I am pleased to be able to…

I am pleased to be able to offer comments on the Regulatory changes under the Endangered Species Act to extend conditional exemptions for wind facilities. I am highly concerned that as written the exemption allows for continued fatalities of endangered bats in Ontario and the potential for companies to go unchecked, ultimately negatively impacting the species survival and recovery.

While existing wind facilities need a mechanism to allow for continued operation without having to be decommissioned for being out of compliance with the ESA, new facilities should be held to a higher standard and be required to pre-emptively account for species at risk, avoiding harm to these species and their habitat.

The regulations require significant improvement and should not proceed without increased checks and balances for at-risk bats.

Of primary concern is that the requirements to minimize adverse effects focus solely on cut-in speed, adjusting the blades and timing windows (times of day and year). While it is excellent to see a minimum cut-in speed of 7 meters per second and appropriate timing windows and timing period, additional considerations must be implemented for this regulation to properly mitigate these effects. Such considerations include:

1. Accounting for turbine height.
It is well understood that taller turbines have higher bat fatalities (Alexandra 2022, Georgiakakis 2012). Since this proposed regulation only pertains to the operation of facilities, not their construction, operation of taller turbines should have more stringent mitigation requirements.

2. Accounting for key habitats, migration corridors and roosts.
These can be important factors related to bat mortality at wind facilities (Barclay et al. 2007; Cryan and Brown 2007; Ferreira et al. 2015; Thompson et al. 2017; Davy et al. 2020) and should be taken into account. The operation of facilities in key habitats, migration corridors and roost locations should have more stringent mitigation requirements.

3. Custom approach to include minimum standards and thresholds.
Define minimum thresholds for the new custom approach for wind facilities. Allowing flexibility with the custom approach may be acceptable in some cases but minimum standards and thresholds are still required for oversight to ensure the custom mitigation measures are appropriate. For example, based on acoustic surveys, thresholds could be identified for cut in speed, specific to the number of bat passes recorded. It would not be appropriate to decrease the cut-in speed in areas in a custom approach if there are a high number of bat passes.

4. Ensure turbines don’t “free-wheel”.
Free-wheeling is when turbines continue to passively spin when not generating electricity. There continues to be a risk of fatality even though the turbine isn't "in operation". It must be specified that the cut-in speed pertains to blade movement, not just the wind speed at which they generate power.

5. Accounting for weather.
Studies show that precipitation and colder temperatures result in low mortality at wind facilities and overall lower bat activity (Squires 2021). It would be more appropriate to allow for operation of facilities under these conditions, which could maximize production while minimizing mortality.

6. Orientation.
Depending on how the blades are oriented it is possible that lower wind speeds can cause blades to turn before the cut-in speed. Turning the turbines so that they are parallel to the wind prevents this from happening and ensures blades only begin turning at a speed that minimizes the risk to bat species.

A mitigation plan with these additional factors is key and must be required to be submitted to the Ministry for each facility to ensure these are completed and available. The regulation needs to strike-out the statement that removes the requirement for facilities to submit their mitigation plan. Only requiring the companies to submit the mitigation plan at the request of the Ministry is not adequate to hold companies to account.

Mitigation plans should also be developed immediately, not waiting until January 31, 2026 (which would allow a full season of negative impacts with no mitigation plan in place). Windpower facilities have been fully aware of the need to account for bird and bat fatalities and should have already been planning or undertaking mitigation activities. There should be no difficulty to require these for the spring of 2025 prior to a peak period for migrating bats.

Literature Cited:

Alexandra M. Anderson, Catherine B. Jardine, J.R. Zimmerling, Erin F. Baerwald, and Christina M. Davy. 2022. Effects of turbine height and cut-in speed on bat and swallow fatalities at wind energy facilities. FACETS. 7: 1281-1297. https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2022-0105

Barclay RMR, Baerwald EF, and Gruver JC. 2007. Variation in bat and bird fatalities at wind energy facilities: assessing the effects of rotor size and tower height. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 85(3): 381–387.
Cryan PM, and Brown AC. 2007. Migration of bats past a remote island offers clues toward the problem of bat fatalities at wind turbines. Biological Conservation, 139(1): 1–11.

Davy CM, Squires K, and Zimmerling JR. 2020. Estimation of spatiotemporal trends in bat abundance from mortality data collected at wind turbines. Conservation Biology, 35(1): 227–238.

Ferreira D, Freixo C, Cabral JA, Santos R, and Santos M. 2015. Do habitat characteristics determine mortality risk for bats at wind farms? Modelling susceptible species activity patterns and anticipating possible mortality events. Ecological Informatics, 28: 7–18.

Georgiakakis P, Kret E, Cárcamo B, Doutau B, Kafkaletou-Diez A, Vasilakis D, et al. 2012. Bat fatalities at wind farms in north-eastern Greece. Acta Chiropterologica. 14(2): 459–468.

Squires, K.A.; Thurber, B.G.; Zimmerling, J.R.; Francis, C.M. Timing and Weather Offer Alternative Mitigation Strategies for Lowering Bat Mortality at Wind Energy Facilities in Ontario. Animals 2021, 11, 3503.