Ep. 42: Pattern Energy and the Intersection of Wind, Wires and Wildlife

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to another exciting episode of
the IVA podcast. I'm really thrilled today to have two
I can almost say old friends at this point because
I've known both of these gentlemen for a fair number
of years.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I've got some folks on the show today who are
from the renewable energy sector. These are some individuals I
met in Albuquerque a number of years ago when Pattern
Energy opened up an invitation for some of the environmental
advocates and the wildlife advocates across the state of New
Mexico to go to the Range Cafe for breakfast. Pattern Energy.

(00:38):
We was going to pick up the tab and it
was a listening session. What we had is professionals who
work on renewable energy installations and development coming to our
local community to listen to concerns from people who some
of whom didn't want the development, some of whom had
concerns about the impact it would have on wildlife, the

(01:00):
impact it would have on the landscape. But Pattern Energy,
rather than avoiding the conversation, welcomed it and they invited
us out. And I was one of the invitees who
was able to show up and talk to these gentlemen.
That's when I first met him. We've been talking for
years since, and I'm super super excited to have them
on the show today and listen to all of the

(01:20):
ways that they're working to ensure that renewable energy development
can be compatible with wildlife can also be compatible with
the activity of hunting, obviously, hunting being an activity that's
very near and dear to the hearts of the New
Mexico Wildlife Federation, our leadership, our membership, our board of directors,
something we care deeply about.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
The New Mexico Wildlife Federation presents the Ahiva podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
So joining me today on the show, we have Adam
Chernia Clark, and we also have Quinton Hayes. So Adam,
why don't we start with you? Man, you want to
introduce yourself, talk a little bit about what you do
for Pattern, and then we'll move over to Quentin.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
Yeah, thanks so much. Jesse. Yeah, so Adam, train to Clark.
I'm director on the environmental team at Pattern Energy. I
mostly work on projects during the development stage, kind of
phase out once construction gets figured out, and then I
also lead our environmental policy work. I've been working in
New Mexico for just about ten years, starting Curry County

(02:23):
with some wind projects, and then I've been mostly working
throughout the state, really working on large transmission projects that
facilitate wind energy, and then some mammoth sized wind projects
in Central New Mexico.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Fantastic, Thank you, Adam and Quentin.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
What is your role in all of this?

Speaker 5 (02:44):
Yeah, thanks Jesse, So you know, I appreciate the introduction.
You know, Quentin Hayes, I'm actually a senior wildlife ecologist
in the Wildlife and Renewables program director for a consulting firm,
Geosystems Analysis, Inc. We're based in Tucson. I do have
some New Mexico roots, though I was a faculty member
at Eastern New Mexico University for a number of years.

(03:06):
Was actually president of the New Mexico chapter of the
Wildlife Society about over a decade ago now, so I've
been working doing wildlife stuff in the state for quite
some time and have also been involved in this wildlife
renewable space for gosh, getting on towards twenty years, I
guess a good fifteen years started working on some of

(03:28):
these projects that Adam mentioned back in twenty ten in
Central New Mexico, trying to better understand, you know, the
interaction of potential renewable developments and wildlife and so you know,
I've been been working closely with Adam on you know,
some of the mitigation planning for these projects, and again

(03:49):
just trying to understand, you know, how wildlife and you know,
as you mentioned, hunting, those sorts of things could be
impacted by renewable de.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
So just to back up just a step here for
for our listeners that might not be super familiar with
what we're talking about. When when driving across New Mexico,
it's not uncommon to encounter areas of the state where
you see these giant windmills, right, And that's what we're
talking about when we're talking about wind energy renewable development.

(04:21):
I mean, solar is also another form of renewable, but
really what we're talking about are those giant windmills. You know,
we often it's it's amazing the size of those because
you know, when you see them at a distance, I mean,
they look big. But when you're driving down the interstate
next to a semi truck that's hauling a single blade
for one of those things, I think that's when most
of our listeners really recognize the immense size of these units.

(04:47):
I mean, they're they're just huge. So that's part of it.
So we're generating energy with the wind turbines, and then
we have to transmit that energy to where it's ultimately
going to be used. Is So, do you guys want
to talk just the little bit about kind of the
bare bones introduction basics to this particular type of energy,
why it matters, why this seems to be the direction

(05:10):
that the.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Country is going.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
And you know, thirty years ago you wouldn't see those
when I mean, I don't recall seeing those as a kid.
It's not until about the past I don't know, decade
or so that it seems like they become more and
more common. So if you guys would one of you,
I'll let you guys decide who picks up that question,
but I'd like want of you to talk about kind
of why this is the direction we're headed.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
Yeah, I can cover that one. Yeah. Likewise, I don't
really remember seeing a whole lot win turbans growing up
in Texas. And today we drove past one of the
blades on the highway, just like you were saying, that's
headed to the project. It's under construction right now. But yeah,
so you know patterns corporate mission is transitioning the world

(05:54):
to renewable energy. Right now. We have a grid that
was built around large fossil fuel plants that were typically
sighted near rail lines, typically near lower income communities, and
we have a transmission system, electrical transmission system that's built
arbitrarily around those. Now you speed up to today and

(06:20):
we're looking at connecting the grid to a bunch of
different winded solar projects around the country. A lot of
those are not the size of a coal plant in
terms of how many electrons they're generating, and they're not
going to be close to that coal plant, right or
a natural gas plant that's being decommissioned. So we have

(06:42):
to connect all of these different resources. And the more
power plants you have, the more resilient the system is,
you know, the more ways to fail. And the cool
thing about the Western United States is you've got solar
pretty much all day everywhere, right, so solar it's easier
to scale up and down. You can have a small
local solar community solar, you can have a big giant

(07:06):
project on ten thousand acres solar. Of course, though goes down,
you know, the sun goes down. And in the west,
as we're getting more and more of a green grid,
you'll hear what's called the duck curve, and that's where
the energy curve of solars sorts shaped like a duck bill,

(07:26):
where it goes up and then it falls off a cliff.
And in the absence of wind, you've got essentially fossil
fuels or batteries. That batteries and more solar right because
you need to shift your electrons to the evening. As
anyone who lives out here knows, wind goes up a

(07:49):
lot as the evening starts. And so if you think
about these two curves, you got a solar curve and
then the wind starts ramps up at night. You marry
those over and with all the redundancy of multiple power plants,
you've got a pretty well balanced grid where at the
margins you've got batteries and natural gas that will transition

(08:10):
probably more to storage like batteries. But what it means
is that wind and solar are super complimentary. The other piece, though,
is that wind is not the same everywhere you're down
at the bottom of a valley. It's not the same
as it is as you go up the side of

(08:31):
a topography.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
So.

Speaker 4 (08:35):
Wind has fewer places where it's really good wind, and
that means that it may not be close to where
all the people are. So that's where you have these
transmission facilitated mega projects wind projects, which is what Pattern's
been working on New Mexico. So a couple of years ago.

(08:56):
I worked on this for quite a while. Quentin supported us,
especially on a lot of eagle work and bat work.
We did the Western Spirit Transmission project, which is one
hundred and eighty miles or so up to Albuquerque area
and one thousand and fifty megawatt wind project. At the
time this was twenty twenty two. I think that was

(09:17):
twenty one. That was the largest wind project, single phase
wind project, in history of the Western Hemisphere. Now we're
building the Sunsia Transmission project and the Sinco Wind project,
and that's a five hundred and fifty mile high voltage
five hundred killo volt which is pretty much the highest

(09:37):
that you have in the US direct current, which is
not very common in the US, but it's extremely efficient
and it's really designed more for big projects. And then
with Sunsia wind is thirty five hundred megawat, so nearly
a thousand wind turbines, so really huge, and it ends

(09:58):
in in Arizona. So that's going to deliver all of
these electrons that are going to perfectly complement all that
solar energy that's coming online and really kind of take
a leap frog step for kind of creating a pathway
for decarbonize the grid in a way that's got reliable

(10:20):
and cheap electricity.

Speaker 6 (10:23):
Well that was next the explanation, Adam Quentin. You want
to add to that, Yes, sorry to jump jump in there.
I guess the thing that I would add about this too.
You know, certainly these projects that Pattern has been working
on is are impressive, and I think we're going to
we're going to talk about, you know, the responsible ways
in which they've designed the but then also the mitigation

(10:46):
projects that they're working on to offset some of the.

Speaker 7 (10:50):
Impacts from these projects.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
But I think the big thing here for me, as
a wildlife ecologist somebody that was an academic so to
speak for a while and still you know, a professional scientist,
is just the how important it is to really try
to do the best we can to combat climate change.

Speaker 7 (11:07):
You know, we're seeing it more and more.

Speaker 5 (11:09):
I don't think I have to tell you, Jesse, you
know what the effects are in the Southwest with you know,
these droughts and and certainly the even just the temperatures
that we're seeing extending into the fall even today. I mean,
I was surprised to how warm it was coming down
the Rio Grand today in New Mexico. And and you
know there's when we think about wildlife and the persistence

(11:32):
of wildlife populations, and you know, like the State of
the Global Wildlife Populations Report that the you know, National
Wildlife Federation publishes every year, and and you know, efforts
to combat climate change, you know, it really does take
big pushes and pushes like Adam was describing, to stand

(11:52):
up big win projects that complement solar projects that can help,
you know, get us off of this fossil fuel tendency
that has created this you know, this dynamic where we're
seeing impacts all across you know, the biosphere because of
anti Virginia climate change, and so you know, it's just
important to always point that out. You know, I think

(12:14):
in the like in the Pacific Northwest, we're seeing two
projects that, while not fossil fuel driven, you know, there's
a big push to remove dams. You know, the Klamath
River just pulled a bunch of dams out there, originally
hydro projects and and you know those electrons have to
be replaced somewhere. Right. We have more people, more power needs,

(12:34):
we have big data centers, all these things coming online.
So you know, and I think you mentioned at the
beginning of your introduction, but we just we have to
we have to produce the power somewhere. And you know,
if we can do it responsibly in a way that
doesn't you know, continue to contribute to climate change, and
then that's ultimately a positive thing.

Speaker 4 (12:53):
And you know, another piece that this is not a
wildlife piece, but it is really rewarding, is you know,
Sunzio Wind is massive project, five hundred and fifty thousand
acres mostly private ranches. And I remember the first time
I heard a rancher saying that one of their kids
was moving from the city back to the ranch. Unlike

(13:16):
fossil fuels, where where the revenue comes and goes based
off of the price of barrel oil, our revenues just
increase with inflation, right, So that's a steady revenue. And
for these transmission facilitated projects. Is so dang hard to
get the power line built. I mean, the power lines
are harder than the wind projects in my opinion, to do.

(13:40):
Once you've developed all that infrastructure, you've really got long
term decades of stable revenue source for these ranches that
are really struggling, and you know, the alternatives probably them
getting subdivided into pieces. You know, I'll be really interesting
twenty years from now whether or not there were nearby

(14:03):
ranches are chopped up into smaller ranches. But I suspect
the ones where we're hosting these wind projects are going
to continue to be in the same families and not
broken up into pieces because they've got revenue every single
year for decades. And it's completely compatible with ranching. Other
parts of the country where we work farming as well.

(14:26):
But you've got cattle hiding in the shade of a
wind turbine. There's elk hiding in the shade of a
wind turbine. I was here on the other day that
we have scratches from antlers, you know, from elks rubbing
up against a wind turbine, pronghorn running through there. So
they're huge, they're spread out, unlike solar which is really

(14:48):
concentrated but has a major land use change. You know,
we're looking like three percent of a project area after
construction's done, so it's really compatible with existing branching and
the recreational use that people are used to having out
in the West.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Those are really great points, Adam, and I appreciate you
bringing those up. And Quentin, thanks for, you know, really
kind of tackling the climate change issue. Because here we
are recording this podcast mid October, right after Hurricane Milton
at Florida, following up from a hurricane that hit just
before it, and the devastation has been so massive, and

(15:29):
obviously the climate pattern, you know, climate change is creating
weather patterns that we haven't seen before. At these kind
of catastrophic events across the globe are occurring. In New Mexico,
we're seeing catastrophic wildfires.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
You guys are I.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Think as we're recording this, if you don't mind me saying,
you're both in Riodoso, New Mexico right now and you've
probably seen the fire scars from recent tragic catastrophic wildfires
down there. So climate change is something that needs to
be addressed. And also people want power, people want to
hit the light switch and they want the lights to
turn on. In fact, one of the things we hear

(16:05):
about after a big storm like Milton to just hit
Florida is how many people are without power and the
issues that that creates and the problems that that causes.
But going back to the breakfast meeting we had in Albuquerque, Gods,
it was probably twenty nineteen. It was probably five years
ago when I first first met you guys, if I
remember right. But a lot of the groups that were there,

(16:26):
and I was there mostly it as an observer. I
had just started with the New Mexico Whilfe Federation in
December of twenty eighteen, so I was still trying to
learn my way around the office and the code to
the copy machine kind of thing. So I didn't have
I didn't have a ton of input in that conversation necessarily,
but I heard different groups. There were a lot of
them there that had concerns, some concerns about the impact

(16:50):
that the windmills themselves have on wildlife, and then some
that had concerns about the transmission lines and what those
transmission lines meant as far as potential negative impacts for wildlife,
and so I'm interested to hear if you guys can
address some of those concerns, and you did at that
breakfast meeting, but I'd like it. I'm sure since that's

(17:10):
been five years ago, there's been changes and advancements even
from that conversation. But would you like to share with
the listeners some of the things that pattern has done
and is doing to address the concerns that were brought
up in that breakfast meeting.

Speaker 4 (17:26):
Yeah, I mean that's a long one. I think maybe first,
because it's a simpler story, we can talk about the wind.
You know where these wind projects are, Torrents. Lincoln County
is a really great place to put wind turbants. I think,
all things being equal, we don't have critically endangered species.

(17:51):
It's a mosaic of savannah and juniper, which like millions
and millions of acres in New Mexico, well really a
lot of the West. I think the main species that
we were worried about was golden eagles. And this is
how Quentin I got to meet each other. We've probably
got the largest avian use survey data in the country,

(18:15):
or one of them just doing these projects, and you know,
these projects took longer than we wanted. So we even
had avian data that was going stale because it was
five years old, and we resurveyed at those locations, but
we had helicopter surveys. I've been lucky enough to get
to go up with Quentin and some of the texts

(18:36):
to find all the the eagle nests, large raptor nests,
cliffness mostly and we go back year after year. And
you know what we did was we just created a
big circle with the two mile radius and I told
our GIS mapping team that that's now a dead zone.

(18:58):
No turbines are allowed there. And you know that's where
us vision wise service. That's kind of their best practice
is if you've gotten eagle nest and it's active or
you don't know if it's inactive, which is the same
thing for us, the best thing you can do is
remove from your project by getting rid of all the

(19:20):
turbines within two miles. So that's what we did. As
it's some other things. There's there's a lot of cars there,
so lots of training features and we heard about a
bat cave and so we once again I told the
GIS team that we needed to get rid of turbines within.
I don't remember what the radius was, but it was
at least a mile to create some clearance there. I

(19:46):
don't know, Quinn, this is really your wheelhouse if you
want to add anything, Hey.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Quinn, before before you jump in there, Adam, I'm just
gonna interrupt for just a second and might be diving
a little too deep into your, uh the intri cacies
of pattern and your organization. But I just want to
I'm assuming I don't know your business well, but I'm
assuming that those turbanes translate into revenue. I mean, every

(20:11):
turbine has a certain revenue value associated with it. And
it's sounding like to me that Pattern Energy is providing
you with the ability, as someone who's concerned about the
environmental impact to say we're not doing it here.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
And when you say.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
That, that's just the way it goes like. It doesn't
sound like this is turning into a giant meeting in
front of investors and members saying well, wait a second,
by removing those turbines, this is the financial impact it's
going to have on our organization. It's sounding like you
have the ability to analyze the situation, assesses an area,

(20:48):
and make a decision, and then that decision is honored.
And I recognize if that's going too deep into your
kind of personal workings of the organization, but is that
essentially how it works.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
Yeah, that's that's right. I mean, we have subject matter experts.
So another guy killed a bunch of turbans because of
KARST because the geotechnical conditions weren't good. Nobody's second guessing them.
They're non titled to just come up off the fly.
I had helicopter data, right, so nobody, nobody's going to

(21:20):
second guess me. At the same time, we killed a
ton of turbans working with the Department of Defense because
you know, there's a ton of military training routes and
so there's a lot of different factors, and for each
one there's a subject matter expert who nobody's really entitled
the second second guests in a serious way because it's

(21:41):
their job to be it's my job to be the
environmental guy, and I have to back up what I'm doing.
But yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
I you described it as accurate, and that's fantastic. That's
that's really inspiring to hear about that. Because I've worked
for large corporations before and I can. I just I
have experience in some large operations and sometimes it seems
like it's the generation of revenue that drives all the decisions.
And it sounds like with Pattern Energy there's a much

(22:09):
more thoughtful and appropriate process in place to help drive
the decisions that are being made as to the siting
location or where these turbines are actually being installed. So
that's super great to hear. I appreciate that, Adam, thanks
for the explanation and starting to interrupt there, Quinn.

Speaker 4 (22:26):
No, no, no, just what I think part of it
is that not to go on about it, but I
think Pattern prides ourselves in doing challenging projects that have
hair on them, so to speak. But not we don't
do bad projects. I'll kill a project before we spend
a penny on it because of environmental issue. But if

(22:46):
you're going to do hard projects, it means you have
to take everyone seriously, especially the environmental permitting people, because
once you're west of the Rockies, that's how half of
projects die. So yeah, just thought layer that on.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
Yeah, I guess I'll jump in and maybe hit rewind
just a little bit and get back to some of
those environmental issues, you know, we're in Rudoso, as you mentioned, Jesse,
and you know, this is a place I used to live.
My kids were born here, and you know, I've I
was here for the Little Bear Fire in twenty twelve,
and I have employees that live here, and you know,

(23:21):
lived through the South Fork fire this year and whatnot,
and a bunch of other fires, and so you know
that definitely hits home. I mentioned all that because you know,
this is a really beautiful part of the state and
you know, the wind projects that Adam mentioned up near
Corona aren't that far from here, and you know, I
just guess I think it's important to say that. You know,

(23:45):
it's kind of a it's complicated, right, so from an
ecological viewpoint, So we'll take gold eagles as a as
a case study. Golden eagles are you know, they're they're
found all over the world. There are Palearctic species, but
there's not a lot of them, and they have huge
home ranges and it takes a really long time to reproduce,
and they in the Southwest, where they're relatively sparse, they
don't reproduce successfully very often, and yet they're super important,

(24:07):
you know, on the landscape. But that said, in the Southwest,
there's not nearly as many of them as there aren't
places like Montana or Oregon or you know, if you
go along the Columbia River Gorge, you know that, you know,
where Washington's to the north and Oregon's to the south,
there's golden eagle nests just sort of lining the cliffs
of the Columbia River. And here, you know, there are some,

(24:30):
and you know they they are out there and they're
on the landscape, but they're much fewer of them. And
so that means that when you have a wind project
here and you set those turbines back by two miles,
you know, you're much like less likely to have impacts
to golden eagles than you would in a different place.
So when Adam says that all things being equal, this
is a good place to cite these projects, that's what

(24:52):
he's getting at that, you know, like in the grand
scheme of things, the wind is good, and you know,
there aren't a lot of like ma gere ecological impacts
in central New Mexico that you know, projects like this
are going to have. Now that said, as someone who
has been you know, out there running around on some
of these beautiful ranches since really for the last fifteen years.

(25:13):
I recognize that it is a change to the landscape
and it is something that like, you know, there are
now turbans there and it's it's complicated, right, so, but
you know, like one of the benefits is there's a
lot of folks out there. And this is what Adam
was getting at earlier, that it's really difficult to make
a living as a rancher. You know, ranchers are one
of the primary stewards of the land in the West,

(25:34):
and you know, it's harder and harder as years go
by to make a living as a rancher. And oftentimes
what happens is you have a wind project like this
that is kind of a it's kind of a financial
lifeline that allows these ranches to keep going. It allows
them to continue to be the stewards that they have
been of the wildlife of the landscape, to continue to do,
you know, to graze and to hunt and all of

(25:57):
those things. And it also allows us to or allows
pattern to you know, develop renewables responsibly in a way
that you know they might not, that other companies might not,
or that if you're in a different part of the
country it would be harder to do, so, you know,
I will I just wanted to say that, and then
I'll also mention bats because you know, I fancy myself

(26:19):
a bit of a bat biologist and have worked with
bats for many years as well.

Speaker 7 (26:23):
It's sort of a similar story here, you.

Speaker 5 (26:25):
Know, I will say that there are we know that
when projects are impacting bats in ways that are that
are challenging and in ways that it would be great.

Speaker 7 (26:36):
If they weren't.

Speaker 5 (26:37):
But you know, again, because of the nature of this
project and kind of where it is and away from
water sources and away from a lot of these areas
where bats would concentrate, away from some of the the
features that we work to identify during the pre construction
studies and that sort of thing. You know, we're doing
our best to minimize those impacts. And I know that,

(26:58):
you know, and I don't know if this is some
thing that Adam wants to touch on, but I know
Pattern and other companies, other wind energy development companies are
working hard to come up with strategies to really minimize
impacts to bats. We don't often think it, you know,
that's are one of those groups of organisms that we
don't think of a lot as being as important as
they are, right, I mean, they contribute a ton of

(27:20):
financial impacts agricultural pests, you know, predators and pollinators and
other parts of the world, and so you know, it
is important, and it is something that is also certainly
thought about and considered in both you know, prior to
construction and citing, and then in how the projects are
operated as well.

Speaker 4 (27:39):
Yeah, I mean, Jessie, to be honest, having done this
for a while and also being at the forefront on
wildlife policy and the renewable space, I've gotten to the
point where I think that bats is the one significant
issue that we really have to solve on the winds.

(28:02):
They're slow to mature. You know, a small bird has
a short life. Statistically, the chance of it having reproduced
already is a lot higher than the bat that might
not might take quite a long that Quentin knows all
the dates of how long the bat takes to start
black tanning or whatever. But it's it's a real issue.
And one thing that's really neat is we started doing

(28:25):
this in twenty twenty two from northern Canada all the
way to New Mexico. We installed at eleven different wind
projects We've got five at five different turbines that were
selected very carefully by people like Quentin. Thermal cameras that
are track they're aimed up at the roador it's called

(28:46):
the rot swept area, at the space where the blades
are spinning. That's essentially the danger zone for wildlife. And
then machine learning is essentially tracing all the bat activity
and we're learning what time of day and what time
of what time of year, all these sort of things.
The data is still, you know, being processed, but I'm

(29:09):
hopeful that we can start using that to refine when
we shut turbines down for for bats. And you know,
I think the industry is taking it really seriously. I
think most of the wind turbines I hope that you
see in the US are going to have the blades
feathered below a certain it's called the cutting speed certain

(29:30):
meter per secative wind to keep them from from turning
without trying to generate electricity at lower wind speeds. And
bats love low wind speeds. You can imagine if you
weigh a couple of ounces and that that has a
big impact. But ultimately we're gonna we're gonna need to
do more, and so I'm really excited to see what

(29:50):
this thermal thermal data shows because it's going to be
sites specific, but it's also going to be landscape and frankly,
continent wide, under stating when bats are showing up in
which bats and so forth.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Man, that's really cool.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
I'm excited to share this episode with one of our
board members, doctor Carlos.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Martinez del Rio.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
As you guys know, we do Wildlife Wednesday, the second
Wednesday of every month, and in September he did a
presentation for our group all about bats. You know, he's
a retired biologist from the University of Wyoming and specializes
in bats, and it was one of the most fascinating
presentations I've ever seen. It was absolutely fantastic, and I
know we're going to get into some different species of

(30:32):
cactus or cacti later. I don't know what the right
word is there, cactus, I guess. Anyway, we're going to
talk about agave and doctor Carlos Martinez del Rio was
explaining how critical bats are to pollinating a gave, and
so it was a great presentation. The other thing I've
got to say, Quinn, you probably are familiar with with

(30:52):
my friend Ed Arnett, who's now, you know, the CEO
of the Wildlife Society where who's also a pretty accomplish
bat biologists. I think he's pretty familiar with the species.
So I love all this conversation about bats. It's really awesome.
The other thing I love is that the discussion about
the golden eagles because the New Mexico Wildlife Federation this
is not related to patterns, So I apologize for the

(31:14):
slight deviation and the topic. We're evolved heavily with the
North American Non Lead Partnership because of the golden eagles
and the rare occurrence of golden eagles in the Southwest.
One of the things that has been studied extensively is
the effects of lead fragments that are left in gut
piles from big game animals that are harvested by hunters,

(31:37):
and the gut piles are left behind, and those lead
fragments are in those gut piles. Golden eagles can consume
those gut piles and then you know, become affected by
lead poisoning and ultimately die. And so we're working really
really hard to get hunters to voluntarily choose non toxic ammunition.
In other words, all copper bullets so that there's no

(31:57):
possibility of accidentally contributing to the lead poisoning of golden
eagles or other raptors or other scavengers. So really a
lot of intersections in this conversation, but I really love
the amount of freedom I guess, I don't know if
that's the right word or not, but the amount of

(32:17):
leverage that you're provided Adam to make those decisions within
the organization, not just of where the wind turbines go,
but it sounds like when you've got all the data
and the research is complete, you're going to have the
ability to influence what time of day those things could
even operate, so that that's one more tool in the
toolbox to minimize the number of impacts you have.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
On native wildlife.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
So that that's super awesome, And kudos to Pattern for
providing that.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
And that gut work. I mean that leatibate network is
super critical. Could could jump in here, but from what
I understand, plenty of the eagles that do get hit
by wind turbans are already suffering from lead poison.

Speaker 5 (32:58):
Yeah, well I would just I guess, chime in and
maybe offer more generally that you know, many wind energy companies,
including Pattern, pursue you know, agreements with the Fishal mod
Life Service to offset any impacts the eagles directly, and
so there's mitigation that's performed for that. The primary impact

(33:20):
to you know, the primary cause of anthropogenic mortality to
golden eagles in the US is electrocution on distribution lines.
And so you know, there's a lot of work that
the Fish Model Life Service has done over the years
to identify these high risk poles. And you know, I
don't want to take words out Adam's mouth, but you
know work Adam works closely, Pattern works closely to to

(33:42):
retrofit power poles across the Southwest to basically offset any
impacts that the wind turbines would have on eagles. By
fixing those poles, prevent electrocutions essentially in perpetuity. And you know,
the there are a variety of other things that have
been discussed or are you know, on the we'll just
say on the list of potential mitigation options, lead free

(34:05):
ammunition is one of them. That's been something we've looked
at and talked about. You know, we've had discussions going
back years with the Fish Wildlife Service, and you know,
considered potential large studies here in the state to you know,
really try to understand how just what you described Jessee,
how you know, lead and gut piles that are fed
upon by golden eagles impacts those birds. There are even things,

(34:28):
you know, for example, we know a lot of gold
eagles are hit as they're feeding on roadkill. Right, so
we have, you know, places in this country where the
wind industry is funding removal of roadkill and to prevent
gold eagles from scavenging those roadkill and then subsequently being.

Speaker 7 (34:46):
Hit by cars.

Speaker 5 (34:47):
And so, you know it, it's an important thing. And
I think all too often you hear what I hear
is is you hear a very simplified story. Oh, wind
turbans are bad for eagles, are bad for eagles. I'm like, yeah,
And we've been thinking about it hard and creatively for
twenty years. And you know, there are companies out there
that are doing everything they absolutely can to you know,

(35:09):
drive a clean energy future while off also trying to
prevent all of those impacts and if they do have impacts,
offset those in ways that are are meaningful and so
and that's you know, yeah, bats and eagles and you
know I'm I'm totally a bat guy. I know ed well,
consider him a friend. We'll be seeing them in Baltimore
later this week actually at the National Conference of TWS.

(35:31):
And I'm lucky enough to have worked on bats all
over the place. I get to, you know, teach a
workshop in the tropics every year, super super important, and
I think it's you know, I can say as an
ecologist that a lot of what I get to do.
While I understand there are impacts to wildlife, it's important
to be able to try to offset those, minimize them,

(35:51):
and then offset them. And that's one of the things
I get to do on some of these projects.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Yeah, I've spent the pat I don't even know how
long it's taken, but three five years maybe working with
US Vishwanta Service and local New Mexico electric cooperatives to
fund and they just knocked out the first ones I
think last year the first half of this year. Providing

(36:16):
them with funding. We go out work with an eagle scientist,
identify where are there areas of high eagle risk, and
then you layer onto that where is their old power
poles that are super old that may actually have a
risk of electrocution? And so we've funded pretty extensive funding

(36:37):
and we have an agreement with them to do this
for a long time to replace their power poles with
modern ones, which also brings you know, electric reliability benefits.
So it has an additional benefit to eagles as well
as as you know, people's lights not going out as
much due to power elgis and so.

Speaker 7 (36:58):
Forth and all raptors.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
That's the other nice thing about retrofiting power pools is
that it because that's a I mean, viruginasawks and redtailed
hawks and all of our perching hawks you know, suffer
from electrocutions on unprotected power pools, and so retrofitting these
is of great benefit generally to raptor communities.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
That's really man's that's all fantastic work. And Quinin I'm
just a little bit blown away by the amount of
overlap that exists in some of the work that we're doing,
you know. In twenty nineteen, the New Mexico Wildlie Federation
helped pass the Wildlife Corridors Act, which provided funding for
Department of Transportation in the New Mexico Department of Game
and Fish to conduct a study to identify the eleven

(37:41):
hot spots in the state where wildlife vehicle collisions are
most prevalent. And as you're talking about golden eagles feeding
on roadkill, obviously reducing the amount of roadkill is one
thing that helps in that category. And so you've identified
places that we need overpasses, underpasses, wildlife fencing, things like
that to reduce wildlife vehicle collisions, and that obviously helps wildlife,

(38:03):
but it also helps motorists. You know that those collisions
can be pretty tragic for humans, you know, when they're involved,
especially if it's a large umulate like an elk, for example.
And so this upcoming legislative session, which starts mid January,
the New Mexico Wildlife Federation is going to be working
with the state legislature advocating to get millions of dollars

(38:24):
put into the Wildlife Corridor's fund so we can start
really building out the infrastructure and developing those wildlife crossings
so that we can connect habitats so that wildlife habitat
connectivity becomes more prevalent across the state, but also we
can reduce those wildlife vehicle collisions. But it's just interesting,
you know how much of the work that Pattern Energy

(38:45):
is doing and the New Mexico Wildlife Federation is doing
inn sex. You know, we're working, although we haven't been
working closely together, we're working in parallel to accomplish a
lot of the same things, which is really inspiring. And
so I appreciate all the conversation about what we've done
with the wind turbines themselves. And now I'm curious if
you guys would like to talk about transmission lines. One

(39:06):
of the things I heard again going all the way back,
you know, five years ago to that fantastic breakfast, was
concerns from some of the environmental advocates and some of
the wildlife advocates about sandhill cranes and other migratory waterfowl
who might be affected by energy transmission lines. I think
they were speaking primarily about the Sunzeia project, but where

(39:29):
those lines would be crossing the Rio Grande River in
that migration corridor.

Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think a year or two
before that breakfast, the first time I really met the
environmental stakeholders in New Mexico, I went down to the
Bosque closer here or close were SoCoRo, where the Sunzia
transmission line was originally approved for the river crossing across

(39:59):
the real and with people who were completely committed to
one of two things stopping this project or undergrounding underneath
the river because they thought that was going to be
a panacea for all the impacts. And I was told
this is the worst place you could put a power line.

(40:21):
And Quinn's going to talk. I think about some of
the telemetry work we did capturing cranes, which is one
of the coolest things I've gotten to do. They weren't
It's not like they were really wrong. Where it was
approved was really close to these waterfowl management areas Bernardo

(40:42):
where we have thousands of cranes stacked in the winter.
And this is another thing where Quin knows more than
I do. But they're particularly prone to collision close to
where they are staying so roosting or feeding, and there
was an opportunity to change the route. It was a
company of all the environmental concerns we're hearing New Mexico

(41:03):
and some residual unhappiness that White's missile range had with
missile testing stuff around that route as it went into
what's called the Northern call Up Area, which folks in
this area may know. It's it's an area north of
the missile range where they have agreements of landowners to
test military equipment. So those two things combined crein an

(41:28):
opportunity for us to sort of start from the drawing
board and pattern. At this time didn't own SUNSIA transmission,
but because of our relationship on the national stage with
environmental organizations and our experience doing very challenging permitting environmental
work on projects, I kind of took over the work

(41:50):
of engaging with the conservation stakeholders and myself and my
boss sort of took over the permitting of this project.
So we heard these concerns about crane collision and I'm
going to let Quentin take it from here because he's
he has a really old relationship with the crane expert

(42:11):
in the West, and it's sort of snowball.

Speaker 5 (42:14):
Yeah, I can jump in and it's somebody you know,
of course that the atoms referring to Dan Collins. You know,
he would he did a wildlife Wednesday there that Adam
and I actually I think you were there, right, Adam.

Speaker 7 (42:25):
We were both there, yep.

Speaker 5 (42:27):
So yeah, you know the story, the story goes, and
I guess I'll try to back up a little bit,
you know, birds do run into things, right, and we
know for example that you know, radio towers that are
super super tall and have flashing red lights, and skyscrapers
and cities present major hazards for for birds. And that's

(42:50):
oftentimes when you know, you have small migrating passerines and
there's a weather event or something like that and you have,
you know, some significant mortality and there's a sort of
correlate to that or or you know another phenomenon that occurs,
and you know, this is what Adam's referring to. So
if you have like a big transmission line for example

(43:12):
sun Zeia or or a similar sort of line that is,
you know, bisecting the flight path of certain groups of birds,
it does prevent it does present collision risk. And you know,
santill cranes just because of their morphology and the way
they fly and the way their eyes are situated on
their heads, you know, they are one of those species

(43:33):
of birds that you know, you know, they're not very maneuverable.
We've all probably seen cranes fly. Takes them a while
to get going and takes them a while to steer around,
so you know, they are particularly susceptible to colliding with
things like transmission lines, and you know, it was a
very valid concern that the environmental community had that if
this transmission line was put you know where Adam was

(43:55):
referring to, that is basically between a major feeding area
on Bernardo and one of the major roost areas at
Quagmire Pond just south of Highway sixty there, that it
would present a real hazard. And so you know, in
talking about this, you know, I knew that Dan Collins
at the Fish and Wildlife Service and and you know
Matt bog and Scott Carlton back when Scott was the

(44:17):
chief of Mike Birds. This is you know, they had
been working to understand how sandhill cranes were using the
landscape for many years. And so I, you know, called
up Scott and Dan and reached out and said, hey,
you know, we've got this issue.

Speaker 4 (44:32):
What can we do.

Speaker 5 (44:32):
Can we somehow you know, piggyback on some of this
work that you've been doing, and maybe you know, bring
some new technology to bear with some different types of
telemetry units to try to really understand what's going on.

Speaker 7 (44:43):
So gosh, I.

Speaker 5 (44:45):
Guess probably around the same time, back in twenty nineteen
or thereabouts, we initiated a telemetry study. In this case,
we got some some particular satellite telemetry units that have
theseuilt in accelerometers that when you know, they can detect
when a bird is taking off and then they start

(45:06):
giving you, you know, more pings and they can tell
you basically how high that bird is flying from the ground.
So we deployed a bunch of these slimmetry units that
had these, you know, the ability to show us the
flight heights of these birds, and using some fancy statistical
modeling and some other stuff and compiling not just those
data but data that the other telemetry studies had gathered

(45:30):
over the years, we were able basically to generate a
map of how sand hill cranes were flying in terms
of their flight heights across the middle Rio Grand Valley
in the winter months. And what that allowed us to
do is to basically identify these hot spots of risk
throughout the middle Rio Grand where if you were to
put a high voltage transmission line you would create you know,

(45:52):
more potential collision exposure for birds that are moving back
and forth. And that was based on you know, how
those birds are using the landscape and you know, they're
using it because of you know, the forage that's provided
and the roofs that's on the landscape, and then their
natural history as well. And so that study then went
to inform you know, new sighting and where the project

(46:15):
is currently crossing the Rio Grand. And it also showed
us things like how often birds that might be have
established you know, sort of themselves on winter and grounds
at Boscay Delpatchie moved between you know, a part you know,
a place in the southern part of the valley versus
you know, Bernardo or one of the other state run
wildlife management areas and the central part of the Rio

(46:35):
Grand middle Rio Grand Valley, and it, you know, just
it's fed into not just that initial effort, but also
some of the other follow on mitigation work that we're
doing now that's more related to offsetting impacts. So that
was really both an avoidance, you know, like let's study
these so we can avoid impacts, and then let's understand
that stuff so we can minimize the impacts.

Speaker 7 (46:57):
And then we're also working to offset impact but might
have we'll get to that, I think in a sense.

Speaker 4 (47:02):
Yeah, and I want to talk a little bit about
the process because you know, the people that breakfast you mentioned,
the people that I had those uncomfortable conversations with, ultimately
were super impressive. And you know, I've worked out projects
all over the US and a little bit in Canada,
and you're talking about not in my backyard. And I

(47:26):
remember there was this the renew Bland You Wildlife Institute,
which I now sat on the board of, which is
called half NGO Wildlife and goos and half renewable companies.
They organized a workshop on renewables as renewables were kind
of blowing up and around the time of that breakfast,
and realized that we all had kind of common interests

(47:51):
and concerns. It's just that some of the smaller organizations,
like those that are just really focused on the boss
GA Save Our Basket Task Force, Real Grand Agricultural Land Trust,
Real Grand Return, who are sort of the die hard
folks I was first engaging with. We had the same
values from an environmental perspective, but the scope, the geographic

(48:13):
scope of their concerns was a lot smaller. And I
also really realized in this process that you know, if
you look at san Hill crane migrations, probably waterfowl migrations
generally is the middle. Real grand is the center of
an hour glass. So it actually is not the same
as other backyards. So when you know I was dealing

(48:35):
with people who are opposed to the project, and you
hear the word nimby not in my backyard a lot,
and it's true, and it's it is one of the
biggest things slowing down renewables. But this backyard was different.
And they also realized that more or less everybody was
like a good faith actor. They wanted science. They were
willing to take science and review it, and if it

(48:59):
was good, then they might adjust their opinions. They weren't
stuck and then transigen And that was kind of the
inspiration for why I got folks on our team on
board with Quenton, working with Dan Collins at the Service
to undertake this telemetry study. Because I trusted people who
were at the moment opposed to the project. I just
trusted that they were there for the right reasons and

(49:20):
that they would respond to information in a way. And
so we set up a couple of the larger groups.
We set up a data sharing agreement so that as
we stepped into this Bureau of Land Management NEPA Environmental
Permitting process we could share information freely without worrying about

(49:41):
getting stepping on the blim's toes. And then held every
three or four months these what we call it the
big Tent meetings, where we had any people who wanted
to participate. So we had local, regional, national conservation folks,
we had congressional folks at state folks, and that's where

(50:01):
we presented this research that Quinn talked about. I mean,
it was essentially a heat map of crane risk relative
to power lines, and we were able to pick a
place that was much lower risk. And then getting peer
reviewed literature that Quentin and Professor Collins published that you know,

(50:22):
was you know, part of our mitigation objections too, is
research that can apply to other projects. Some of the
other things that we presented on three things I'll touch on.
One was this ultraviolet light technology. So Audubon had begun

(50:43):
testing at the Roe Sanctuary. I think it's in Nebraska, Quinn,
this ultraviolet light technology at distribution lines that were killing
hundreds and hundreds of cranes because they were even more
egregiously close to where the cranes were than the old
River crossing I told you about. And it was they
didn't find any dead cranes, and when you do, when

(51:06):
you quantify collisions, you have to statistically correct them, right,
because no observers perfect. So that got Ranchet still to
over ninety percent of effectiveness at reducing crane collisions. So
we funded an additional year of that research because you know,

(51:26):
no cranes found was a little bit uncanny. I certainly
didn't want to tell people that this was going to
guarantee no cranes collided, and I don't think that's going
to be the case. To get another year of research
and more peer view of literature out, and then we
committed with these stakeholders, so they actually submitted letters to

(51:47):
the BLM saying we want them to do this. And
then during the process, I submitted a mitigation report where
we committed to doing those things that were in those letters.
So it was very collaborative process. And then obviously bird
flight diverters little markers, they're visual markers that they're also
complementary to that. And then the other thing was undergrounding.

(52:11):
Everyone thought it was a magical solution. Everyone was super
unhappy because previously before i'd gotten involved, pattern got involved.
The answer to why I couldn't be undergrounded through the
Boss game h parent floodplain at. The real grand was
cost and feasibility. And you can imagine if you have

(52:32):
no sympathy for private corporation's cost, that's not very compelling.
So it was a little hard also getting engineers to
give the right information. But we just stopped talking about
cost because it's not why people are talking to us.
It's not about how much our project costs. But it
also became clear as I worked with people like Quent

(52:54):
and like the actual wildlife and habitat scientists, that the
way that you would have to bury it, you would
need to leave a cleared right away that you're mowing,
so that if there's ever any kind of emergency, if
you can get into a buried cable, critical habitat, critical
bossque habitat is a terrible place. It turns out to

(53:15):
bury a power line that you need to mow basically
a lawn twenty four, you know, a year round. So
all these things, I think, and sharing information proactively before
it was the BLM published it with all these stakeholders,
I think built a lot of trusts and people could
kind of see a lot of an at the end

(53:35):
of the tunnel that they had a lot of agency
and you know that they had really helped shape this project,
and they legitimately had and at the end we're still
not at zero.

Speaker 7 (53:48):
Right.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
So around the same time, folks approached us about a
major farm that is an incredible shape that is touching
the southern corner of the Sevia National Wildlife Refuge that
has been kind of in the conservation community like this
idea of creating this wildlife refuge or adding it to

(54:13):
the Sevillaa and supporting cranes. Keeping cranes on public lands
is great. You know they could there, they can still
be hunted, but they're also not on you know, suffering,
you know, creating crop depredation. So that had been an idea.

(54:33):
It was a huge sticker price because it has Anyone
who's in the Southwest probably knows how how expensive water
rights are, and these were what we call largely pre
nineteen oh seven water rights. So the after tribal water rights,
it's as good as it gets. So we did we
put an option agreement in place to purchase it once

(54:57):
we got the financing and all the approvals in place,
and we purchased it over Christmas of this past year.
It's eleven hundred acres, working with New Mexico Game and
Fish and US Fish, but also the conservation community. We
had a meeting. You weren't able to make it. You
were doing something fun, I think up at the Audubon

(55:20):
Center outside of the Santa Fe to get input on
how to really design this habitat conversion plan to turn
it from a working farm to a habitat for crane's
another wildlife. There's elk all over the place there. There
will probably be a serial crop component because cranes love

(55:41):
to walk over to corn and eat it. But yeah,
so that's really kind of at the very end of
the sort of minimization, avoidance, minimization and mitigation kind of
process as far as cranes go.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Man, that's that's some amazing stuff. And I apologize to
both of you. I was unable to make that last meeting.
I was actually down in Las Crusis. I was speaking
at the New Mexico Outdoor Economics Conference talking about the
economic benefit of outdoor recreation. Much of that outdoor recreation
is a result of wildlife, and that's a great opportunity

(56:19):
to bring up Festival of the cranes which will be
happening at Bosky Dell Apache National Wildlife Refuge December eleventh
through fourteenth this year. Encourage anybody who hasn't participated in
that festival to come on out and check it out.
This is one of the largest economic infusions of revenue
for Socorro County the entire year.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
I mean, these cranes.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
While I'm an avid hunter and you both know that
and cranes make phenomenal table fair love hunting sand hill cranes,
the reality is they provide so much benefit to the
state of New Mexico and especially to Sacoro County that
I just can't thank you all enough for your commitment
and dedication to doing everything possible to ensure that we
have healthy, robust crane populations and that this type of

(57:04):
development doesn't have an adverse effect on this wildlife resource
that the state of New Mexico depends on so much.
And Adam, thank you for the kind words about the
conservation community here in New Mexico. I'm so privileged to
be able to work with all of the different organizations
that we're present at that breakfast, you know, and some

(57:25):
of them have different.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Opinions about hunting.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
You know, when we're working together on issues, we're talking
about habitat, we're talking about game commission reform, we're talking
about conservation funding, we're talking about a lot of things
that is not specific to hunting, and on all of
those issues, they are phenomenal partners. I mean, I trust
them and they trust me, and we work together closely,
and we strive to achieve you know, common goals, and

(57:50):
then on about ten percent of stuff that's very hunting specific,
we're just on opposite sides of the issue and we're
professionals about it, and we disagree and you know, work
to accomplish our own specific goals on those issues, but
we have no hesitation whatsoever to come back together on
the bigger things.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
And so.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
I really can't say enough positive things about Pattern Energy's
willingness to convene these these listening sessions or these working groups.
They're they're they're spectacular. But I'll also say that I've
been invited to a number of these type of things
where it's become pretty evident pretty quickly that the intent
was to try to appease everybody and satisfy them.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Hey, we listen to you, now go away. So we
can continue doing what we originally intended to do. Anyway,
and that's not the case with PATTERN.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
I mean, you've clearly shown that people showed up, they
had thoughts, they had concerns, they had suggestions, they had ideas,
they had questions, and Pattern really was very intentional about
addressing all of those things and working together with the
advocacy community to develop solutions that were well supported. And

(59:01):
kudos to you all for taking a lot of people
who were opposed to the project and turning them into
two supporters today. And I know that because you know,
all those groups that were in that room five years ago,
our groups I still work with on a daily basis.
So we have these conversations, you know, I have regular
interactions with them and discussions about these types of things,

(59:24):
and it's it's really been phenomenal. And so what you've
done to mitigate and reduce the impact on sand Hill
Cranes and the middle Rio Grand Valley and across the
Rio Grand River in that flyway is exceptional. But that
transmission line continues, and it continues west and ultimately goes
into Arizona, and I, you know, I recall conversations we've

(59:44):
had about some amazing work that your organization has also
done in the state of Arizona. And being that Arizona
is a neighbor of ours and a state that most
of our listeners visit regularly, and many of our listeners
hunt in Arizona and otherwise out you know, enjoy outdoorrect
creation there. Would you be willing to just spend a
few minutes talking about some of the work you've done
in Arizona.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
Yeah, And I mean, honestly, Jesse, I mean, kudos to
all the folks that we worked with. That collaboration is
definitely going to be one of like my career achievements,
even if I worked till I'm ninety. I mean, it
was really special. And if we hadn't had such sort
of like honorable good intention people, it would have been

(01:00:27):
really hard for me to keep showing up and getting
the company the trust that we should get engineers to
design an overhead underground analysis when it's a two hundred
million dollar risk, you know, all these kind of things.
The community here is part of why that process was successful.
It's not just patterns good intentions. But yeah, so in Arizona,

(01:00:50):
it's worth It's worth also noting the Arizonas where unfortunately
we haven't gotten all the environmental stakeholders supportive. I just
want to touch on that really quick. You know, the
BLM picked around twenty fifteen, and in Arizona there was
just a bunch of hard choices, as there really are
on all these linear projects. And where it's routed now

(01:01:13):
through the San Pedro Valley is a beautiful area with
really a lot of passionate environmental stakeholders, and the dynamic
with them has been different than it has been New Mexico.
But also it was a tough situation back then for
the BLM because the alternative was routing the power line
through low income communities in Tucson, you know, and that's

(01:01:37):
not a wildlife thing, that's a human thing. But you know,
these are choices that have to be put next to
each other. So by the time PA had gotten involved,
all of that was sort of settled and there wasn't
really the ability to change the routing the way that
we had this moment here in New Mexico. But we

(01:01:57):
we've been working with with Arizona Game and Fish for
years now and we're getting close to wrapping up and
we've really done a bunch of stuff, and I think
for starters you mentioned bats and agave, you've got lesser
long those Mexican long those bats. These are bats that
show up with those massive paniculate agaves out there, which

(01:02:20):
are also important for game species. I think Quinn right
just they're they're important species on the landscape for a
lot of wildlife, and we are definitely we definitely impacted them.
So we we went out there, surveyed. We have a
latitude longitude pin drop for every single plant that was found,

(01:02:42):
and we recorded a bunch of other data. Quinn was
super involved in this as well, and moved them out
of the right of way. If they were already dying
or something, they might not get moved. And then the
reality is that salvaging plants, desert plants, involves not all

(01:03:03):
of them surviving. And so with Arizona game and fish,
we had committed to having for every one plant that dies,
we're going to replace it with three, and the goal
there was stevin net no net loss to pendicular gave.
We have the same thing with sawara cactus, which are

(01:03:25):
much harder to deal with, but we ended up Quentin
being deep in the bat world brought back Conservation International
in and we ended up funding over half a million
dollars to allow Arizona game and fish and to a
lesser extent because these species spill into New Mexico a

(01:03:47):
bit one of them. Anyways, New Mexico st Alian's office
and back Conservation International, and we went way above the
three to one ratio. I think we're going to have
over ten thousand plants nursery and then ultimately planted out
there that are really important for the landscape. There's not

(01:04:07):
a lot of calories on that landscape. And then also
similar thing with sorow cactus. There's sarro cactus. Some of
them you can't salvage, but that's where you know, we
found a local sorrow nursery, which is great because that

(01:04:27):
means we have the northern end of the range. We've
got winter hardy sorow cactus there. And as we finished
the reclamation stages, over the next year year and a half,
we'll be planting over seven thousand sorrow cactus out there. Again,
going beyond the ratio has agreed to. I know, Quentin,

(01:04:51):
if you want to talk about a little bit about
that and the soorro salvage study that we're gonna be
working on sure.

Speaker 7 (01:04:56):
Yeah, I'll you know, I'll chime in quickly.

Speaker 5 (01:04:59):
You know, I think the key here with these agaves, right,
so Perry and Perry's and Palmer's agave and a couple
other ones you know, called peniculate because of the way
their flowers branch. Those are the ones we think of
when we think of like thegaves that go to make mezcal,
and that are you know, primarily pollinated by bats. And

(01:05:21):
we have these nectar bats in the Southwest, particularly in Arizona,
you know, you have these neck nectarivorous bats. And so
this this agreement initially was built on, you know, reducing
impacts to those bats. You know, the transmission line comes through,
there has to be you know, a bunch of agaves
that are going to be impacted by construction. What can

(01:05:45):
you do to reduce those impacts to those agaves and
thus to those bats. And so the idea was, as
Adam mentioned, first you would move them, all right, so
you would transplant them. That's the salvage that we talk about,
is transplanting them. And then you know, as we were
working on this and thinking about how best to do it,
you know, it turns out back Conservation International has this

(01:06:06):
agave restoration program, and they've done all this science to show,
you know, it's not every particular agave is not equal
in the grand scheme of bats.

Speaker 4 (01:06:14):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:06:14):
You know, these are bats that roosting caves often in
really large numbers, and so BCI and Arizona Game and
Fish and others have a pretty good idea of where
these big bat colonies are of these lesser long nosed
Mexican long nosed bats, and so, you know, we realized
that if we were able to provide funding to BCI,
they could actually have a targeted approach where they say,
you know, we'll we'll replace those agaves that you're impacting,

(01:06:37):
but we'll put them back in a place where they're
actually be really beneficial to the bats.

Speaker 4 (01:06:42):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:06:42):
And so that's the real sort of win win here
in you know, it's it's an agreement with Arizona Game
and Fish. It's offsetting all these impacts to these agaves
that that the transmission line is having, but it's also
working with the you know, conservation community to identify the
best places to offset those and so that's really you know,
the segave program that we're talking about with regards to

(01:07:05):
sorrow cactus, you know, had to mention similar sort of deal.
Sunzia has agreed to basically every single sorrow that that
would be impacted during construction, they will they will move those,
they'll transplant them. That's limited certain you know, in some
instances by the size of the suarro. If they're too big,
they you really can't move them because you know, it

(01:07:25):
either takes a really big.

Speaker 7 (01:07:26):
Machine or they tend to kind of fall apart when
you try to move them. So all of them up
to a certain size are being moved.

Speaker 5 (01:07:33):
And then you know, in addition to that, there's a
whole bunch that are being replaced at a certain ratio,
and those are ones. You know, again, we know how
important sUAS are on the landscape, right, I mean, we
have cactus struginist pigmials that nest to them, you have
all sorts of other species. I mean, we were at
a nest you know that we had an avan survey
group that had thought they had identified a cactus Phruginis

(01:07:55):
pigmil and a suarrow that was going to potentially be impacted.
And Adam and I went out there. Turned out it
was an elf owl, the smallest owl in North America.
And not only was there an elf owl nesting in
the swarrow that was you know, of course being protected,
but there was also a gilded flicker in the same
one that was nesting there. And so you know that,
you know, they ended up completely restricting any sort of

(01:08:18):
impact to that that that sorrow and until the nesting
season was done. And then it was when it was done,
they moved it a short distance so it wouldn't be
impacted at all. And so you know, that's a it's
a pretty impressive deal, you know. I mean, I will say,
you know, I've worked on other projects. I'll just try
to keep this as anonymous as possible, but I'm let
me just say I'm familiar with other projects where you know,

(01:08:41):
they haven't done the same sort of thing with either
a gaves or sorrows. And you know, these are these
are important in the same way that you know, cranes
are important to the outdoor rec outdoor economy in New Mexico.
Suarrows are important to the outdoor economy in southern Arizona. Right,
you don't think about them in the same way, but
as their plant. But all sorts of people come to

(01:09:02):
the Tucson area to visit the Saara National Park and
to see these these really majestic columnar cacti landscapes, and
so it is a it's a pretty impressive thing that
you know, and it's not it's not an inexpensive or
or whatever undertaking. I mean, it takes a lot of
time and a lot of effort. And you know, in
addition to that, one of the things that we're doing
with Game and Fish is we've designed to study in

(01:09:24):
collaboration with with Arizona Game and Fish and folks at
the University of Arizona and some other collaborators in Arizona
to really try to understand how to optimize transplantation of sorrows.
So they had some questions about root length and if
you're if you're you know, sort of uprooting excavating these plants,
what's the optimal root length to maintain to ensure survival.

(01:09:47):
So as part of that pattern is providing funding for
for a number of years, and we have a bunch
of different treatment categories for these suarros that we've designed
to try to better understand like how can you ensure
their survival based on route length? You know, does it
vary with the size of the sowar, does it vary
with you know, soil conditions or or you know, should
it be as long as possible, or is it possible

(01:10:08):
to trim them? And and you know that's the kind
of thing that will also contribute to to better salvage work,
better sorrow transplantation work, and better just sort of habitat
stewardship down the road. So you know, those are a
couple of the pretty exciting things that we have just
related to habitat in Arizona for the Sunsia transmission project.

Speaker 4 (01:10:28):
And you know, the other thing I add about these
two plant species that's that's also important is especially in
the sand page or a valley, is these are extremely
important plants in terms of tribal heritage and are really
highly valued. There are certain kinds of agave where if

(01:10:49):
you see them out there, there's a good chance there's
artifacts there because they were some they were domesticated long ago,
and then sawarrow have a really strong importance for some
of these tribes too, so that they're really culturally significant species.
So it's its need to be able to get to

(01:11:09):
bring all these these resources to bear. We're also doing
a lot of other cool stuff. I mean, we've already
a couple wildlife water catchments that are up and running.
We did some funding with again with Game and Fish
with the National Forest Foundation to do buffalo grass treatment,

(01:11:30):
you know, which is as you know, it's a big
problem out there. And right now we're working with a
rancher who's very conservation oriented to do a bunch of
dirt tank restorations because those are crucial not just for cattle,
but for wildlife and some other interventions on their land.

(01:11:52):
It may also involve planting more pendicular gave in the uplands,
potentially using some water to uh Bill cranes is on
the Wilcox appli it area to kind of connect to
the other part of the population of Fanhill prints. So
it's really kind of the clectic mix of things that

(01:12:13):
we're doing there. They're species focused and habitat focused, and.

Speaker 5 (01:12:18):
I can I just add quickly, you know, with regards
to this other project, you know, we're hoping to move
this along. We don't have anything finalized yet, but we
are looking at a as Adam mentioned, a pretty full
throated restoration program on a ranch in the Southern Sulfur
Springs Valley.

Speaker 7 (01:12:36):
You mentioned connectivity, Jesse. One of the big things.

Speaker 5 (01:12:38):
Here is you know, installing mini miles of wildlife friendly fencing.
This this ranch happens to it, but another National Wildlife
refuge in this case Leslie Canyon. And so you know
we're going to be hopefully if we can you know,
work through these last final details with Arizona Game and
Fish helping support the ranch to install some wild left

(01:13:00):
friendly fencing, you know, both restore and create some additional
you know, water catchments and the form of dirt tanks,
restore some desert grasslands that have become sort of you know,
are suffering from mesquite encroachment in that part of the state.
That will you know, tons of quail down there. That's
going to be a great thing for quail. And then also,

(01:13:22):
as Adam mentioned, potentially even creating some habitat similarly to
what we're doing in the middle Ary Grand at the
Indian Hill Farms property by by you know, providing some
water potentially and also potentially some some crops. This is
right near the White Water Draw wildlife area, which is
something the Arizona Game and Fish manages. Four cranes and waterfowl,

(01:13:43):
and so you know, it's it's another really exciting project.
I think we're not quite there yet with finalizing it,
and we are, you know, working with both the landowner
who is, as Adam mentioned great as she's an the collogist.
She's very conservation oriented as well as game and fish.
And I'm feeling really excited about this one too, because
it's in a part of the state that needs it

(01:14:04):
and it's you know, some really exciting, you know restoration
actions to help offset some of those impacts that the
Sunsia transmission could have or might have.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Man, that's that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
All of this has just been really fantastic, gentlemen, and
I can't thank you both enough for taking the time
to spend.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
With me this evening I know related to the evening here, and.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
You've both worked a full day and are probably probably
ready to stop working. But it was my goal and
my hope that through this conversation, you know, we can
help listeners adjust their mindset a little bit so that
when they're traveling across New Mexico or elsewhere in the
Southwest and they see these windmills, these turbans, that rather

(01:14:45):
than just seeing an alteration to the landscape, that makes
them uncomfortable that they would actually see a symbol of
innovation and a symbol of sustainability and see that these
things represent a lot of thought and a credible amount
of money that have gone into research, that have gone
into ideas and strategies to protect wildlife and to ensure

(01:15:09):
that we're able to continue to have a livable planet,
not just for people but also for wildlife. And I
think this conversation has really accomplished that, and I really
feel like people who listen to this are going to
view those windmills in a little bit of a different
light than maybe they had historically. But before we wrap
it up, i'd love to get you both the opportunity
to provide any concluding thoughts, anything you'd like to add,

(01:15:32):
anything you'd like to leave our listeners with, before we
wrap it up and I let you get back to
your evening. But this this has been really fantastic, and
I would love to if in the future we've got
some additional developments and other things are happening, invite you
guys back on to provide some updates to some of
this stuff. I know the work is ongoing and a
lot of the science and the data collection and all

(01:15:53):
those things are ongoing efforts, so as we get new
developments and advancements. Love to have you back on the show.
But before wrap up, please feel free to jump in
and provide any concluding thoughts to our listeners.

Speaker 5 (01:16:05):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I would just I would
thank you, Jesse obviously for for bringing us on to
talk about this. I would also offer to to do
a Wildlife Wednesday sometime, and it'd be great to engage
and have you know, one on one or group on group,
whatever you want to however you want to phrase it
with you know, some of your members and and others

(01:16:25):
to talk about some of these things. I think as
a scientist and as a you know, someone who you
know as a as a wildlife ecologist, I feel pretty.

Speaker 7 (01:16:35):
Lucky to be involved in some of these things.

Speaker 5 (01:16:36):
It's, you know, I think Adam mentioned, you know, his
engagement with the conservation community being one of the highlights
of his career, and I feel pretty similarly about some
of the mitigation work that I've gotten to, you know,
be able to help pattern with on this. It's it's
stuff that I think it's very uncommon, you know, we
don't see this done a lot on these large projects,

(01:16:59):
and so you know, there we could spend another hour
talking about some of the other you know, the Benders
Thrasher study or or you know, some of the work
that that you know might occur opinion, unifer, habitat and
those sorts of things that you know is additive to
this big picture of offsetting some of these impacts. And

(01:17:20):
so I hope that for me personally as a scientist
has been it's been really rewarding. But I also also
hope it does for you know, present that replicable model.
I would love to see other other big developers with
with other projects doing the same sort of work, you know,
looking at it and being open to engagement with the
conservation community and and you know, bringing the best science

(01:17:40):
to bear and then you know, being willing, as I
think you pointed out early on, to maybe sacrifice profits
here and there to do the right thing and to
be to be good stewards. That's that's the way we
can get all this done, I think, and it's important
that we do get it done. So so again, thank
you for having us and and you know it's been
it's been a pleasure. And would love to come back
on another time. And I'll kick it over to Adam.

Speaker 4 (01:18:02):
Yeah, yeah, I mean again, thanks Jesse. I mean, I
think mainly my sentiment aside from this being just some
I feel like a kid sometimes getting to work on
these things. It's so special. But to that replicable model thing,
you know, the great work that was done was not

(01:18:22):
just pattern and you know GSA, it was all of
the conservation stakeholders yourself, local, regional, national, who kind of
took a plunge a little bit because you know, environmental
permitting NEPA. I know you're aware how that works. It's

(01:18:43):
basically an adversarial process, the way that courts are adversarial.
You submit your comment, you get standing to challenge it
on those issues later, and that's kind of the psychology
of it. And it makes both sides not really come
together enough. And I feel like we did get to

(01:19:04):
sort of like it's not just pattern. It really it
was collectively sort of change the way the model works
and make it more collaborative. And you know, those comment
periods a way of formalizing commitments rather than raising problems
because we'd been meeting so often with folks. So I mean,

(01:19:27):
I really hope that this is a replicable model, because
it is spending more money on projects, but we spent
a way less money on lawyers than we would have
otherwise spent. If we decided to be jerks about everything
and shove it down people's throats, we would have spent
money on other things. I would much rather spend money
on conservation and science and flights out to New Mexico

(01:19:54):
to meet with people in person than all the other
ways that people solve problems on projects. So yeah, I
just really hope that this is a replicable model, this
kind of collaborative permitting process, because we knew we're going
to need to do hard things like this, and they
can't take this long. We can't rush them through, but

(01:20:16):
we're all gonna boil a live with climate change if
they take as long as Sunsea. It took two thousand
and eight and it'll be done with construction twenty twenty six.
So we need to speed things up, but we also
need to move really fast kind of slowly, right. We
need to make the time to kind of work work collaboratively,

(01:20:39):
and there's a balance there and I think we struck
it here. And yeah, I'm just grateful to you for
this whole process over the years, but all the stakeholders
and hopefully we can well rather hopefully other people that
patterns are involved can do this again.

Speaker 1 (01:20:56):
Man that that was a fantastic conclusion at a that's
like a mic drop moment.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
I'd rather spend money on conservation than attorneys, you know.
That sums it up.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
That was so well said, And gentlemen, thank you so
much for your continued commitment and dedication to conservation in
New Mexico and in the Southwest. And look forward to
working with you more in the future and looking forward
to our next episode already. So you guys, enjoy your
evening here in New Mexico and beautiful Lincoln County. And yeah,

(01:21:30):
so enjoy your time. Thank you so much for being here,
Thanks for coming on the show and dedicating your evening
to spending time chatting about these important topics.

Speaker 4 (01:21:38):
I appreciate you both anytime.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
Thank you, Thanks Jesssie, Thanks for listening to the Yahiva
podcast produced by Drift with Outdoors.

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Ep. 42: Pattern Energy and the Intersection of Wind, Wires and Wildlife

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