Hoping to stop the slaughter of thousands of birds that have been killed in the whirring propellers along the Altamont Pass, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to make the windmill operators install new safety devices and finance new wildlife habitat as compensation for the past kills.

The lawsuit, filed in Oakland, shines a light on an interesting dilemma: The rolling, windswept hills and valleys along Interstate 580 through Alameda and Contra Costa counties are home to the world's largest wind farm at the Altamont Pass, a visually striking windmill forest that provides clean, alternative energy.

But the region also is home to one of the world's highest concentrations of raptors -- golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, falcons and owls. Biologists say about 1,000 birds are killed each year flying into the windmill blades as they dive for ground prey or trying to perch on the structures.

Jeff Miller, spokesman for the San Francisco center that filed the suit, said the deaths of these raptors during the past 20 years are in ``flagrant criminal violation'' of state and federal wildlife protection laws, as well as the state's unfair business code because the operators have profited as companies while illegally killing these birds, the suit states.

Coincidentally, the state's business code is the subject of Proposition 64, which voters will decide whether they want to keep or abolish at the polls today.

In the lawsuit, the Center for Biological Diversity recommends that the companies install newer, state-of-the-art technology that scientists say would cut the number of bird deaths by half, and fund new wildlife habitat to compensate for past bird deaths.

The recommendation for better technology echoes the August findings of a state-commissioned report by the California Energy Commission. Some of the companies, however, said they found this solution expensive: It costs about $1 million per megawatt to buy the new turbines. Rick Koebbe, of PowerWorks, told the Mercury News in August that would mean he would have to pay $95 million for the 95 megawatts his company generates.

This suit is similar, but larger in scope, to a federal lawsuit Miller's center withdrew this summer. Miller decided to refile in state court, hoping for a better chance of winning if the case is picked up by Alameda County's highly regarded complex litigation division.

This new lawsuit is expanded, naming all the Altamont Pass wind power companies as defendants, instead of just two of the largest ones. The defendants named include: FPL Energy, ESI Bay Area, GREP Bay Area Holdings, Green Ridge Power, Altamont Power, Enxco, Seawest Windpower, Windworks, Altamont Winds and Pacific Winds.

Reached in Florida, Steve Stengel, spokesman for FPL Energy, the country's largest operator of wind turbines, said he had no comment about the lawsuit because he had not seen it. The company Web site touts itself as being one of the most financially sound energy services companies in the country, committed to ``responsible solutions'' and clean and renewable sources. Other companies contacted Monday also were unavailable for immediate comment.

In a separate but related event, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors is scheduled on Thursday at 9 a.m. to hear public testimony at 1221 Oak St. in Oakland about whether 29 wind turbine permits should be renewed. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Golden Gate Audubon Society and Californians for Renewable Energy have appealed these permits, alleging that the supervisors renewed them without conducting the proper public environmental review.