Planes Drive Protected Eagles From Roosts

Flight patterns designed to curb noise over houses near Denver International Airport are driving federally protected bald eagles from their winter roosts, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says.

The agency said recently that it would invoke the Endangered Species Act to force the Federal Aviation Administration to stop harassing eagles with noise from the 2-year-old, $5-billion airport.

At issue are flight patterns from an east-west runway that handles about 195 arrivals and departures a day.

Aviation managers say the flight patterns are intended to reduce noise complaints from people living north and south of the airport. But federal biologists say the traffic patterns are disturbing a key bald eagle roosting site along First Creek and driving the raptors to a Superfund cleanup site at the neighboring Rocky Mountain Arsenal.

As many as 57 bald eagles from Montana and southern Canada spend the winter in the cottonwood trees at the First Creek site, said Fish and Wildlife Service official Ray Rauch. He said jet noise has sent the eagles to trees about two miles west.

Those trees are surrounded by factories and lakes contaminated by pesticides and chemical weapons production at the arsenal, site of a $2.2-billion Superfund cleanup.

Rauch said his agency believes the problem can be solved by turning some flight patterns as little as 4 degrees.

But FAA spokesman Tim Pile said changing flight patterns is difficult.

“Every entity that wants to change flight patterns seems to think it’s a simple matter of moving planes somewhere else,” he said. “But somewhere else doesn’t always want the traffic.”