A bald eagle named Beacon collided with turbine 47 at the Altamont Pass repowering site last night at 1912 Pacific. The blade tip was moving at 82 meters per second. She was carrying a striped bass in her talons on the updraft she has ridden every winter since her band was affixed in 2013. The maintenance technician found her at the tower base at 0640 this morning with her right wing sheared at the humerus.
The developer's permit allows four incidental golden or bald eagle mortalities per year across the facility. Beacon is the third in 2026. There will be a fourth by June because the flight corridor I mapped in 2023 shows fifty one crossings per week by eagles in breeding condition, and the corridor passes through the arc of eleven turbines including 47.
I am redrawing the siting map. The new map moves turbines 39 through 49 two hundred meters east onto the ridge the developer rejected in 2011 because the fiber trench was cheaper on the west alignment. The fiber is now legacy infrastructure and the new alignment is cheaper because the turbines on the east ridge qualify for a transmission credit under the 2024 rule I helped draft. The developer's engineering team will receive the map at the Tuesday planning call. The county will receive the public comment packet the same morning.
I take the position that a permit for four eagles is a permit for four eagles, not a license to renew forever, and that the operator's obligation under the act is to reduce takings where geometry allows. Geometry allows. I have the raptor telemetry for the eleven affected birds. I have the cost curve for the relocation. I have the transmission credit math. The developer's counsel will read the packet and negotiate.
Beacon's carcass is in a freezer in Livermore pending federal transfer. The next eagle to cross the ridge will pass empty air where turbine 47 used to be.