Nuclear plant's siren signals bye-bye birdies.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Tar Heel Tattler

Her birds are prize breeders, and her pasta l'autruche--ostrich-filled ravioli with bourbon creme sauce--is to die for. But when a neighbor put up a "screw the ostriches" sign, Madeleine Calder knew he wasn't promoting procreation for her Apex gourmet meat business.

Now she will be shooing her flock to Florida, Raleigh-based Progress Energy will get to test sirens at its Shearon Harris nuclear plant for the first time in years, and Wake County will be safe from 400-pound flightless fowl that run 50 mph, kick like mules and keel over dead as dodos at loud noises.

It's a troubled tale that began with the collapse of New York City's real-estate market in the 1980s. That's when Calder, a real-estate broker, saw a TV program on ostrich farming. She had family in Wilmington and liked Tar Heel weather, so she bought 12 acres in Apex. Only the day she arrived, she says, did she learn that Carolina Power & Light, now Progress, had a nuclear plant near her property--and a siren next to it. "Ostriches are disease-free, but they die of stress. I called up and said, 'That thing's going to kill my birds.' They said, 'We know. Some man has already complained that it killed his chickens.' CP & L made a deal with me. They said they could test it silently." That was in 1991.

That's true, Progress spokes-woman Heidi Deja says, to a point. Residents around the plant, which began producing...