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Tag Archives: Nation

Eastern Ontario wind farm contracts a betrayal of communities

11 Friday Mar 2016

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bob Chiarelli, Brinston, IESO, Large Renewable Power, LRP, Nation, Noprth Stormont, wind farm contracts, wind farms, wind power, Wynne government

Ottawa Citizen, March 11, 2016

3-MW turbine south of Ottawa at Brinston: Ontario. Communities had no choice. [Photo by Ray Pilon, Ottawa]

3-MW turbine south of Ottawa at Brinston: Ontario. Communities had no choice. [Photo by Ray Pilon, Ottawa]

By David Reeveley

The Ontario government has betrayed rural municipalities by approving new wind farms in places that have explicitly voted against them, mayors say — including just east of Ottawa.

“Since we declared ourselves unwilling hosts, we thought we had it made,” says François St. Amour, mayor of The Nation Municipality. “Because there was some talk in the last provincial election that they would honour municipalities that declared themselves unwilling. But I guess that was just another electoral promise.”

The agency that makes the province’s deals for renewable power is readying a contract for a 32-megawatt wind farm there, one of a bunch of bids from private generating companies it’s just accepted. The other in Eastern Ontario is the biggest of the group, a 100-megawatt project in North Stormont.

Both Eastern Ontario councils took votes in 2015 to say they did not want the wind farms on their territories.

The province’s Green Energy Act, meant to kickstart an Ontario industry in manufacturing and maintaining renewable energy technology, gave virtually no say to local governments on where wind and solar farms might go. Many rural residents believed, and still do, they’re being sacrificed for the electricity needs of cities.

The government pulled back. Under the province’s new rules, municipalities don’t get veto power over renewable energy projects but they do formally get asked to say whether new wind or solar farms are welcome or not. Ottawa’s city council regularly votes its formal support for small solar projects, which is worth extra points when would-be operators submit their bids.

“It will be virtually impossible for a wind turbine, for example, or a wind project, to go into a community without some significant level of engagement,” energy minister and Ottawa MPP Bob Chiarelli told a legislature committee in 2013.

“Engagement.” Not “agreement.”

“We will not give a veto, and no jurisdiction gives a veto, to a municipality on any kind of public infrastructure. That should have been clear to them,” Chiarelli says. Wind farms in rural Ontario are like tall buildings downtown, he says: immediate neighbours may hate them but they’re still needed.

Thirteen of the 16 new contracts got local council approval. All of the ones that didn’t are wind farms — the two here and one in Dutton-Dunwich, between London and Windsor, where residents took the issue up in a referendum and voted 84 per cent against. Two wind farms are going to Chatham-Kent, whose council voted to support them.

“They’ve put municipalities on the sidelines. It seems, though, that municipalities get most of the grief,” St. Amour says. His council first voted in favour of the wind farm in The Nation without a whole lot of thought, he says, treating it like the solar farms councillors have welcomed in the past. Councillors changed their minds after hearing from residents.

“It was rough on council last summer. It was really, really rough. Especially because we can’t do much about it. We thought declaring unwilling hosts was it,” St. Amour says.

Mayor Dennis Fife of North Stormont says his council thought the same. “At one time, the government said that if you came out with something saying you were an unwilling host, that would be respected, but that wasn’t the case,” he says.

The wind farm in North Stormont, near Finch, will probably have between 30 and 50 windmills. “You’re going to see all of them. There’s the health aspect that people are worried about. Noise, blinking lights, all of that,” Fife says.

Read the full story here.

 

Nation says NO to huge wind farms

11 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

community opposition wind farms, cost benefit wind power, Julie Leroux, Nation, Not a Willing host, Save The Nation, St Bernardin, St Isidore, wind farms Eastern Ontario, wind power, wind power project, wind power projects, wind turbines

Wind power project rejected: the people of Nation speak

Council for the municipality of Nation, just east of Ottawa, met last evening and decided to reverse a motion of support for two wind power projects, in St Bernardin and St Isidore. Nation is now Not A Willing Host to wind power projects, making it the 90th community in Ontario to reject wind power proposals. The community group Save The Nation/Sauvon La Nation held a huge public meeting last week, and revealed that council had passed the support motion with no public discussion or input.  The majority of residents are opposed to the power projects on the grounds that the potential for environmental damage is significant, and the impact on agriculture and the social fabric of the communities would be extensive. “We are not for sale,” said Julie Leroux of Save The Nation in an interview. EDF of France had claimed it has spent hundreds of thousands wooing the community, paying for hockey dinners and other events designed to sway farm owners to sign leases for the project. See the story from CTV News here: http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/residents-of-nation-east-of-ottawa-fight-wind-turbine-projects-1.2510730 Related story: the town of Essex last night voted not to support a new wind power project, saying they want no more wind turbines. There are now 91 Not A Willing Host communities in Ontario.

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