Tag Archives: North Gower wind farm

Impact of Ottawa wind power project would be ‘staggering’

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy

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Community group Ottawa Wind Concerns has filed a formal comment with the Ontario Power Authority and the Independent Electricity System Operator as part of the “dialogue” process on siting large power projects in Ontario.

Placing a huge wind power project as proposed in the North Gower and Richmond communities, part of the City of Ottawa, would have “staggering” effects, the group says, in terms of negative health impacts and on property values.

On a day when wind power is contributing considerably less than one percent to Ontario’s power needs during the current heat wave, OWC’s chair Jane Wilson said that a thorough cost-benefit analysis, including comparison to other forms of power generation and the impact on communities, should be done for this and every wind power project.

“Ontario needs a new process,” she says. “That starts with a return of local land use planning and the recognition that wind power projects should be treated as any other type of infrastructure.”

MP Pierre Poilievre, MPP Lisa MacLeod and Ottawa City Councillor have all expressed opposition to the wind power project.

ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Read the full comment document here: OPA-commentJuly11

Donations welcome, please mail to PO Box 3, North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

Time for the Chief Medical Officer of Health to step up

18 Tuesday Jun 2013

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

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Wind Concerns Ontario announced today that it has formally requested the Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr Arlene King, to follow up on the numerous complaints of excessive noise and ill health, coming from people who are living near or among large-scale wind turbines in Ontario.

Dr King produced a report, which was a simple literature review, in 2010 which found no “direct” link between turbine noise and health problems. That report was widely criticized as being inadequate and based on industry-selected literature, but it has served the wind power development lobby very well, serving as a rubber stamp on health from the Ontario government.

A lot of water has passed under a lot of bridges since: the 2011 Environmental Review Tribunal decision noted that the government ought to keep pace with research on the health impacts, and review and revise regulations as needed—it hasn’t done that.

Dr King herself recommended more research, specifically on the noise. It hasn’t done that either and in fact while acknowledging that infrasound (vibration, sound pressure) could be a problem, it won’t even have guidelines for infrasound until 2015.

By that time, with the government continuing to approve two or three wind power projects a month, everything that is planned or proposed will be built.

Wind Concerns says the government has a duty to investigate the complaints coming from residents under the Health Protection and Promotion Act. With the current Environmental Tribunal concluding this week, after hearing from expert witnesses and actual wind turbine noise victims, it would be appropriate for the government to act.

It is especially important for the people of North Gower and Richmond, where a wind power project would expose hundreds of people–including the property owners leasing land for turbines themselves– to environmental noise and vibration, for the regulations to be revised based on the on-the-ground experiences.

See the news story and actual letter here: http://www.freewco.blogspot.ca/2013/06/wco-demands-investigation-of-noise.html

The Chiarelli-Wynne non-announcement for Ontario municipalities: nothing has changed

03 Monday Jun 2013

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

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Last week, Energy Minister and former Ottawa Mayor Bob Chiarelli announced that Ontario would in future increase “local control” in renewable energy development. This was in reaction to the fact that in recent weeks, almost 40 municipalities took the step of formally passing a resolution to say they are NOT a “willing host” to wind power projects, picking up on remarks made months earlier by Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Mr Chiarelli announced that a new process will “replace the existing large project stream of Feed-In Tariff (FIT) program and better meet the needs of communities.”

A new “competitive procurement process for projects over 500 kW” will be announced in the fall.

What does it all mean?

Absolutely nothing.

In fact, things may even be worse for communities who don’t wish to expose their residents to the health impacts, property value loss, and social divisions that come along with large-scale wind power generation projects.

Note the wording: “meet the needs of communities.” What the province is saying it will now do is develop Regional Energy Plans and the new process will “require energy planners and developers to work directly with municipalities to identify appropriate locations and site requirements.”

We’re not sure who the “energy planners” are but take this scenario: a regional energy plan for Ottawa and area is developed and the province says there must be a mix of power sources. Therefore, a wind power project, and guess what? There’s already one in process in North Gower-Richmond*, or countless other communities across Ontario near large urban centres, so, carry on! And we know that siting wind power projects has NOTHING to do with health or the environment and everything to do with a few willing landowners.

And the Liberal government’s continuing policy of forcing wind power projects on rural and small urban communities.

Premier Wynne confirmed this in an interview last Friday when she said Ontario is continuing its goal of securing the province’s clean energy future, and that siting decisions will be made for the “greater good.”

That means, too bad for you North Gower and Richmond. Hundreds of families, young children, people with existing health problems, young families with everything invested in their homes suddenly forced to live with a power project? Too bad for you: it’s for the “greater good.”

This announcement was the Ontario government at its most cynical.

Scott Stinson wrote in The National Post, referring to the government’s earlier decision to pay power developers even if we don’t need the power: “So now Ontario will pay wind generators for energy that it isn’t even using, produced by turbines in communities that didn’t want them, and were installed under a set of rules that it has since admitted was a mistake.” http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/06/02/scott-stinson-rural-communities-not-blow-away-by-changes-to-ontarios-green-energy-act/

Wainfleet Mayor April Jeffs today wrote a letter to Premier Wynne on behalf of the 20 some municipalities that met earlier this year and formed a working group. While Mr Chiarelli claims that the province is unable to cancel, or not proceed on, projects with FIT contracts, Mayor Jeffs reminds him that this is not true: “the recent court decision in the lawsuit brought by Trillium Power indicated that this concern does not apply to projects that have not received REA approvals. FIT contract holders have only been granted permission to enter a ‘complex regulatory process’ that might lead to approval to build a wind project. A FIT contract is not a guarantee of a REA approval.”

In other words, with all due respect, Minister, you are lying.

For more on this we invite you to read Parker Gallant’s excellent column at Wind Concerns Ontario, The truth, whole truth, so help me Ontario. http://freewco.blogspot.ca/2013/06/the-truth-whole-truth-so-help-me-ontario.html

Contact us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com 

Middlesex-Lambton, Listowel, Prince Edward County, Haldimand, West Lincoln, Bluewater, Kincardine, Collingwood… for a list of wind power projects pending go to ontario-wind-turbines.org

Energy economist: Ontario’s renewables plan ‘not affordable’

07 Sunday Apr 2013

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

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Dozens of residents of Ottawa, North Gower, Brinston and Shanly gathered at Ottawa City Hall yesterday to declare their communities “NOT a willing host” to proposed giant wind power projects.

Energy economist Bob Lyman addressed the crowd, noting that the day before, the Ontario Energy Board announced yet another rate hike, effective May 1st.

“Ontario’s renewable energy plan is unaffordable,” Lyman said. “We’re just beginning to feel the costs, which will amount to billions every year to be paid by Ontario ratepayers.”

Because wind power is produced when it’s not needed, he said, Ontario is shipping power out at “depressed” rates. “Ontario is subsidizing New York ratepayers by $500 million a year.”

Lyman blames the changes to structure in Ontario’s power system: “We’ve come a long way from the days when policy was to ensure that Ontario consumers had reliable and competitively priced supply. Today, the goals of environmental groups have displaced the interests of consumers and industry. It is time to take back Hydro for the consumers of this province.”

Wind Concerns Ontario president Jane Wilson said that the Ontario government is not listening to concerns about the rising price of electricity, about health problems, property value loss, or the environment. “Right now,” she said, “the citizens of Prince Edward County are having to raise money to fight their own government, the Ministry of the Environment, which has approved a wind power project at Ostrander Point. The government is not doing its job.”

Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod noted the cost of electricity in Ontario is hurting small and medium sized businesses, while huge corporations are benefitting from wind power subsidies. “The Premier says she is listening,” MacLeod said, “but I’m not sure who she’s listening to.”

The text of Bob Lyman’s remarks is available here: Remarks for April6event-RLyman, 2013-1

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Donations welcome: PO Box 3, North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

NWH-Ottawa.jpg large

[Photo courtesy Lisa MacLeod]

How a few people can change life for so many

31 Sunday Mar 2013

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

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An excellent opinion piece appeared in this weekend’s National Post, written by a resident of beautiful Amherst Island. Just a ferry ride from Kingston, the island is a globally significant area for migratory birds and is especially recognized for its owl population. For more information, go to the Association to Protect Amherst Island website, here: http://protectamherst.yolasite.com/

The letter writer makes many points about how ludicrous a wind power development of this magnitude in this location is, but we like her point about just how many people are behind the decision to ruin the community and despoil the island, for profit. Seventeen.

In the case of the project proposed for the Ottawa area (in the North Gower-Richmond section) it is THREE. Three people have decided to make money, while exposing hundreds of homes to the environmental noise and infrasound produced by ten industrial-scale turbines.

She writes:

It’s a storybook setting.

Or at least it was, until wind turbines reared their ugly 507-foot-high heads, threatening to alter the lives of not just the 17 landowners that signed up to host them, but the 96% of islanders that didn’t. Now we’ve got a schism. And it happened before anyone knew it.

Rumours are ricocheting: that it was stealthily planned (“psst, wanna turbine?”); that contracts included non-disclose clauses (“psst, don’t tell anyone till it’s a done deal!”); that there’ll be a turbine right by the primary school (“don’t worry, the kids’ll be OK”); that the private power company salivating over the possible contract has offered the township a “donation” (taxpayer-funded) of $7.5-million that comes with a gag order.

The large and active No-Turbines side claims to have the support of the mayor, county council, Conservative MPP and MP, and 90 municipalities. And the Auditor General, Ontario Federation of Agriculture and Fraser Institute seem negatively disposed as well.

Apparently that’s not enough. This train with just 17 passengers aboard — and a crew that includes wealthy investors, a clutch of Liberal provincial government ministers, and a gaggle of lobbyists with Liberal party ties — is heading, full steam ahead, right for our heritage village.

Here is the Amherst Island letter in full. http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/03/30/turbine-foes-left-to-twist-in-the-wind/

Ottawa Wind Concerns is a community group opposed to the inappropriate siting of wind power generation projects close to people’s homes, schools, farms, and the natural environment. We are NOT a “willing host.” To view the proposed project go to http://www.prowind.ca and click on Projects, Marlborough.  The study map depicted there is not accurate, however; neither are the photos depicting what the turbines will look like.

E-mail ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Donations welcome for legal expenses and communications efforts. PO Box 3, North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

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

12 Tuesday Feb 2013

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

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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

 

Electricity technologist details turbine woes

26 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

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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.

Citizen writer owes us all an apology

17 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

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August 17, 2012

Yesterday, writer Kate Heartfield, who claims to live in the south Ottawa area near to the proposed wind power generation project, published an opinion piece in the Ottawa Citizen that she thought was a colossal joke. Doing absolutely no research herself on the whole issue of wind power generation, she took aim at Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre for what she felt was inadequate references for the petition he circulated to constitutents last week.

(The petition states that there is evidence for health effects from wind turbine noise and vibration and that Health Canada is now doing a study; Premier McGuinty of Ontario ought to halt approvals on the North Gower-Richmond project until results of the study are in. For a copy of the petition, please see our documents tab.)

She also claimed that the group of international scientists working on this issue were “amusingly” named the Society for Wind Vigilance  ( a five-minute read would have revealed what an important group of scientists and health care professionals that is), she denigrated well-known and peer-reviewed independent health researcher and former health policy analyst and editor Carmen Krogh as “a retired pharmacist” and finally, claimed that for 20% of the population to have health effects from wind turbine noises was neither here nor there.

If you are a regular reader of these pages and our former blog the North Gower Wind Action Group blog, you’ll know what a puff piece Heartfield’s article was–there is plenty of evidence to show that there are health problems, and that research needs to be done to develop policy for health and safety because, clearly, Ontario’s 550-meter setback based on noise modelling (not reality) is not safe.

Our final comment is, Since when is a health issue the basis for humour? We note that it took just nine complaints about Jeeps in the U.S. to result in a recall of hundreds of thousands of vehicles. Now you have hundreds of noise complaints in Ontario, and yet the government still approves these projects? How many people have to become ill before it is too much? And before people like Kate Heartfield can take seriously the damage that is being done?

We are grateful for the continuing support of MPP Lisa MacLeod and MP Pierre Poilievre. Thanks too to all those who wrote in and congratulations to writers Mike Baggott, Judi Atkinson, Francesco Macri, and Henri Garand, for having been published in the Ottawa Citizen today.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca