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FCC sued over birds killed by towers
By CRAIG PITTMAN, Times Staff Writer
Concerned that thousands of new communications towers being built across the gulf coast are killing migratory birds, a trio of environmental organizations sued the Federal Communications Commission Thursday. They want the FCC to stop new towers in a 100-mile-wide belt, from the southern tip of Texas to Tampa Bay, until the impact on the migratory bird population has been assessed and an effort made to halt or make up for the deaths. Every fall, 100-million birds from across the eastern United States migrate across the Gulf of Mexico in search of warmer weather in South America. Every spring they return, making a second arduous journey across the water. On both trips, they collide with nearly 6,000 communications towers that line the gulf coast. Attracted by a tower's flashing lights, the disoriented birds fly in circles until they smack into the tower, its guy wires or the ground. One tower near Tallahassee has killed more than 44,000 birds. "It's a wonder they get through at all," said Gavin Shire of the American Bird Conservancy, which filed the lawsuit in Washington with Friends of the Earth and the Forest Conservation Council. Nationwide, federal wildlife officials blame towers for killing at least 5-million birds a year, perhaps as many as 50-million. Studies have suggested that changing the lights' color or pattern of flashing might make the towers less likely to confuse birds, but no federal agency has mandated such a change. The towers are built with permission of the FCC. Federal agencies are supposed to comply with the law requiring environmental impact statements. But the FCC says virtually all towers "have no significant" environmental effect..
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