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Eagle Conservation Plan for the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility Klickitat County, Washington

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Eagle Conservation Plan for the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility Klickitat County, Washington EAGLE CONSERVATION PLAN FOR THE GOODNOE HILLS WIND FACILITY KLICKITAT COUNTY, WASHINGTON Prepared for: PacifiCorp 825 NW Multnomah Boulevard. Portland, Oregon 97232 Prepared by: Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc. 415 West 17th Street, Suite 200 Cheyenne, Wyoming 82001 December 9, 2019 Confidential Business Information Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility Eagle Conservation Plan TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Project Background .................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Corporate Policy ......................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Regulatory Framework ............................................................................................... 6 1.3 Project Coordination with Resource Agencies ............................................................ 7 2 SITE SUITABILITY, PRE- AND POST-CONSTRUCTION SURVEYS ............................ 9 2.1 Environmental Setting ................................................................................................ 9 2.2 Site Suitability ............................................................................................................11 2.3 Pre-Construction Surveys ..........................................................................................12 2.3.1 Fixed-point Avian Use Surveys ..............................................................................15 2.3.2 Raptor Nest Surveys ..............................................................................................17 2.3.3 Special Status/Sensitive Species Surveys .............................................................18 2.4 Post-construction Avian Fatality Monitoring at the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility .........18 2.4.1 2009 Post-construction monitoring .........................................................................18 2.4.2 2018 − 2019 Eagle Fatality Monitoring ...................................................................20 2.4.3 PacifiCorp Fatality Monitoring ................................................................................22 2.4.4 Summary of Post-Construction Survey Results ......................................................23 3 ASSESSING EAGLE RISK AND PREDICTING FATALITIES ........................................25 3.1 Collision .....................................................................................................................25 3.1.1 Eagle Fatality Predictions ......................................................................................25 3.2 Electrocution ..............................................................................................................26 3.3 Disturbance and Displacement ..................................................................................26 3.4 Habitat Fragmentation ...............................................................................................26 3.5 Categorizing Site According to Risk ...........................................................................27 3.6 Cumulative Impacts ...................................................................................................27 3.7 Conclusion.................................................................................................................27 4 AVOIDANCE AND MINIMIZATION OF RISK IN PROJECT DESIGN ............................29 4.1 Conservation Measures Prior to Construction ............................................................29 4.2 Conservation Measures during Construction .............................................................30 4.3 Conservation Measures during Operation .................................................................30 4.3.1 General ..................................................................................................................30 4.3.2 Site Management ...................................................................................................30 4.3.3 Collision Risk .........................................................................................................31 4.4 Conservation Measures during Repowering ..............................................................31 WEST, Inc. i December 2019 Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility Eagle Conservation Plan 4.4.1 Limited Work Areas................................................................................................31 4.4.2 Restoration ............................................................................................................31 4.5 Conservation Measures during Decommissioning .....................................................31 5 EAGLE FATALITY MONITORING .................................................................................32 5.1 Standardized Carcass Surveys ..................................................................................32 5.2 Bias Corrections Surveys ..........................................................................................33 5.2.1 Searcher Efficiency Trials ......................................................................................33 5.2.2 Carcass Persistence Trials ....................................................................................34 5.2.3 Adjusted Fatality Estimates ....................................................................................34 5.2.4 Detection Procedures and Protocols ......................................................................35 5.3 Annual Reports ..........................................................................................................35 5.4 Operations and Maintenance Monitoring ...................................................................36 6 COMPENSATORY MITIGATION AND ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT .............................38 6.1 Compensatory Mitigation through Power Pole Retrofitting .........................................38 6.1.1 Methods for Identifying Power Poles to Retrofit ......................................................38 6.1.2 Tracking Retrofit Work during the Permit Term ......................................................39 6.1.3 Post-Installation of Retrofit Monitoring ...................................................................39 6.2 Tiered Mitigation Approach with Adaptive Management ............................................39 7 LITERATURE CITED ....................................................................................................41 LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1. Turbine locations at the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility, Washington ............................ 2 Table 2.1 Land cover types in the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility, Klickitat County, Washington, according to the National Land Cover Database (Yang et al. 2018, Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics 2019). ............................................................................................ 9 Table 2.2. Distance of golden eagle nests to the nearest wind turbine at the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility, Washington.1 ...........................................................................................12 Table 2.3. Pre-construction avian studies conducted at sites in the immediate vicinity (i.e., within 1.0 kilometer) of the Goodnoe Wind Energy Project with eagle observations. .....14 Table 6.1. Anticipated Conservation Measures using Adaptive Management ...........................40 WEST, Inc. ii December 2019 Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility Eagle Conservation Plan LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Location of the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility, Klickitat County, Washington. ............... 3 Figure 1.2 Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility, Klickitat County, Washington – Infrastructure Layout. ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Figure 2.1 Land cover and land use at the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility, Klickitat County, Washington (Yang et al. 2018, Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics 2019). ................10 Figure 2.2 Golden eagle nest locations and existing wind energy facilities within 16 kilometers (10 miles) of the Goodnoe Hills Wind Project, Klickitat County, Washington. Historical nest locations are also shown. .......................................................................................13 Figure 2.3 Location of avian use point counts conducted within 1.0 kilometers (0.6 miles) of the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility, Klickitat County, Washington from April 11, 2006 − August 31, 2010. ...........................................................................................................16 Figure 2.4 Location of golden eagle fatalities documented at the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility, Klickitat County, Washington. ........................................................................................24 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix A. Analysis of the Repowering of the Goodnoe Hills Wind Facility Appendix B Goodnoe Bird and Bat Conservation Strategy Appendix C. Goodnoe Hills Wildlife Incident Reporting and Handling System Appendix D. PacifiCorp Renewable Resources Retrofit Plan for Washington and Oregon Wind Energy Projects Unit Conversions Imperial Metric 1 foot 0.3048 meter 3.28 feet 1 meter 1 mile 1.61 kilometer 0.621 mile 1 kilometer 1 acre 0.40 hectare 2.47 acre 1 hectare Common Conversions* Imperial Metric 0.5 miles 800 meters 0.12 miles 200 meters 0.5 miles 0.8 kilometers 10 miles 16.1 kilometers *
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