Tag Archives: Eastern Ontario wind farm

South Dundas wind farm meeting draws mixed reaction

06 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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Cornwall News Watch, August 6, 2015

South Dundas wind farm meeting brings large crowd, mixed views

Posted on August 6, 2015 by in News, South Dundas // 2 Comments

Wind turbines of the EDP Renewables’ South Branch Wind Farm, east of County Road 16, turn in a summer breeze on Aug. 5, 2015. The company is proposing another farm east of here that could cover approximately 10,000 acres. (Cornwall Newswatch/Bill Kingston)

DIXONS CORNERS – A big crowd had mixed feelings over a proposed second installment of a wind farm in South Dundas.

Roughly 70 people were at the Matilda Hall on County Road 16 Wednesday night to see various charts and talk with representatives about the South Branch Wind Farm II project as part of a three-hour open house.

The 75 megawatt wind farm would be nearly three times the size in area than the existing South Branch Wind Farm (it would be roughly 10,000 acres) and would have 20-30 turbines to the east of the existing wind farm.

The now-operating South Branch Wind Farm is 30 megawatts and has 10 turbines.

The Spain-based company, EDP Renewables, is among 21 qualified companies in Ontario to put together competitive bids for wind farms and are holding these open houses as part of their requirements to submit a bid.

While Morrisburg residents Dick and Doreen Liberty are generally not supportive of wind energy, they felt EDP Renewables put a good case together.

Uncertainties about health

“I think that there’s probably a reason to have wind but I’m still, like everyone else, somewhat skeptical about the fact that there’s some uncertainties. For example, the cows, is this affecting them? Still born calves, milk production and so on and (health effects) in humans as well,” Dick Liberty told Cornwall Newswatch.

Doreen Liberty said they came to “get educated” because it’s hard to make an informed opinion without the information.

“By looking at some of the charts I would say the province has a pretty good handle on what they’re doing and they have to jump through several hoops to get to the final points,” Dick Liberty said. “I’m somewhat impressed.”

EDP Renewables has to submit its proposal by Sept. 1 and its hoping to get council support by resolution Tuesday night, which would give it a competitive advantage.

With the exception of Coun. Archie Mellan, the entire council also showed up at the open house. MPP Jim McDonell was there as well.

South Dundas councillors and staff, spokesmen from EDP Renewables and local residents chat about the proposed South Branch Wind Farm II project during an open house Aug. 5, 2015 at Matilda Hall in Dixons Corners. (Cornwall Newswatch/Bill Kingston)

“I’m not surprised at what I’m hearing,” South Dundas Mayor Evonne Delegarde said after mingling with constituents. “The people who are involved or potentially involved in the project are supportive and the people who are not, are not supportive,” she said. The mayor said the biggest concerns she heard were about turbine noise, setbacks and the coverage area.

“Your head and your heart have to come into play on this one,” Mayor Delegarde stated when asked about balancing the concerns of constituents before Tuesday’s vote. “You know all the people…I have friends on both sides. I’ve received (dozens) of emails from both sides,” she said.

Bill Lortie moved into a home on Chess Road, a couple kilometers outside the proposed area for the wind turbines, about a year ago.

Larger than we thought

“The scope of it is larger than what we expected. The size of the turbines are larger, the number of turbines is greater that what’s currently in the ground there. It’s closer to our residence than we expected,” Lortie said.

Lortie seemed somewhat relieved that it wouldn’t have a direct impact on their home.

“Generally, we were impressed with the presentation. We’ll just have to take a ‘wait and see’ approach to where things go,” he said. “The bottom line is they’re an energy company. They’re in to make a profit, obviously. It’s a bit of a concern if these things start spreading all over,” Lortie said.

“It’s green energy as opposed to gas and oil and coal. Obviously it’s the direction in which we’re all heading and one of these days there will be wind farms all over the place and probably people won’t think twice about it,” he said. “It’s new now and people are rebelling, especially (over) the sound impacts and possible other environmental impacts.”

Another public meeting is happening in Finch Thursday from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. at the Finch Community Arena at 4 John Street for EDP’s 100 megawatt Nation Rise Wind Farm.

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Community organizes to fight Land O’Lakes turbines

09 Tuesday Jun 2015

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Significant scenic area of Ontario could be affected

Residents of North Frontenac and Addington Highlands (also known as Land O’ Lakes area) have organized to fight the threatened 150-turbine wind power development by NextEra.

NextEra is the renewable energy arm of the U.S. power company, Florida Light and Power. As Parker Gallant has revealed in a post on this site, FPL is doing so well scooping up subsidy money here in Ontario, they have actually provided rate reductions to their customers in the United States.

See the website for the Bon Echo Area Residents Against Turbines here. The website is under construction and promises more detail later, but features a petition for signing now.

Citizens recently held a community meeting in Denbigh that included presentations by Parker Gallant and Carmen Krogh.

The group also has a Twitter account bearatorg and Facebook page.

 

Wind farm health and property value impacts: what the developer isn’t telling you

11 Monday May 2015

Posted by in Wind power

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Two information events were held in North Stormont last week; a panel discussion on wind power issues, hosted by the Lions’ Club in Finch on May 6, and in Crysler on May 7, the first Open House on the North Stormont wind “farm” hosted by power developer EDP Renewables.

We have already reported on the Lions’ Club event and doubtless the media will be along shortly, too; we have reports from people who attended the EDP event.

Apparently, the power developer had brochures available on health and property value impacts. Here is the “other side” on these issues.

Health

The wind power lobby is focusing on the Health Canada study which, they say, claims no “causal link” between wind turbine noise and health effects. The truth? The Health Canada study was not designed to find a causal link, so, surprise! What it DID find, however was that significant numbers of people are distressed by the turbine noise and infrasound (low frequency or inaudible sound). In Health Canada’s  PowerPoint presentation of its results, the following points were made:

  • as wind turbine noise levels increased, so did respondents’ annoyance (distress)…this was a statistically significant finding
  • in comparison to aircraft, rail or road traffic noise, annoyance/distress due to wind turbine noise was found to begin at lower levels, e.g., ~35dBA
  • the prevalence of wind turbine noise annoyance/distress was higher in Ontario than in PEI (the other area studied) and,
  • wind turbine noise annoyance/distress in the Ontario sample persisted up to distances between 1 and 2 km–in PEI this was restricted to

In fact, the Health Canada study found,16.5% of people within 1 km of a turbine experienced annoyance/distress, and at 550 metres, that went up to 25%

More recently, the Council of Canadian Academies released their report, a literature review on wind turbine noise, with the following important findings:

  • the evidence is sufficient to support a causal association between exposure to wind turbine noise and annoyance
  • standard methods of measuring sound may not capture low-frequency sound characteristic of wind turbine noise (in other words, the way Ontario is measuring turbine noise–and not measuring infrasound at all–is not adequate to protect health)
  • there is limited evidence to establish a causal relationship between exposure to wind turbine noise and sleep disturbance (which is known to cause health effects), and
  • knowledge gaps prevent a full assessment of health effects of wind turbine noise–proper population studies, especially studies of sensitive populations such as children, have not yet been done.

Did EDP Renewables present these facts at their Open House?

Property values

We’ll keep this short: we’re betting EDP brandished the recent study done by Richard Vyn of the University of Guelph, which is supposed to prove that property values around wind turbines don’t change. Aside from the fact that this is nonsense, and Vyn’s study was poorly structured—that’s not what he says!!! In fact, Vyn cautions the reader that there were significant limitations in how he went about his study and this [his conclusion] does not preclude any negative effects from occurring on individual properties. Read more analysis of the Vyn report at Wind Farm Realities.

The wind power developer is taking care to be seen to address the issues of health and property values, but they are being very selective in their choice of reference material (and in the coming federal election, you might ask candidates WHY the federal government used taxpayer money to create a misleading, attractive colour brochure to help the wind industry)

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

NOTE: This post certainly got us a lot of attention from the wind power industry. A wind industry communications officer from the UK accused us of causing harm to people by putting this information out there (he claimed people with real illnesses would not seek treatment because they will think instead it’s just wind turbine noise–absolutely unjustified and frankly, stupid); he was seconded by pro-wind physician George Crisp from Australia, and they were joined on Twitter by Chris Young, board member with the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association and employee of NorSun Energy in Ottawa. Mr Young pronounced us as “irrelevant.”

Massive wind farm proposed south of Ottawa

24 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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Cornwall NewsWatch, April 21, 2015

Next South Dundas wind farm could be four-fold of South Branch: EDP

Posted on April 23, 2015 by in News, South Dundas // 0 Comments

EDP Renewables Project Manager Ken Little, left, and Deputy Project Director Thomas LoTurco make a presentation to South Dundas council April 21, 2015. The company responsible for the South Branch Wind Farm is planning on building another farm east and north of Brinston, Ont. (Cornwall Newswatch/Bill Kingston)

MORRISBURG – The next wind farm in South Dundas could be up to four times the size of the South Branch Wind Farm, township officials heard Tuesday night.

EDP Renewables made a presentation to council to update the municipality on its next steps to build another wind farm in the county and ask for its support for the project through a “community support resolution.”

While no decisions were made Tuesday night, it’s unlikely that South Dundas will put pen to paper to back the wind farm as it signed a resolution in the fall of 2013 to tell the Ontario government is was a non-willing participant in wind energy.

EDP already has a 10 turbine, 30 megawatt operation – the South Branch Wind Farm – near Brinston.

Spokesman Ken Little says they will have a better idea how big the project will be when the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) publishes the grid connection availability, expected on May 22, 2015.

But, based on EDP calculations, they are assuming the capacity will be 50-100 megawatts, which could be serviced by 40 windmills.

Unlike the South Branch Wind Farm, this next farm is part of a competitive bid process and not under the Ontario government’s feed-in-tariff (FIT) program.

It would be east of the South Branch Wind Farm and would stretch in a northeasterly direction toward Winchester Springs.

Little says it’s likely the area would also be eligible for a community investment fund, similar to the one in Brinston, of $1,000 per megawatt per year for 20 years.

He also alluded to jobs, saying the operations are supported right now out of their New York office. “If we were to have another project in the area we would be talking about our own fully-dedicated operational staff full-time for those projects as well.”

“We’re going to start our public open houses in late May,” Little told council Tuesday night. “These will be general in format just to discuss the project and folks to ask questions.” Dates haven’t been set but they will mostly like be held at Matilda Hall or the Dixons Corners Municipal Center.

Little says there’s going to be a bigger demand for wind power in the years ahead. “With the Ontario energy surplus, it’s always a hot topic for discussion, it’s something where were closely getting to a window where that surplus will no longer be a surplus,” he said. The Pickering nuclear plant will be shut down in 2020 and 10 Bruce and Darlington nuclear plants, will be cycled off for rebuilds between 2017-2028, he explained.

For the green energy skeptics and the curious, EDP officials say the existing operation in Brinston is open for tours from the public at any time.

EDITOR’S NOTE: EDP is referring to the issue of surplus power in Ontario because that is the fact that the South Dundas unwilling host motion hinges on. The truth is, wind power–produced out-of-phase with demand, intermittent and unreliable–cannot replace the nuclear plants during their period of refurbishment. That would more likely be achieved by the natural gas plant at Lennox, and hydro.

An information evening will be held May 6th in Finch at the Lions Arena, at 7 PM.