Tag Archives: North Gower wind farm

Ottawa Wind Concerns at Agricultural and Rural Affairs today

02 Thursday Apr 2015

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Ottawa Wind Concerns will present an overview of the new Ontario contracting process for wind power at the Agricultural and Rural Affairs committee today.

The group has prepared a presentation that outlines the process for developers, based on the 100-page document from the Independent Electricity System Operator or IESO, and has added recommendations for the City of Ottawa, should a proposal for a wind power project come forward.

“Our rural communities are completely opposed being industrialized for wind power projects, to produce power Ontario doesn’t need,” says chair Jane Wilson. “Almost 1,300 residents of the North Gower area signed a petition in 2013 to say they do not support a wind power project in their community, due to the economic and social costs.”

Ontario is contracting for 300 more megawatts of wind power in 2015, which will cost Ontario $200 million annually.

U.S.-based EDP Renewables has stated it is planning to propose 30-50 turbines just 30 minutes south of Ottawa, in North Dundas.

Ottawa Wind Concerns is a community group and corporate member of Wind Concerns Ontario.

 

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Big Wind’s “Big Bonanza” in Ontario: subsidies benefit a few corporations, not ratepayers

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

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From the Financial Post Comment, February 4, by Brady Yauch, executive director the Consumer Policy Institute

When the Ontario government launched its Green Energy Act (GEA ) in 2009, it promised “new green economy jobs” and ” a wide range of economic opportunities.” Then Minister of Energy George Smitherman argued that the GEA would be a boon to Ontarians of all stripes: “We see opportunities in our rural communities for farmers, not just to lease their land for big companies that are the proponents of wind farms, but indeed for clusters of farmers to see themselves as investors in projects…. the emergence of thousands of smaller green energy projects—microgeneration—in urban as well as rural areas.”

Yes, everyone would need to pay a little more for renewable power, the public was told, but the benefits would be widely shared, for the ultimate benefit of all. As it turned out, power rates didn’t go up a little – they soared. And the subsidies weren’t widely shared among the folk – a handful of billion dollar companies pocketed most of them, most of them outside the province.

According to an analysis by the Consumer Policy Institute and Energy Probe, 90% of the wind subsidies went to just 11 companies, 80% of the subsidies went to nine companies with annual revenues over $1-billion, 60% of the subsidies went to six companies with more than $10-billion in annual revenue.

As for the province’s claim that it wants to create an Ontario-based “green economy,” less than 10% of subsidies to wind generators went to small-scale or local owners.

Since 2006, when the province first started subsidizing wind turbines, the province has provided more than $1.92 billion in subsidies. This act of corporate welfare is far from over.

According to the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) – the provincial agency in charge of energy planning and contracting – the province has signed deals for another 2,630 MW of wind energy to come on stream in the coming years, on top of the 3,065 MW already in commercial operation. All of that generation will receive above market rates courtesy of ratepayers for their output. In total, the amount of subsidies to wind producers could hit $8-billion over the next decade and $13-billion over the next 20 years.

The list of companies receiving the lion’s share of subsidies reads like a “who’s who” in Canada’s energy sector and corporate heavyweights. Brookfield Renewable Energy (a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management), Enbridge and Transalta alone accounted for about 38 percent of all subsidies handed out to wind generators. Those companies combined brought in $54-billion in total revenue in 2013.

Samsung, which posted $217-billion in revenue last year, is expected to triple its wind capacity in Ontario – and the subsidies that go along with it – in the next couple of years.

The damage to ratepayers for such policies has been significant. Since 2009 – when the GEA was introduced – ratepayers in Ontario have seen the commodity cost on their energy bills climb dramatically, with the regulated price of power over that time having increased on average by 56%, or just over 9% annually – more than five times the rate of inflation, making electricity price increases worse in Ontario than elsewhere in Canada.

To make matters worse, the high rates being pushed onto ratepayers has lowered demand for electricity across the province in recent years. That means Ontario now has a significant surplus of power, which it then exports to neighbouring jurisdictions at a loss. Ontario ratepayers are now subsidizing the energy consumption of households in America and other provinces.

Nearly everyone is losing when it comes to renewable energy in Ontario – except for those few companies that planted industrial wind turbines across the province and are receiving billions in subsidies for their effort.

Brady Yauch is an economist and the executive director of Consumer Policy Institute. bradyyauch@consumerpolicyinstitute.org

NOTE from Ottawa Wind Concerns: The Library of Parliament, on request from MP Pierre Poilievre, estimated that IF the wind power project proposed for the North Gower-Richmond area of Ottawa by Germany-based Prowind had gone ahead (it almost reached approval), the 20-MW project would have cost Ontario ratepayers $4.8 million per year.

What the Health Canada noise study means for North Gower

29 Saturday Nov 2014

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Health Canada study results show North Gower wind farm would have made more than 100 people sick

Many people were disappointed in the results contained in the summary of the Health Canada Wind Turbine Noise and Health study, which was released in a hurry on November 6th.

While the mainstream media picked up on the message as being “there is no association between wind turbine noise and health effects” what Health Canada actually said in its news release was this:

No evidence was found to support a link between exposure to wind turbine noise and any of the self-reported or measured health endpoints examined. However, the study did demonstrate a relationship between increasing levels of wind turbine noise and annoyance towards several features (including noise, vibration, shadow flicker, and the aircraft warning lights on top of the turbines) associated with wind turbines.

In fact, the study found that an average of 16.5% of people within 2 km of wind turbines, or a wind turbine (whether multiples were considered is not clear), had severe distress or “annoyance”. The closer people lived, the worse that result was: 25% of people at 550 meters or less (some people waived the setback as part of their contract with the wind power developers) had adverse health effects related to the distress or annoyance, annoyance being a medical term.

The adverse health effects from the annoyance listed by Health Canada were:migraine, tinnitus (chronic ringing in the ears), dizziness, sleep disturbance or disorder, and cardiovascular effects such as elevated blood pressure.

So, what would that mean for North Gower, if the wind power generation project proposed by Prowind in 2008 gone ahead (remember, it got as close as one could to a Feed In Tariff contract, before the government paused the subsidy program in the spring of 2013–it is NOT true that it would never have been approved, it was virtually there).

Thanks to volunteers who have mapped the area, using a schematic of the turbine locations which was leaked to us, we know this:

Number of homes within 800 meters of a turbine: 43

Number of homes within 1.6 km of a turbine: 234

TOTAL number of homes that would be most affected: 277

At an average of 2.5 people/home, that would be 692 people, and at an average of 16.5% affected by distress/annoyance, that would be 114 people.

This is considered to be a conservative figure as Health Canada did not do any follow up on the significant number of houses it discovered vacant or demolished in the study. These were “mature” turbine projects and as we know from the experience of people living in areas like Chatham-Kent, Clear Creek, Ripley and Kincardine, the people most affected leave within six months to a year.

114 people.

At least some of them children.

And yet the Ontario government continues to approve these power projects, despite evidence of harm to health, and the fact that Ontario does not need the power. And the wind power lobby group, the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) persists in the mythology that wind power is clean and good for the environment.

Health Canada is taking no action, despite these results, and has no intention of studying wind turbine noise further*. The people of North Gower have a right to expect more from the federal government, and from Health Canada, which is supposed to used sound science principles to protect citizens.

Our Member of Parliament is Pierre Poilievre at pierre.poilievre@parl.gc.ca if you have any comments on what the Health Canada study means to you and our community.

Ottawa Wind Concerns

PO Box 3, North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

*As per a personal meeting with the study team representatives, Ottawa, November 7.

Wind turbine noise and health: what the wind lobby doesn’t want you to know

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

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The wind industry is dangerous to human health, posing risks to everything from dizziness and nausea to chronic stress and heart conditions

Lawrence Solomon, FR Comment, The Financial Post, November 25, 2014

A Canadian court will soon decide if wind turbines violate Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms by posing a risk to human health. Charter case decisions can be convoluted but the fundamental question of health at issue here is straightforward. Wind turbines, from all that is today known and by any rational measure, represent a risk to those living in their vicinity.

Although the wind industry and its government backers tend to dismiss concerns, the evidence of harm in communities that host wind turbines is overwhelming. Literally thousands of people around the world report similar adverse health effects, some so serious that owners abandon their homes. Studies of noise from turbines — though few in number, short in duration, tentative in their findings and conducted by interested parties — point to dangers. As if these weren’t enough, basic science sounds the alarm on wind turbines.

Wind turbines produce audible sound waves known to cause what medical science calls “annoyance,” a state of health that can lead to a constellation of illnesses called wind turbine syndrome (WTS). As Health Canada reported earlier this month, following a Statistics Canada survey it commissioned of people living in the vicinity of wind turbines, “[wind turbine noise] annoyance was found to be statistically related to several self-reported health effects including, but not limited to, blood pressure, migraines, tinnitus [ringing in the ears], dizziness” and sleep disorders. The annoyance was also found to be statistically associated with objective measurements of chronic stress and blood pressure. Health Canada’s bottom line: “the findings support a potential link between long-term high annoyance and health.”

The audible sound waves — these have a frequency above 20 Hz — may be the least of the worries faced by those living near wind turbines. The turbines also produce copious amounts of sound waves below 20 Hz, making them inaudible to the human ear and thus, say wind proponents, harmless. Yet sound at this low frequency, known as infrasound, should not be thought of as faint or weak. The U.S. military has studied the use of infrasound in non-lethal weapons. Many mammals — giraffes, elephants, whales — communicate with each other at infrasound frequencies, even when many kilometres apart. Powerful infrasound waves, in fact, explain how animals sense the coming of earthquakes well before humans do — and why animals fled to safety during the calamitous Sumatran and Japanese tsunamis of recent years.

Read the full article and comments here.

The wind power project that was proposed for the North Gower area was to be 8-10, 2.5 megawatt wind turbines. 1,000 homes would have been within 3 km of the turbines. No new project has yet been proposed under the new “procurement” process for large renewable power projects (which we don’t need)  in Ontario.

Wind Concerns Ontario asks Ombudsman to look at wind power approval process

15 Tuesday Apr 2014

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Wind Concerns Ontario has sent a letter to the Office of the Ombudsman of Ontario, asking that aspects of the approval process for wind power projects be looked at. The Ombudsman’s office has now had its role expanded to be able to look at issues of municipal concern, which may allow it to address the request of many municipalities throughout Ontario facing wind power developments and who are without any say in the siting of these projects. The Green Energy and Green Economy Act passed in 2009, over-rode 21 others Acts in Ontario, and removed local land use planning powers for Ontario municipalities with regard to renewable power projects. In the wake of municipal objections ever since, the Ontario government now says it will offer municipalities more “say” but still no veto.

That’s unacceptable says Wind Concerns Ontario, which refers to important issues:

  • documentation provided to the Ministry of the Environment is being “deemed complete” and then going to public comment; community groups performing audits on this documentation are finding, however, that the documents are often not complete and sometimes absent altogether—not acceptable
  • land leases are signed between the power developers and landowners, which means municipalities and residents can have no idea where turbines are going to be located until too late; this has the effect of halting real estate sales and “sterilizing” development
  • wind power developers (e.g., Samsung in Southgate) are now offering significant sums of money in return for municipal approval and other items such a building permits, road use, etc.
  • landowners are not being provided with the full range of information on the potential negative effects of having wind turbines on their properties

See the news release and link to the letter to the Ombudsman here.

In other news, the community near Woodstock Ontario, facing an 18-MW Prowind wind power project, has also filed a letter of complaint with the Ombudsman, citing deficiencies in documentation, and changes being made to documents AFTER the public comment period has closed. See the East Oxford Community Alliance story here. Prowind is the Germany-based developer that proposed a wind power project for the North Gower-Richmond area of Ottawa, which would have placed 10 turbines on local farm properties within 3 km of more than 1,000 families. The project is now on hold, waiting for the new large-scale renewable power procurement process to begin.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

The simple genius of a noise nuisance bylaw

28 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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Here from last week’s Wellington Times in Prince Edward County, is Rick Conroy’s account of the presentation to Council by Warren Howard, member of the Wainfleet group of municipalities (who started the Not A Willing Host campaign). The goal is to take what powers municipalities have left after the democracy-destroying Green Energy Act, and still take steps to protect citizens from the environmental noise produced by wind turbines.*

Quiet nights

Wolfe-Island-Small

Industrial wind turbines on Wolfe Island.
PHOTO: HENRI GARAND

Coalition of municipalities seek to protect health and safety of residents near industrial wind turbines

It’s a simple plan. But it may be just the thing to slow down the epidemic of industrial wind turbines spreading across rural Ontario. Warren Howard is a councillor in the municipality of North Perth and lives in Listowel. He is a retired banker and understands bureaucratic processes better than most. He thinks he has come up with a way to thwart the provinces heavy handed Green Energy Act (GEA).

Howard’s plan is to create a bulletproof municipal bylaw that prohibits industrial noise in a rural area at night. That’s it. It sounds simple—and it is—but Howard has done his homework.

He has been working with municipal lawyer Kristi Ross. Together they have discovered that while the Green Energy Act took away virtually all the municipality’s tools to manage, control and oversee the construction of these massive structures in its community—it left intact provisions municipalities use to govern nuisance noise.

Howard believes any municipality may be able use these provisions to stop industrial wind development in its jurisdiction. He is looking to form a coalition of like-minded municipalities to jointly fund the crafting of a noise bylaw that will be enforceable and effective in discouraging industrial wind energy development, but won’t capture and impede other activities that may generate noise—such as agricultural operations.

It’s a fine line. Howard knows it. But he believes it can work.

Municipal bylaws can’t overtly defy or block provincial initiatives. So the Quiet Nights plan doesn’t seek to prevent turbines from making noise—it wouldn’t withstand a legal challenge. Instead the bylaw would only prohibit the machines from making noise at night. Further, the Municipal Act states that such a bylaw, if enacted in good faith by council, is not subject to a review by a court.

Warren-Howard

Warren Howard Municipal councillor in North Perth in Southwest Ontario

Howard points to a decision in Wainfleet in the Niagara region. There, the municipality was seeking two kilometre setbacks rather than the 500-metre setbacks prescribed in the GEA.

The wind energy developer had argued that the municipality’s efforts to protect the health and safety of residents should have no force because they frustrate the purpose of the province’s GEA. But while the Superior Court justice disallowed Wainfleet’s desired setbacks, it confirmed that municipalities retain the right to regulate noise nuisance in the Municipal Act.

It is through this narrow opening that Howard is hoping to lead municipalities seeking to control or limit the industrialization of their rural communities.

Read the full story here.

*NOTE: Back in 2010, journalist Mark Sutcliffe asked Prowind sales representative Bart Geleynse on his Ottawa Rogers TV talk show whether the wind turbines make noise. “Of course they do,” Geleynse replied. “They’re power plants.”

How will wind developers rate in new procurement process?

01 Saturday Feb 2014

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

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Large (over 500 kW or 1/2 a megawatt) renewable power projects will soon be required to go through a new process in Ontario. The details are not final (yet the province is holding little dog and pony shows for “engagement”) but one of the ideas is that power developers must now “qualify” to be able to submit a bid to create a power project.

The presentation the Ontario Power Authority delivered on January 22nd via a webinar is here: http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/sites/default/files/planning/LRP-Presentation-January-22-2014.pdf

Pay close attention to the map on page 12–there appears to be “no limit” for Eastern Ontario.

“Community engagement” is a mandatory requirement in the new process but there is still “no veto,” as the OPA says clearly.

Throughout the summer there will be “ongoing engagement activities” scheduled. This is when the so-called charitable organization, the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association or OSEA, at the behest of the government, and paid to do this, will travel through Ontario to tell us how wonderful wind power is. As to community concerns, if you follow our Twitter (@northgowerwind) you will have seen our conversations with OSEA Board member and Ottawa resident Chris Young. Concerned about your property values? Health? In Mr Young’s opinion, you should get out your roll of aluminum foil and refashion yourself a hat because you’re nuts. Health claims are “bogus” and concerns about property values (amply demonstrated by research studies in Ontario) are the result of a “whipped up frenzy.”

The process starts this month. We will try to keep you informed but why not sign yourself up for emails from the OPA by registering here.

We have been fighting for our community for four years; 2014 is going to be a year of dramatic events.

Donations welcome for our post office box, communications, public meetings, and legal advice. PO Box 3 North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

 

Planner: citizens absolutely need a voice on wind power projects

16 Saturday Nov 2013

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

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In today’s Ottawa Citizen, subsequent to the motion by Ottawa City Council this week, to ask Ontario for  more substantive role in siting wind power generation plants, is this letter from a  professional planner.

Cities should have a say

The city’s motion regarding windmill projects is to the point: it is only logical that municipalities and residents should be involved in the decision-making process relating to the location of wind power projects.

Windmills are significant structures that have a major impact on surrounding land uses. From a planning perspective, municipalities should have the authority to include the development of windmill projects in their Official Plan and Zoning Bylaw in order to minimize negative impacts and optimize the livability and sustainability of communities within the municipality. If it were any other type of development of a similar magnitude, there would be no question of this need.

Municipal governments and citizens absolutely need a voice on this issue.

May Gabbour, Ottawa

Registered professional planner

Ontario Professional Planners Institute

City wants say on windmills:Ottawa Citizen

14 Thursday Nov 2013

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From today’s Ottawa Citizen, an account of yesterday’s vote at Council on Councillor Scott Moffatt’s motion, acknowledging the 1200+ signatures on the petition from North Gower, and telling the province the City wants a stronger role indecisions about siting wind power generation projects.

“With more than 1,200 signatures, the petition is a strong message that politicians say is worth listening to,” says the Citizen.

Note also comments from former Green Party candidate now Ottawa Councillor David Chernushenko: “I’ve always felt people need to have a say…legislation that prevents them…is not healthy in any way.”

City wants a say in where windmills will be located

By Derek Spalding, OTTAWA CITIZEN November 13, 2013
City wants a say in where windmills will be located

Communities need to be consulted about windmill projects near them, city council says.

Photograph by: Tyler Brownbridge , Windsor Star

OTTAWA — City council is urging the Ontario government to give municipalities more say in choosing locations for proposed windmill projects in their communities.

Coun. Scott Moffat drafted the motion that council supported on Wednesday asking for legislative changes that would guarantee local residents have more influence about projects pegged for their neighbourhoods.

The province has already promised to add stringent public consultation requirements to its Feed-in Tariff program, which encourages the development of renewable energy with government funding. Anyone looking to build a project would have to have “significant municipal engagement,” when responding to request for proposals (RFPs), said provincial Energy Minster Bob Chiarelli, just a couple hours before the council meeting.

“The bottom line is it will be very difficult for an energy proponent to be successful in the type of RFP that’s being created without a significant municipal engagement,” he said.

His government has faced public opposition from around Ontario for such projects.

More than 70 communities have joined a coalition of “unwilling hosts” for wind projects, declaring they do not want such developments. The Ottawa motion does not put the city in this same group, but instead asks the government to ensure residents have a say in choosing the location for such projects.

Moffat introduced his motion at council a day after receiving a petition from residents of North Gower, a community in his Rideau-Goulbourn ward, who oppose the large-scale wind-power project.

With more than 1,200 signatures, the petition is a strong message that politicians say is worth listening to.

“What you need is the ability for communities to be engaged in the process, and right now that’s not really happening,” Moffat said. “Mr. Chiarelli seemed to indicate that there would be a process going forward that would allow for community engagement and put it upon the wind developer to have community buy-in.”

Chiarelli said the substance of Moffat’s resolution reflects what the province has been doing over the past few months. Earlier this year the Ontario government removed larger projects from the Feed-in Tariff program and added the RFP process, but details about exactly is required for public consultation have yet to be identified.

Coun. David Chernushenko, a strong wind-energy proponent, supported Moffat’s motion.

“This offers the opportunity now for people to make a real decision about what’s going to affect them,” he told his council colleagues. “As much as I am troubled by the anti-wind hyperbole, I’ve always felt that people need to have a say and legislation that prevents them from having that say is not healthy in any way.”

Chiarelli also confirmed communities will not be able to outright reject projects.

“There is no veto. We’ve said that very, very clearly,” he said. “There is no veto because there are circumstances in the energy planning of Ontario where a veto might be totally unadvisable, but the general thrust is that there must be an engagement with the local municipality.”

dspalding@ottawacitizen.com

Motion passes at Council; energy minister repeats: no veto

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

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In a surprise move by Ottawa City Council today, Council voted to hear the actual Motion presented by Ward 21 Councillor Scott Moffatt in his required Notice of Motion … and passed it. The motion made note of the petition filed with the City on behalf of North Gower residents, declaring the community Not A Willing Host to a proposed 20-megawatt wind power project, and then asked the province for a substantive role in siting power projects.

Energy Minister (and former Ottawa Mayor) Bob Chiarelli, who was at Ottawa City Hall to talk pipeline, told The Ottawa Sun that Ottawa could not unilaterally veto a wind power project. Both Minister Chiarelli and Premier Wynne have been saying for weeks that the province will give municipalities more “say” in siting power projects.

One thousand, two hundred and twenty-eight area residents signed the petition in a two-week petition drive; over 800 Ottawa area residents also participated in an online poll with 94.56% saying “No” to the Ottawa area wind power project.