Wind Power · GURELUR

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Wind Power

Wind Power

The implementation of wind power in Navarra is resulting in the biggest ecological disaster in the last few years. Moreover, it is so drastically changing Navarra’s landscape that, once the projects covering our mountains with wind farms conclude, even its own inhabitants will fail to recognize Navarra. The production of wind power and its benefits have been widely spread by the companies involved through Navarra’s media. However, these companies didn’t mention the extremely serious ecological, cultural and landscape damages which this implies for Navarra’s nature.

Red kite killed by wind turbine blade at Montes del Cierzo windfarm

In addition, these projects need large amounts of money, money that has been “distributed” in such a way that it has minimized or even got rid of any criticism or complaints from people and groups which, according to their ecological and social views, should at least question the way in which wind power projects are being developed in Navarra. The Government of Navarra, economically implied in the project of the company Energía Hidroeléctrica de Navarra (E.H.N.), has put the whole Environment Department at this company’s disposal in order to sort out any problems deriving from its project, even if this often means to ignore the law. Obviously, with such an inappropriate support, the Environment Department has not complied with its obligations, leaving Navarra’s nature in the hands of industrial interests and wind power companies.

Environmental damage

All wind power stations in Navarra are being or will be installed in mountainous areas, whose mountain tops constitute, as a whole, one of the main countryside values characterizing our Community. This singular geographical and naturalistic feature makes the damage caused by the stations not comparable to the damage produced in other areas of Europe. Despite this fact, this type of comparison has been made by the Government of Navarra and E.H.N. clearly in their own interest.
 
The construction of wind power stations on Navarra’s mountains is seriously damaging the landscape; it’s causing a severe erosion due to the land removal of ground and deforestation; it’s destroying the vegetation; it’s reducing the biological diversity due to the radical transformation of mountains; it’s damaging the avifauna due to the death rates caused by the non-traditional wind mills and electric laying, and also due to the fact that it prevents birds from migrating over the mountains, which they have been doing for may years.

Gurelur proposals

• Immediate cancellation of all wind power projects and development of research on the damage caused by the already built stations. This will enable us to know the real damage which is being caused by this type of infrastructure.
• Getting rid of the central model which is nowadays being implemented in Navarra, reducing the number of windmills and adapting the centrals to the orography, to the ecological values and to the ecological and social values –among other criteria- and not to the enrichment of companies. Stations should also be placed in non-mountainous areas, although this implies lower productivity.
• Elaboration of strict studies about environmental impact. Studies being done by companies can not be acceptable due to several reasons: Firstly because there hasn’t been enough time to carry them out properly, especially if we take into account that data from migration along the implied areas have been included.
• Total respect to the laws, especially to environmental laws. The Government of Navarra, when it has to approve the wind power projects, is violating all laws regulating activities which could damage the environment. It seems that, for the Government of Navarra and for the defendants at all costs of this type of energy the benefits from the productivity of wind power are worth the destruction of Nature.
• Adapt the productivity of wind power to the possibilities of the place and not to the electrical industries interests. The 30 stations which they intend to install in the future are excessive for the 10,421km² of our land, because they are going to produce an unparalleled landscape saturation. Also, they are going to destroy an important part of Navarra’s natural values.

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