From the Archive is a regular column that features one image from our archive and appears every Thursday. LUCEO Images has a thorough group archive (keyword search bar, top right) and it can be found here.
This week we are featuring a photo taken by Matt Slaby for an assignment on wind power development and critical sage habitat shot for Audubon Magazine.
Caption: More than 50% of Wyoming is designated as sage ecosystem, an environment that is home to high winds and sage grouse. The windy expanses are a boon for proponents of wind power, although development of the energy resource comes with an often overlooked downside: construction of the towering turbines encumbers critical habitat for the states sensitive sage grouse populations. The Audubon Society is proposing smart development of wind power to keep turbines and construction away from the notoriously sensitive bird. Audubon’s proposal takes into account two separate sets of factors –grouse habitat and high wind areas. Where these two areas overlap, the Society would like to limit wind development, opting to develop areas that have already been destroyed by the state’s long history of mineral and oil extraction.
About the Image:
“This particular image was taken while touring a wind production facility northwest of Laramie, Wyoming. These towers are becoming a common site in the state and have a certain, quiet gracefulness to their rotation. At night, a single blinking bulb at the top of each tower turns on and off in sync with the rest of the wind farm, making the flat expanses appear as a giant, red grid of flashing lights. It’s beautiful and also interesting in that even this type of energy production is not 100% clean or environmentally friendly. What really interested me about this story was that wind development is in its inception stages. It’s new and that presents an interesting opportunity for wind developers to make the right choices when it comes to choosing where to place towers. The Audubon Society’s take is, in my opinion, a very reasonable and balanced approach to the issues that come with these towers. More-so than any other state, Wyoming’s economy is astronomically dependent on natural resource development. Almost eight times as dependent on these resources than on their second biggest industry –tourism. What that means is that the state has a long history of cutting up its land for the benefit of energy production. Of course that has a downside, but in terms of wind development, it’s left huge swaths of land that has already seen the business end of oil machinery, mining equipment, pipeline, and road development. Audubon’s proposal to exploit those lands first (because they’re already damaged) before cutting into sage grouse territory is smart, reasonable, and, well, responsible. It really made this assignment exciting because the story was about exploring the grey area of an issue that seems so black-and-white. I really enjoy those kinds of challenges and was happy with the resulting set of images.” -Matt Slaby
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