious to sound management of the water quality program.

The AEF’s appeal will continue and is expected to be adjudicated by mid-November 2009.  In the mean time, ADEQ has notified permittees that the new general permit is no longer available to potential permittess.

The Grand Poobah

The Turk power plant battle has taken some odd twists and turns in recent months, with the Sierra Club and Audubon Arkansas taking the lead in challenging the coal fired ultra super-critical power plant in southwest Arkansas.  In early June, the same two groups announced their backing of a backyard wind turbine project at the Dunbar Community Center in Little Rock.  Nice little project and we hope they are successful.  We need all the diversification of power sources we can find and create. 

But, it does strike one a little odd that the growing mountain of evidence indicates that wind turbines are indeed a source with negative impacts to our feathered friends, the very creatures that these two wind-advocating groups were originally focused on in decades past.  Recent studies indicate that for every megawatt of installed wind power, one to six birds are whacked annually.  The American Bird Conservancy estimates that US wind turbines currently kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds annually and with the environmentalists’ goal of producing 20% of our energy needs by 2030 by these aviarian cuisinarts, the feather count will explode…no pun intended.  With 300,000 mw in production by 2030-a twelve fold increase from 2008 levels-an estimated 300,000 - 1.8 million birds will be sliced and diced annually.  (Source:  Wall Street Journal, Sept. 8, 2009 Windmills are Killing our Birds by Robert Bryce)  Arguably, between 3 million to 18 million birds will become victims of windmill blades getting us to that goal over the next two decades.  It’s an inconvenient truth that feathered fans have yet to confront in their anti-coal war.

One wonders when the feds will apply the same strict enforcement to wind farms, turbine producers and alternative power companies that they have heaped upon traditional power companies in recent months.  Exxon was fined $600k for killing 85 birds in August under the provisions of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.  Pacificorp paid $1.4 million for killing 232 golden eagles in Wyoming over the past two years.  Comparable fines on the wind industry for today’s death toll would add about $1.95 billion annually to wind operation costs.   Those chickens have not yet come home to roost.

The moral-every form of energy has an environmental price…even “free” energy.

The Grand Poohbah