Officials approve Altamont wind turbines permit extension

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- The National Audubon Society suffered a major blow Tuesday when the Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved an extension of old wind turbine permits on the Altamont Pass.

Those windmills you see along Interstate 580 are slowly being replaced with high-efficiency ones, but as long as the old ones are operational, environmentalists say birds are at-risk.

This was a big surprise to wildlife advocates who thought because the zoning board had previously rejected that extension that the board of supervisors would do the same, but they were wrong.

The decision by the Alameda Board of Supervisors means Altamont Winds Incorporated will continue to operate its older windmills more than 800 of them until 2018. Several years ago the company had promised to switch its older turbines to high efficiency models by this year. But they knew they were going to miss their deadline and asked for an extension. The other four companies out there along the Altamont Pass will be able to meet their deadlines. All of them will eventually have the much larger windmills, which is what the National Audubon Society wanted. Larger windmills create a lot more more power than the older, smaller ones, so they'll need fewer of them. In a few years, there will be only 447 turbines down from a high of more than 3,300.

"A single new turbine can replace anywhere from 10 to 30 of the old turbines, so you simple have fewer objects in the landscape that pose risk to birds," National Audubon Society spokesperson Michael Lynes said.

According to Audubon California, keeping these older models for three more years, will cause the death of about 1,600 birds.

The company argued before the Alameda County Board of Supervisors that it needed more time to make that switch and that jobs would be lost if they were not granted the extension.

"The staff that I'm using for repowering is the staff that we are using not to break the wind farms and so if there is no revenues after this year, most of the staff would have to go away," Altamont Winds President Rich Koebbe said.

That was a big selling point for the board. They believed jobs were more important and voted 3-2 to grant that extension through 2018.