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Ottawa Wind Concerns

Category Archives: Ottawa

MP demands halt to local wind project, says science lacking in decision

12 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by Ottawa Wind Concerns in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bart Geleynse Jr, CanWEA, cost benefit wind power, Feed In Tariff Ontario, Health Canada wind turbine noise study, health effects wind farms, infrasound wind turbines, moratorium wind power projects, North Gower wind farm, North Gower wind power project, Ottawa wind concerns, Pierre Poilievre, Prowind, Richmond wind farm, Richmond wind power project

Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre rose in the House of Commons yesterday to present a petition to the House on behalf of residents of North Gower and Richmond (communities within the City of Ottawa) where a 20-megawatt wind power project is proposed.

Poilievre’s petition demands a halt to the wind power generation project until the results of the Health Canada study on noise and infrasound has been completed, anticipated for the end of 2014. “Decisions must be science-based,” he told the House.

He noted that Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq announced the revised study design February 10th.

Ottawa Wind Concerns is grateful for the MP’s support on this issue, and for bringing forward a solid foundation for the community’s concerns about this project, which will expose the people living in 450 homes to noise and vibration. In 2010, Rogers TV host Mark Sutcliffe asked then-company representative Bart Geleynse Jr whether the turbines in North Gower-Richmond area project would make noise. “Of course they will,” said Geleynse, “they’re power plants!”

Indeed.

And they don’t belong so close to families.

The wind power development lobby group CanWEA this week put out a news release saying that a survey showed 80% of the residents of Denmark questioned about wind power said they were not bothered by the wind turbines. In fact, 17% of the respondents said they were disturbed, with about 4% saying they were disturbed to a “major extent” and 5% “moderately” disturbed. In other words, almost 10% had their lives disrupted and their health affected by wind turbines.

“North Gower and Richmond are quiet communities that don’t deserve to be turned into a wind power factory,” says Jane Wilson, chair of Ottawa Wind Concerns. “The community doesn’t want this, our MP and MPP supports us and so do many on Council. It’s a completely inappropriate land use.”

Last year, MP Poilievre asked the Library of Parliament to look at the cost to taxpayers of the North Gower-Richmond power project, and discovered the cost in subsidies to ratepayers would be $4.8 million per year (a conservative estimate, we’re told).

In fact, subsidies to the wind power developers run $500,000 per turbine per year. Worse, Ontario doesn’t need any more power, and the intermittent nature of power produced by wind turbines is having a destabilizing effect on the grid, say Ontario’s electrical engineers, in their 2011 report.

The video of Pierre Poilievre’s statement in the House is here: http://www.pierremp.ca/petition-calls-for-a-moratorium-on-local-wind-project/

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca

 

The wind power lobbyists get rich: David Frum

27 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by Ottawa Wind Concerns in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cost benefit wind power, David Frum, environmental effects wind farms, environmental effects wind power, Environmental Review Tribunal, expensive electricity Ontario, health impacts wind farms, national Post, noise wind farms, Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Ostrander Point, Ottawa wind concerns, rising electricity bills Ontario, Vic Schroter, wind power Ontario, wind power Prince Edward County, wind scam

Excellent summary of what wind power in Ontario is really all about from columnist David Frum. Using the example of the egregious project proposed –and now approved–for Prince Edward County and Ostrander Point, Mr Frum says wind power is harming the environment, not helping it.

Add to that the health impacts for residents nearby wind power generation facilities (they’re not “farms”) and you have a lose-lose situation.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/26/david-frum-expensive-power-ruined-landscapes/

Expensive power, ruined lands

David Frum

Must we despoil Ontario’s environment in order to save it?

On Feb. 8, the Environmental Review Tribunal will consider an application to build nine large wind turbines on one of the most scenic points in one of Ontario’s most scenic places.

Ostrander Point Road bisects the small peninsula leading to the Prince Edward Point National Wildlife Area. The peninsula is an open area of meadows and wood thickets, bounded to north and south by the Lake. It’s a true beauty spot, but it also happens to get a lot of wind. Which is why the Ministry of the Environment has approved a project to generate up to 22.5 megawatts of electricity from wind turbines 200-300 feet tall.

This project is the first of many planned for Prince Edward County. This uniquely beautiful region of Ontario — now enjoying an economic revival thanks to winemaking, artisan farming and tourism — is to be spiked with turbines to realize the McGuinty government’s green-energy ambitions.

Moving Ontario off coal is a laudable aspiration. But moving to power that flunks the market test is no boon to the environment. Money is a limited resource, too, and money that is wasted on projects that don’ t make sense is money unavailable for other purposes: hazardous waste clean up, water purification, land conservation.

Wind energy continues to flunk the market test. Ontario buys wind energy at a price 50% higher than it would have to pay for electricity from natural gas. (A new natural gas facility can make money selling electricity at 7-8 cents a kilowatt-hour. Ontario buys newly installed windpower at prices of about 11 cents per kilowatt-hour.)

Worse, unlike solar power, windpower is not likely to become more economic in the future. The main items in the cost of wind are the cost of acquiring the ground underneath the turbines, the cost of wiring turbines to the grid, and the cost of maintaining those wires — in other words, land and labor. Solar power can at least promise to slide down a cost curve. Wind can’t.

Yet Ontario already has installed 1,500 megawatts of wind capacity and is committing to more. Why? There are cheaper and less landscape-blotting ways to go green. But a series of bad decisions in the past have pushed Ontario into a cul-de-sac demanding more and more bad decisions in the years ahead.

The cheapest and cleanest of all energy sources is hydropower. That was true in the past, and it remains true now. Canada has abundant hydro potential — and in fact Manitoba and Quebec have abundant hydro for sale right now.

But if Hydro is cheap in the long run, it requires big investments in the here and now: big investments not only in dams and other facilities, but also big investments in the transmission wires to move the electricity to market.

Those investments must be financed by debt, and Ontario flinches from piling new debt atop its terrifying mountain of existing debt.

Here’s the real beauty of windpower from the McGuinty government’s point of view: The higher cost of wind electricity can be hidden from view, tucked into Hydro consumers’ bills, hidden by gimmicks that few people notice and fewer people understand.

In exchange for receiving a higher price for his power — a much higher price — the wind power producer shoulders the capital cost of financing new electricity capacity. The transaction has the same loan-shark logic as “rent to own” vs. borrowing to buy: You pay more over the life of the product in return for not tapping your dwindling credit.

The bad decision is pushed along by a heavy seasoning of ideology: wind good! dams bad!

And of course lobbying and interest-group politicking exert their own sway over Queen’s Park: A power source that costs 50% more than its next competitor can always find a few hundred thousand dollars to hire and reward friends and supporters.

Wind enriches lobbyists. It satisfies certain varieties of environmentalists. And it protects the McGuinty government from awkward financial realities. That’s a win-win-win all around, except for the over-charged power customers (who won’t know what’s happening until it’s too late) and the people who live upon the brutalized landscape of Prince Edward County (and how many of them — us! — are there anyway)?

—-

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca

Donations welcome PO Box 3 North Gower On  K0A 2T0

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Dalton McGuinty’s legacy: highest electricity bills in North America

21 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by Ottawa Wind Concerns in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

cost of renewable power Ontario, cost wind power, cost-benefit renewable power, Dalton McGuinty, electricity costs Ontario, health effects wind power, Parker Gallant, property value loss wind power, property value wind farms, Robert Lyman, Wind Concerns Ontario

Here, from Parker Gallant, a comment on what Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal government has done to Ontario. We have spent billions on new “renewable” power sources, without actually adding any generation capacity. How does that make any sense?

But here’s the kick: by the end of 2016, Ontario consumers will be paying $2,055 a year MORE for power because of the McGuinty government’s policies.

Read the article, originally published in the January 18 Financial Post, here:

http://www.freewco.blogspot.ca/2013/01/ontarios-power-trip-mcguintys-legacy.html

Ottawa’s own Robert Lyman has already had a comment:

I was glad to see the article that Parker Gallant published in the National Post. For the first time that I have seen, it draws together the costs of the decisions taken by the McGuinty government in the electricity field since it came into office. The results are striking.
The “bottom line” is that the costs to the average Ontario homeowner, which have doubled since 2004, will double again by 2016. Over the next four years, the additional costs per ratepayer/taxpayer will be about $2,050. The cost of wind turbines is only one part of that cost, but it alone will add $2.5 billion per year to the costs of the electrical system. All of this, on a net basis, has not added one bit to Ontario’s generation capacity, as the province has essentially shut down the inexpensive coal plants and replaced them with the super-expensive wind and solar plants and the “smart meters”.
This analysis, never before assembled (to my knowledge), provides a powerful case against the electricity policies of the current Ontario government.
Of course, this just deals with the costs to consumers and small- and medium-sized business; never mind the dropping property values in rural communities invaded by wind power companies, the reduced appeal of Ontario tourist destinations and–most horrific of all–the damage to the health of some Ontario citizens forced to live near these power projects.
Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca and follow us on Twitter at northgowerwind.
For more news and comment daily, go to http://www.windconcernsontario.ca and follow Wind Concerns Ontario on Twitter at WindConcernsONT

Ottawa Hydro rates up: what’s the rest of the story? Subsidies…

10 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by Ottawa Wind Concerns in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cost benefit wind power, Don Butler, electricity system Ontario, Feed In Tariff Ontario, Nepean-Carleton MP, Ontario smart meters, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Hydro, Ottawa wind concerns, Pierre Poilievre, rising hydro rates Ottawa, Robert Lyman, solar power Ontario, subsidies for Ontario power, subsidies Ontario, wind power Ontario

In today’s Ottawa Citizen, a report from Don Butler on the rise in rates for power from Ottawa Hydro. Here’s a comment from someone whose opinion we regard highly, Robert Lyman, former Director-General, Environmental Affairs, with Transport Canada.

The Citizen story is here: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Modest+Hydro+Ottawa+increase+masks+steep+rise+electricity+rates/7797528/story.html

With his permission, we post Bob Lyman’s comment here:

It tells only a small part of the story, of course. The focus of the article was on the effects of time-of-use rates as compared to delivery charges, with just a passing reference to the taxpayer subsidy that will expire in a few years. The other way of presenting the increases is in terms of the average costs of electrical energy minus the delivery (transmission and distribution) charges. Those increased 85 % from 2005 to 2011 and were projected by Ontario Power Generation to increase another 46% from 2012 to 2015. There are good reasons to believe that the 46% figure is an under-estimate.
More important, the article did not explain why costs are increasing so much, when demand is falling. The answer lies in much higher costs now being paid for new generation sources like wind and solar and the expensive energy “conservation” programs. The effects of these costs are just beginning to be felt. As industrial wind turbines become a much larger share of generation in future, the cost increases will accelerate.
Add to this the costs of implementing the “smart meters” program, which is probably in the range of $2 billion province-wide for the meters and local distribution costs alone, and the huge costs of expanding the transmission system to pick up all the disparate source of electricity generation from wind, and you have an electrical system headed for major rate increases for the foreseeable future.
We as taxpayers are providing a huge subsidy so that we as ratepayers will be lulled into thinking that the electrical energy system is all right. Unfortunately it isn’t.

 

We would add to this a repetition of the results of a Library of Parliament analysis of the wind power project planned for the south-west rural area of Ottawa, as requested by Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre. The research found that the subsidy for this particular project would be on the order of $4.8 MILLION per year.

Email us (join us!) at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca

Electricity technologist details turbine woes

26 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by Ottawa Wind Concerns in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dave Colling, David Colling, dirty electricity, electricity pollution, North Dundas, North Gower wind farm, North Gower wind power, Ottawa wind concerns, Richmond wind farm, South Mountain, stray voltage, wind farm substation

About 50 people gathered in the Mountain Agricultural Hall in South Mountain yesterday (what a pretty village!) to hear David Colling, former dairy farmer now feed supplier from the Ripley area.

Mr Colling explained that he now measures electricity “pollution” in homes and on farms, and has done more than 500 farms over the last five years. he was visiting three clients in the Eastern Ontario area.

When a Ripley area family came to him several years ago with concerns about the wind power project near them, he said he didn’t believe there could be a problem, but he went out and measured the electricity anyway. His advice: Get out of this house, now. The electricity pollution was so bad, he said it would have destroyed a herd of dairy cattle within six months.

Several families became ill after a wind power project started in the Kincardine area: the source of their problems seemed to be not just the turbines themselves but the substation* that was located across the road from them. Two of the families have now abandoned their homes, while the third family remains–they can’t afford to leave their home behind.

“The government of Ontario only cares about the big corporations producing wind power,” he concludes after speaking with people who have to live near wind power projects all over the province. “They clearly don’t care about you and me.”

One interesting fact about the turbine projects is that earthworms disappear in the area. Sonic vibration and electricity force the earthworms to leave, farmers tell him; the impact zone is a stunning FIFTEEN ACRES.

For more information go to his website HERE: http://www.electricalpollution.com/windturbines.html

Prepare to be stunned by what you read.

You can email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca and please, donate to help us with the cost of legal advice. When the Feed In Tariff subsidy program opens again, Prowind will be in a position to re-apply. We’re going to need to step up our activities to protect this community.

PO Box 3, North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

*The substation for the proposed North Gower-Richmond wind power project is to be located just west of Fourth Line Road.

Ottawa Wind Concerns chair awarded Jubilee medal

23 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by Ottawa Wind Concerns in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

health effects wind farms, health effects wind turbine noise, North Gower wind project, Ottawa wind project, Pierre Poilievre, Queen's Jubilee Medal, Wind Concerns Ontario, wind farm North Gower, wind farm Ottawa, wind farm petition, wind farm Richmond

Member of Parliament for Nepean-Carleton Pierre Poilievre gave Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medals to four community members  last evening. The MP said that too often, politics and media concentrate on urban life when he said, the rural communities are in many ways the backbone of Canada.

One of the awards went to Ottawa Wind Concerns chair Jane Wilson, who is also the president of Wind Concerns Ontario.

Mr Poilievre said in specific that the award was to acknowledge advocacy work to protect the health and safety of people living near industrial-scale wind power projects.

Several months ago, Mr Poilievre launched a petition to be taken to the House of Commons to ask for a halt to the Ottawa wind power project based in North Gower-Richmond, to wait until the results of health impact studies are available. (The petition is still availble for signing–contact us, or drop into the MP’s office at 250 Greenbank.)

He also commissioned an economic review of the project by the Library of Parliament, which found that the cost to taxpayers in Ontario for the power project would be $4.8 million, per year.

We are going to fight ON. And ON. It is not fair that an entire community should be affected by the decision of a few landowners to put profits before their community.

To donate–we need funds for ongoing legal advice–please send a cheque to PO Box 3 North Gower ON   K0A 2T0. To have your name added to our (confidential) email list, email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca

Cancelled gas plants: what’s another 20,000 pages?

12 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by Ottawa Wind Concerns in Ottawa, Wind power

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Atikokan power plant, Bill Mauro MPP, cancelled gas plants Ontario, Chris Bentley, McGuinty government, Mississauga gas plant, MPP Bentley contempt, Oakville gas plant, Ontario Power Authority, OPA, Ottawa wind concerns, Parker Gallant, Robert Lyman

The big news out of Queen’s Park today is that while the Liberals thought they had complied with The Speaker’s request for documents pertaining to the Oakville and Mississauga gas plant cancellations (if you can call hundreds of blank pages complying with anything), there appears to have been an Oops!

Turns out now, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) has discovered 20,000 more pages of documents connected to the cancellations.

In a nutshell, the Liberal government cancelled the plants because the people in Oakville and Mississauga–who NEED the power–didn’t want them, and an election was coming. So, now the government has decided to move them, guess where, rural locations, and then build the capacity it needs in the form of new transmission lines, new gas lines, whatever, so the resource hinterland of rural Ontario can feed Toronto.

How much is this costing you? Plenty.

Here is a summary from Ottawa Wind Concerns friend Robert Lyman, a former director in the federal government who was involved in energy policy.

ONTARIO ELECTRICITY RATEPAYERS – PAYING FOR POLITICS

Over the past year, there have been a series of announcements by Brad Duguid, Ontario Minister of Energy and his successor, Chris Bentley, about the construction of electricity generation projects in the province. Those announcements have all been related closely to the October 7, 2011 provincial election, which the Liberals won with a minority. Unfortunately, few citizens have understood the implications of the announcements.

This may have changed due to the work of two experts: Parker Gallant, a retired banker who has devoted several years to monitoring and reporting on the financial performance of Ontario’s electrical energy Crown Corporations and Bruce Sharp, an electrical engineer. You can read their excellent analyses in the online version of the Financial Post (“Ontario’ Power Trip: The $733 million gas boondoggle” by Bruce Sharp, and “Atikokan Conversion – Another Seat Saver for the Liberals!” by Parker Gallant). Their analyses are obscured, however, by the complexity of the subject matter. I will attempt to make it clearer.

Atikokan

In the period leading up to the 2011 provincial election, there were a number of announcements concerning electrical energy generation in the Atikokan area:

  • On September 11, 2011, Brad Duguid announced that the existing 200 MW Atikokan coal plant would be convert to biomass. Subsequent announcements promised that the contractor, Aecon, would complete the conversion for $170 million and that there would be 200 construction jobs for two years.
  • Chris Bentley subsequently announced that the Ontario Power Authority had contracted for the supply of 200 MW of electrical energy from wind turbines and solar generation.

These announcements were well received by the residents of Atikokan. In the 2011 election, MPP Bill Mauro of Thunder Bay Atikokan beat out the NDP candidate by 39% to 37%; this was less than 500 votes.

 

Subsequent analysis by Parker Gallant revealed some interesting things:

  • The contractor, Aecon, has contributed more than $45,000 to the Liberal Party of Ontario over the past four years and the Liberal Government has appointed the Aecon CEO to the Board of Directors of the Ontario Power Authority since its creation.
  • Over the last two years, the Atikokan coal plant has produced power at 2.6% of its capacity, which means that it has not been needed to support Ontario’s demands.
  • The conversion of the Atikokan plant to biomass (which would use wood chips as fuel) would actually reduce its ability to produce power from 175,000 to 140,000 megawatt hours.
  • As wind and solar energy plants produce electricity on an intermittent basis (i.e. when the wind blows and the sun shines), they are not sufficiently reliable to serve the needs of the pulp and paper plants in the area. This will require the construction of an east/west transmission line at a cost of $600 million to ensure reliability of energy supply to the region.
  • Considering the cost of the coal plant conversion, of the subsidies to the wind and solar plants and of the east-west transmission line, the total expenditures in this area will be close to $1 billion.

Oakville

Prior to the 2011 election, there was considerable controversy over the proposal by TransCanada Energy Corp., under contract to the Ontario Power Authority (OPA), to build a 900-megawatt natural gas-fired generating station near Oakville. The Ontario Cabinet decided, in the face of the controversy, to breach the $1.2 billion contract with TransCanada and to build the plant instead in Lennox, Ontario on land held by the government-owned Ontario Power Generation (OPG).

On September 24, 2012, Chris Bentley announced that a settlement had been reached between OPA and TransCanada over the breach of contract. The announcement focused on two payments to TransCanada – $40 million to cover sunk costs and a $210 million “turbine payment”, which was not explained.

The details that have emerged subsequently are as follows:

  • The turbine payment is an elaborate shell game. OPA has agreed to pay TransCanada $210 million for two gas turbines at the new plant. By 2017, when the new plant is completed, OPA will be sitting on a $210 million liability. When the plant starts producing electricity, TransCanada will repay the $210 million over the 20-year term of the contract, using revenues received from Ontario ratepayers. Under Ontario’s green-energy plan, even if the Lennox plant’s power is not needed, electricity ratepayers will still pay for the electricity they don’t need.
  • It is likely that the plant will not be needed. It will be located right next to an existing OPG plant that is seldom needed. When that plant does operate, it sells electricity into the export market below cost.
  • The turbine payment was far too high. If the plant had been located at Oakville, TransCanada would have been fully compensated for its costs with a payment of $113 million, $97 million less than the government has agreed to pay.
  • The gas services costs for the Lennox site, further away from the natural gas hub, may be higher than anticipated. Bruce Sharp estimates that they will be $346 million over the 20-year project term.
  • Locating the power plant farther away from the GTA will require up to $250 million in additional transmission facilities.
  • The total estimated cost of moving the project from Oakville to Lennox may thus be $733 million. This does not include other, to-be-determined costs, such as the compensation that will have to be paid to Ontario Power Generation for its land at Lennox. The figures contrast sharply with the $40 million the Ontario government has been citing.

Mississauga

The Atikokan and Oakville plants are in addition to the $190 million that the Ontario government had to pay to cancel a plant that would have been built in Mississauga. Similar to the Oakville decision, the cancellation of the Mississauga plant, made two weeks before the election, was followed by a decision to build the needed gas plant in Lambton, near Sarnia, which will add significantly to the electricity transmission costs.

In May, 1997, the MacDonald Commission issued its report recommending that the Ontario government introduce more competition into Ontario’s electricity system, including privatization of Ontario Hydro. Fifteen years later, electricity remains a publicly-owned and managed political football in Ontario.  Consumers will continue to pay dearly until this is changed.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca

Donations welcome for legal advice etc PO Box 3 North Gower ON   K0A 2T0

(Our mailbox is courtesy of the generous donation from a community member—thank you!)

A word about our photo

24 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by Ottawa Wind Concerns in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cost benefit wind power, health effects wind farms, how big are wind turbines, infrasound wind turbines, North Gower wind power project, Ottawa wind concerns, Richmond wind project, wind farms industrialize Ontario, wind power project Ottawa

The rather elegant photo of Ottawa in our header needs an explanation: if there were a wind turbine in it, of the scale being proposed for south Ottawa, it is so tall you wouldn’t be able to see the nacelle or hub of it …. that is exactly how big these machines are. And of course, what they look like isn’t the issue, it’s the noise and the vibration they produce.

But, we need people to understand the scale of these power generating machines. Now, imagine TEN of these machines in the background of our photo…or 20 or 40 or 60 or—as in the Enbridge project near Kincardine, 120, or as in what Samsung is doing in Haldimand-Norfolk and Chatham-Kent, FIVE HUNDRED turbines…and you get an idea of what we mean when we say wind power projects are industrializing the small communities of Ontario.

It is expropriation with compensation. It is sacrificing the quality of life in our communities, reducing property values and harming health…all for an ideology for which there is no evidence of benefits.

We repeat a comment from then sales rep for Prowind, headquartered in Germany, who is behind the project in Richmond-North Gower and South Dundas. When asked by Mark Sutcliffe whether the wind turbines make noise (Talk Ottawa, April 2010) he said, “Of course they do! They’re power plants!”

What we need is a safe reliable power source that does not sacrifice anyone’s health or quality of life.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca and please consider donating toward our legal and other costs. We accept PayPal or cheques at PO Box 3 North Gower On  K0A 2T0 Ottawa Wind Concerns is a corporate member of Wind Concerns Ontario http://www.windconcernsontario.ca

What kind of person…?

13 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by Ottawa Wind Concerns in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Andy Braid, cost benefit wind power, health effects wind power, health effects wind turbine noise, infrasound wind turbines, Manotick Messenger, moratorium wind power projects, North Gower, North Gower wind power project, Ottawa wind concerns, Pierre Poilievre, wind power project Ottawa

We’re not sure who “Andy Braid” of Kars is, nor do we get why Mr Braid seems to have letters published with regularity in The Manotick Messenger (3 weeks in a row, by our count) but at least our response to his recent letter about the wind power project was published, yesterday.

Here is the letter.

Mr Braid claims that MP Pierre Poilievre hasn’t got his facts straight in asking for a moratorium on the proposed wind power project for our community. It is Mr. Braid who is in error.

Ontario uses coal power for less than three percent of its electricity needs, and could shut them off altogether for seven months of the year when they are not needed for spikes in demand due to hot weather. The truth is, Ontario’s pollution comes from cars and trucks, and from industry south of the border.

Most worrying, however, is his objection to Health Canada spending time studying the noise problem. What kind of person does not want more information on a public health issue, and is in fact willing to sacrifice the health of his neighbours in North Gower, Richmond and Manotick?

Wind power has not been proven to reduce greenhouse gases anywhere in the world.

Jane Wilson

Ottawa Wind Concerns

Mr Braid’s comments, it might also be noted, come right out of the wind power developers’ lobby group playbook. They don’t want Health Canada to study the turbine noise and infrasound. If the study is done right–and many are commenting on the current proposed study design (it has flaws) to improve it–it will show that there are questions about setbacks and nighttime noise.

Ontario could end up with 2-km setbacks (minimum in the view of the World Health organization and the Society for Wind Vigilance) and perhaps also having the turbines turned off at night, as they are now doing in some areas of France. That means less profit in the form of taxpayer subsidy for the big companies.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca and donate to PO Box 3, North Gower ON   K0A 2T0

Landowner with turbine lease: “I wouldn’t sign now”

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by Ottawa Wind Concerns in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

health effects wind farms, health effects wind power, infrasound wind turbines, landowners signing leases for wind farms, wind farm Britton, wind farm leases, wind farm Lisowel, wind farm North Gower, wind farm Richmond

One of the things we have heard from a number of communities is that landowners who signed options and then those options turned into leases for industrial-scale wind turbines, is that they wish they had learned more about the whole issue before they signed.

A lawyer told our community group, If landowners had had a lawyer read over some of those contracts, the advice would have been NOT to sign.

The reasons are several: you virtually give away all rights to your own land for 20 years and at the end of that time there is a first right of refusal. In the United States for example, the leases are written in such a way that they are really 60-year leases, not 20.

But what happens quickly is the community reaction when a landowner decides to put money first and sign on the dotted line. Neighbours of the leased property tend to object when they learn that their property values are going to plummet (this is true regardless of what the wind power industry claims), their community industrialized and, worst of all, they are at risk of being made ill by the environmental noise and infrasound.

Here is an account of one farm owner’s statements from the dairy-rich Listowel area of Ontario. Note that the farm-owner now believes he was misled by the wind power developer (Invenergy in this case).

A link to the full story follows.

Doug Hoshel, the Britton landowner who leased the three turbines in question, said his feelings towards wind turbines have certainly changed since he signed the contract with Invenergy last October.

“I would never sign one now, mainly because of what it’s done to the community,” Hoshel said. “There’s so many unanswered questions I wasn’t aware of when I signed.”

 The draft site plan also conflicts with Hoshel’s understanding of the project, which was described by Invenergy Canada as a low-density project with one turbine every 100 acres and no more than three turbines per rural block. The draft site plan now shows Hoshel with three turbines on his 100 acres farm, leaving him feeling like he was misled.

 “The last thing I want is for someone to get sick because of something that’s on my property,” Hoshel said. “I love this community, and I’m concerned about it.”

http://www.southwesternontario.ca/uncategorized/welfare-of-children-at-risk-due-to-wind-turbines-parents-say/

****PLEASE be sure to sign the petition put forward by Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre, asking the Ontario government not to approve the North Gower-Richmond area of Ottawa wind power project, while the Health Canada study is ongoing. A copy of it is on this website under documents, or you can go to Mr Poilievre’s office at 250B Greenbank Rd and sign there.

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  • Wind power locally: reliably unreliable
  • Has Ottawa lost its focus on city priorities?
  • Pro-wind groups in Ottawa collaborate to “educate”
  • Thinking of signing for a wind turbine lease? Better get informed to protect yourself

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Bob Chiarelli Green Energy Act IESO Ontario Ottawa Ottawa wind concerns wind energy wind farm wind power wind turbines

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