Ducks Unlimited (DU) recognizes and supports national policies intended to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to generate clean, renewable sources of domestic energy. If these policies are implemented in a balanced manner and with attention to environmental concerns, they can generate energy even as they enhance environmental health and improve the status of waterfowl and other wildlife. The following issues are identified by DU as opportunities for the Obama Administration to merge these benefits while avoiding unintentional environmental consequences.
Renewable Fuel Standard and Corn Ethanol
Background: Implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), with its heavy dependence on corn ethanol, could have serious environmental consequences and will negatively impact waterfowl and other wildlife populations. There are substantial and largely unaccounted environmental costs associated with the production of corn ethanol. Most corn is irrigated, and demands an enormous amount of freshwater. Much of this water is derived from aquifers that are being depleted at an alarming rate. Extensive fertilization is also required to grow corn, which leads to enriched runoff that degrades our streams and wetlands, and contributes to the enormous problem of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. The processing of corn into ethanol also generates substantial quantities of wastewater. Lastly, the demand for additional corn brought about by the RFS creates a large incentive to convert existing grasslands and wetlands to cropland. Grasslands are a threatened and critical biome vital to North America’s waterfowl and other wildlife. The price paid for these environmental consequences overshadows the marginal net energy gain achieved by generating renewable fuels from corn.
Need: The federal government should advocate a balanced approach to meeting our demands for transport fuel. The Alternative Fuels Standard (AFS) is a better alternative than the RFS signed into law as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, because the AFS recognizes second generation, ligno-cellulosic feedstocks as an important part of the fuel equation.
Recommendations: DU urges the Administration, with input from conservation organizations and other stakeholders, to implement a critical re-examination of the role that corn ethanol and other “first-generation” alternative fuels should play in meeting our nation’s fuel needs. It will be particularly important to conduct a full cost accounting of potential environment effects and to provide industry with incentives to implement environmental safeguards through appropriate tax credits and other price supports.
Second Generation Biofuels
Background: Second-generation biofuels derived from dedicated biomass crops have the potential to mitigate the damaging effects of corn ethanol and other first-generation biofuels, while at the same time providing additional environmental and wildlife benefits. Under appropriate management regimes, biomass crops such as switchgrass may provide nesting habitat for waterfowl and other birds, enhance wildlife-based recreation, and help mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon. These co-benefits represent potential new revenue streams to landowners, which would benefit individuals, communities and the environment while offsetting the start-up costs of the biomass energy industry.
Need: Grasslands in the critical waterfowl breeding habitat of the Northern Great Plains are being lost at an accelerating rate due to high commodity prices and associated demand for additional cropland acres. Appropriately managed biomass crops could partially mitigate this loss by providing surrogate nesting habitat attractive to waterfowl and other species. At the same time, we must guard against converting our imperiled native prairie grasslands for biomass energy production because the rich bio-diversity of these grasslands cannot be replaced, and for many species this native prairie provides the only suitable nesting habitat.
Recommendations: DU recommends that the Administration (1) advocate for implementation of voluntary guidelines crafted by the Council for Sustainable Biomass Production, a group that reflects consensus positions from a coalition of industry and environmental/conservation organizations, (2) increase research and monitoring funds to investigate and quantify the environmental co-benefits of biomass crops, (3) create rules that will enable landowners to market ecological goods and services derived from such lands, and (4) develop incentives so that industry does not destroy valuable native habitats but instead implements practices that benefit conservation and the environment.
Wind Energy
Background: Large wind farms are being developed in waterfowl migration corridors, wintering grounds, and breeding habitats for waterfowl. The direct and indirect effects of these wind farms on waterfowl and other wildlife populations are largely unknown.
Need: As the rate of wind farm developments increases, it will be vitally important to ensure that factors such as tower density and placement do not negatively impact waterfowl or endangered species. Most of our understanding of wildlife effects is derived from studies of old wind farms with lattice structure supports, smaller blade diameters, and higher densities of tower placement. Thus, it is difficult to extrapolate results from these studies to contemporary wind farm designs.
Recommendations: DU urges the Obama Administration to fund and promote additional research on the wildlife and environmental effects of wind farms, particularly in areas of the country critical to waterfowl and wildlife populations. In the interim, it will be important to develop “best management practice” guidelines that can be adopted by wind farm developers, and incentivize adoption of these guidelines through a tiered system of wind production tax credits and other financial instruments associated with wind energy production.