Tag Archives: Ontario Ministry of the Environment

Senator Bob Runciman: Environment Ontario “derelict” in duty if Amherst Is power plant allowed

10 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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NEWS RELEASE
Senator Robert Runciman>
OTTAWA, January 10, 2014 – It will be a dereliction of duty if the Ministry of Environment allows a major industrial wind turbine project to go ahead on Amherst Island, Senator Bob Runciman said today.

Runciman was responding to the news that the Ontario government has deemed complete a Renewable Energy Approval application by Windlectric for up to 37 giant turbines to be installed on Amherst Island, just west of Kingston. The government is now inviting public comment on the proposal until March 8.

The senator, who introduced a motion passed unanimously by the Senate two years ago calling for a moratorium on such projects in Important Bird Areas such as Amherst Island, has written the Ministry of the Environment objecting to this latest project. He noted that a similar project on Wolfe Island, also an Important Bird Area, has proven to be one of the deadliest for birds and bats in North America.

“The government is riding roughshod over local objections, including by the duly elected council of Loyalist Township, and ignoring that this is one of the most critical areas for birds in North America, and home to 34 species at risk,” Runciman said.

“If anyone came along with a proposal posing this kind of threat to birds and other wildlife in such a sensitive area, but it didn’t have the words ‘Green Energy’ stamped on it, there would be no question this government would put a stop to it,” Runciman said. “And if they didn’t, the environmental lobby would harass them until they did. But because it’s green energy, the environmental movement seems content to ignore the despoiling of the environment and the wanton killing of birds.”

The situation is even more tragic, considering that the expansion of renewables, which typically provide power at times when there is no demand, has resulted in a huge over-supply of electricity, meaning it is being sold to places like Michigan, Minnesota and Quebec at a fraction of the cost of generation.

“We are destroying the quality of life in rural communities to produce power we don’t need and then giving that power away to neighbouring jurisdictions at roughly 25 per cent of the cost we’re paying to generate it. Then those jurisdictions use that cheap power to compete with Ontario industries. Is it any wonder Ontario lost more than 39,000 jobs last month alone?” Runciman said.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Barry Raison, Policy Advisor, Office of Senator Bob Runciman
(613) 943-4020 (office) or barry.raison@sen.parl.gc.ca

Environmental Review Tribunal wraps up: evidence shows harm to human health ‘probable’

24 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

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Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County
P.O. Box 173
Milford, Ontario K0K 2P0

APPEC Appeal Shows Probability of Harm to Human health

Milford, ON  June 24, 2013.   The Environmental Review Tribunal hearings on the Ostrander Point wind project concluded in Toronto on June 21.   The Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County (APPEC) has presented evidence that indicates the probability of harm to human health from wind turbines.

Summations by counsel for APPEC, Gilead Power, and the Ministry of Environment (MOE) focused on three important issues:  the relevance of the Erickson appeal (2011), the medical evidence presented, and the standard of proof required.

APPEC lawyer Eric Gillespie argued that reliance on the Erickson decision avoids an onerous and unmanageable process of re-litigation on matters already addressed by 25 expert witnesses. The present ERT has to consider the principal findings in Erickson because they relate to a wind project, like Ostrander Point, approved to operate with 40 dBA noise limits and 550-m setbacks.

Mr. Gillespie urged the ERT panel to accept the testimony of 11 witnesses who reported adverse health effects from living near currently-operating wind projects.  All of them have suffered a range of symptoms known to result from exposure to audible noise and low-frequency sound. Expert opinion has related these to the proximity of wind turbines as far as 2 km away.

Gilead’s and the MOE’s own witnesses, said Mr. Gillespie, have testified that there are always “some people,” or a “non-trivial percentage of the population,” affected by wind turbines. APPEC’s case has shown the probability, not just biological plausibility, of serious harm to human health.  There is enough evidence on the “balance of probabilities” for the ERT to make a decision.

 

“People are obviously suffering despite the MOE’s regulations,” said APPEC President Gord Gibbins. “There will be more victims if Ostrander Point and other wind projects go ahead.”

The ERT panel also questioned the location of the wind project on Crown land.  The public will have access to the site via 5.4 km of maintenance road and would be exposed to the risks of ice throw, blade breakage, nacelle fire, and tower collapse. 

“These concerns are another sign,” said Gord Gibbins, “that public health and safety appear to be secondary to wind power development.”

The ERT’s decision is due by July 10.

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For more information, please contact:

Henri Garand, Chair, Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County, 613-476-4527, hgarand@xplornet.ca

The Ostrander Point power project appeal: winnable!

28 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

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As you know, two community groups have appeal the Ministry of the Environment’s approval of a wind power project on the South Shore of Prince Edward County at Ostrander Point. The Prince Edward County Field Naturalists (PECFN) and the Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County (APPEC) have both filed appeals, PECFN’s on the basis that the project will cause serious and irreversible harm to the natural environment, and APPEC on the basis of harm to human health. Wind Concerns Ontario was granted status as a participant and presented evidence on the potential harm to bats, and the resulting economic effects if this expensive and unnecessary power development were to be built. County Coalition for Safe Affordable Green Energy (CCSAGE)  is also assisting with fund-raising and other activities.

The Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) is continuing in the County and a great deal of evidence on the environment has already been presented.

Last week, the community groups hosted a fund-raiser Town Hall, which featured excellent speakers. Local humourist Steve Campbell was the MC for the event, a packed hall at the venerable Regent Theatre in Picton, said he regularly reads of strife for city dwellers in the form of crime, and gang wars, etc. “Here in the County,” he said, “we only have two enemies: the provincial government, and the federal government.”

For more details on the event, please read the story here (and note the new mascot Angry Bird!):  http://www.freewco.blogspot.ca/2013/04/ccsages-town-hall-event-on-wind-turbine.html

One of the most stunning pieces of information presented that evening was from business owner Carlyn Moulton who noted that the arts and services sectors bring in $400 million in revenue annually to the County while the proposed wind power development will bring–get this–$1-2 million in tax revenue. “Huh?” she said. “How does that make any sense?” Tourism to the County will be drastically affected by the Ostrander Point project, and another proposed wind power project the “White Pines.” A study done recently in the U.K., Moulton said, showed that 75% of the visitors to an area where wind turbines had been installed said they would “never come back.”

Among the handouts that evening (we were there) was a flyer on why the Ostrander Point ERT is “winnable.” The environmental testimony has been damning—botanist Paul Catling said the damage to the rare alvar environment will be irreversible and he scoffed at developer Gilead Power’s claim to be able to re-create the environment elsewhere—but this ERT is the first opportunity for a Tribunal to hear actual testimony from people already living with wind turbines and the environmental noise and infrasound they produce.

“APPEC’s appeal is the first in which Ontario wind victims will present evidence demonstrating that wind turbines cause serious harm.This proof meets the test required in order to WIN  and ERT appeal,” APPEC wrote in the flyer. “By invalidating 550-m setbacks the appeal will set a precedent that applies to every proposed industrial wind project. The Ministry of the Environment would have to determine a new standard to protect the health of Ontarians, and it could not continue to rubber-stamp projects in Ontario.”

Worth supporting, wouldn’t you say?

Go to www.appec.ca to donate or send a cheque to

APPEC Legal Fund

PO Box 173

Milford ON   K0K 2P0

If the government actually approves this wind power project in a “globally significant” important bird area, and where the destruction of a rare environment is assured, there is no hope of using the government’s process for any project.

FIGHT IT.

Ottawa Wind Concerns

p-o-bird-gb-pt-pec(A grey-blue gnat-catcher, photographed by a Prince Edward County resident)

The wind power lobbyists get rich: David Frum

27 Sunday Jan 2013

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

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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)?

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Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca

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We have new signs: STOP WIND SCAM! Contact us if you want one!

The government KNOWS about health effects

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

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Huron-Bruce MPP Lisa Thompson filed a Freedom of Information request with the Ministry of the Environment, and learned from the documents that the Ontario government investigated complaints of noise and the effects of infrasound in 2009 from the wind power project at Melancthon, and noted them as serious and valid.

A noise abatement program was developed … and ignored.

A CTV news video is here: http://www.freewco.blogspot.ca/2013/01/video-mpp-says-ontario-hid-documents.html