28 Nov 2006 - Arizona Public Services Gift of the Sun to Condors

Standing on the Paria Plateau atop northern Arizona's Vermilion
Cliffs, four APS employees admired the solar unit they had just
installed. The unit will make life much easier for field biologists
for The Peregrine Fund and improve the work they do to preserve these
amazing giant birds.

They installed two solar powered telephone poles equipped with shock
aversion units to keep California Condors from landing on them. One
is located in the large fly pen and the other is close to the feeding
site. The estimated donation of staff time, labor and equipment is
around $25,000.

In early November, Arizona Public Services (APS) brought up a 3,000
pound array of nine solar panels – enough to supply 30 amps of power
to the holding pen and a field lab on top of the cliffs. This will
keep the water supply thawed through the winter, make it possible to
utilize video cameras for remote observation, and supply electricity
directly to the field lab.

The project is at an elevation of more than 6,000 feet on Bureau of
Land Management property. In winter, the birds' drinking water often
froze. Project personnel had to enter the fly pen to break through
the ice. This situtation was not ideal as every effort is made to
minimize condor-human interaction.

Getting the solar unit to its final destination was no simple task.
When the solar unit arrived in Prescott, Arizona, the backup
generator did not work. After a few hiccups in getting the correct
parts, the unit was loaded onto a dual-wheeled, diesel-powered, four-
wheel drive flatbed truck for the drive to the release site. It took
two additional four-wheel drive trucks and a trailer just to get all
of the equipment to the base of the cliffs. Once there, the final
parts were installed and all systems were tested and operating
correctly. Now for the tough part – a climb of nearly 800 feet. With
two trucks in front and three in back, the flatbed began its slow,
painstaking journey to a place few people have seen. Inches of pale
strawberry colored, talc-fine sand covered a deeply rutted trail that
was barely wide enough for a single vehicle. In places, sand drifted
across layers of red sandstone that resembled steep flights of uneven
stairs. At the final part of the climb, it took two trucks to tow the
flatbed up the slope and into position to unload the solar unit.

Reaching the site late morning, a quick inspection showed the panels
had arrived undamaged! The team then unloaded using 2x4 sections to
make a ramp allowing the unit to be slowly winched off the truck and
onto the ground. As the crew worked, a rising wind ushered in a sharp
drop in temperature and replaced the swarming gnats with never-ending
swirls of powder-fine dust that coated equipment and people alike.

A little after 2:00 pm it was time to test it out. Everyone breathed
a sigh of relief as word came across the hand-held radio from the
holding pen: "We have 120 volts!" Success. And, through it all,
previously released California Condors soared overhead and above the
valley far below.

The Peregrine Fund staff repeatedly expressed their appreciation to
APS for donating the equipment and especially for the tremendous
efforts to get things in place and working. Chris Parish, Condor
Field Project Supervisor for The Peregrine Fund said, "When condors
have human contact, it delays their release into the wild by up to a
year. Having electricity here is a huge benefit that allows us to
remotely conduct our work and reduce direct interactions."

APS employee, Scott Paulsen said, "We took this project because we
wanted to do something that could make a long-term difference. With
the benefits this will provide both the birds and the people working
with them, the birds' population should continue to increase. And we
can say that APS played a part in it. How cool is that?"

APS Employees that assisted with this project: Richard Berdahl, Tom
Fletcher, Peter Johnston, Bret Minnihan, Scott Paulsen, Jeff Spohn,
and Bill Zawicki.