Flight of One Baby Bird Impacts Midwestern Power Distribution
July 15, 2003
The distribution of millions of kilowatts of Midwestern electricity depends, each year, on whether a baby bird has fledged its nest and flown south.
“We respond to what Mother Nature gives us,” said Bob Keasling, a hydraulic engineer working at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Reservoir Control office in Omaha, Nebraska.
Several times each week, Bob monitors and adjusts the flow of water let out of six ‘mainstem’ dams stacked along the upper Missouri River. Because of the Endangered Species Act, he is also responsible for protecting two birds that alight on river sandbars during summer months. In April and May of each year, Piping Plover and Least Tern birds arrive from Venezuela, Central America and the Caribbean to build nests and rear chicks on sand islands located on wild, non-channeled segments of the Missouri River. To protect these birds’ eggs, biologists employed by the Corps find the nests, pinpoint them exactly with the aid of satellite geographical positioning coordinates, and inform Bob when the lasts birds have flown.
“We’ll tell them the reach is clear – that they can change flows to their heart’s content,” said Greg Pavelka, a wildlife biologist working for the Corps of Engineers at Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota. Greg coordinates field teams collecting data on birds.
“The coordination between the teams is amazing,” added Tom Mullen, a water resources consultant who researched the interaction between dams and nests for his upcoming book Rivers of Change – Trailing the Waterways of Lewis and Clark.
“The distribution of millions of kilowatts of energy, as well as the flow of over 20 cubic miles of impounded water depends, at times, on whether a single tern weighing less than a cup of espresso has flapped its wings and flown south,” he added.
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