06 Thursday Feb 2014
Posted in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power
Tags
Blanding's Turtle, migratory birds Ontario, Ostrander Point, wind farms and birds, wind farms endangered species, wind farms environment
Wind Concerns Ontario is sponsoring a poll on whether at-risk species of wildlife should be harmed by wind power generation facilities.
The Ontario government believes that the “overall benefits” of wind power outweigh any other environmental damage.
What do you think?
Take the poll here.
17 Friday Jan 2014
Posted in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power
Tags
bird kills wind farms, Blanding's Turtle, ERTs, Green Energy Act, James Bradley Environment, Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Ostrander Point, Rick Conroy, Wellington Times, wind farms environmental damage, wind turbines environmental damage
PECFN and APPEC are represented by Eric Gillespie and Natalie Smith. The MOE is represented by Sylvia Davis and Sarah Kronkamp. Gilead Power’s case will be argued by Doug Hamilton, Chris Wayland and Sam Rogers of Mc- Carthy Tetrault.
Ostrander Point victory to be tested in appeal court next week
There are many people will be nervously watching developments in a Toronto courtroom beginning next Tuesday. It is here that likely the last chapter of the industrial wind turbines on Ostrander Point is to be written.
HOW WE GOT HERE
In 2009, the Green Energy Act was made law. The sweeping legislation comprised an array of measures designed to ease the development of more renewable energy projects in the province. It reduced or eliminated regulations and processes used by its safeguarding agencies, including the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ontario Energy Board. It replaced several regulatory appeals with one—the Environmental Review Tribunal.
Politicians, such as former MPP Leona Dombrowski, assured anxious rural Ontario residents, communities and their local leaders that the ERT, or Tribunal, would be independent, thorough and their conclusions would be final. Many residents were unsettled by the assurances—viewing the ERT as merely the last checkbox for a developer to tick before being released to plunder the provincial treasure and lay waste to the rural countryside. It was viewed as a cynical contrivance by a government fixated on seeing thousands of industrial wind turbines spinning in the provincial countryside. It would be Premier Dalton McGuinty’s legacy to Ontarians.
To ensure ERT adjudicators weren’t being led astray by sympathetic arguments by those defending their communities, livelihoods and natural environment, the Green Energy Act dictated that the legal test for the ERT would be impossibly high.
To be successful an appeal to this panel would have to prove “serious harm to human health” or in the case of birds, animals and their habitat the requirement is to prove “serious and irreversible harm.”
OSTRANDER POINT
Late in 2011 the Ministry of Environment issued a Renewable Energy Approval to Gilead Power Corporation, enabling it to proceed with its plan to erect nine industrial wind turbines, each soaring 423 feet into the flight path of the millions of birds that migrate through the region each spring and fall. It granted the approval on Crown Land—essentially industrializing a rugged and largely wild bit of the south shore of Prince Edward County.
Two appeals were made to the province’s ERT.
The Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County presented witnesses who described the damaging effects of living near industrial wind turbines. They presented scientific and medical evidence to support their position that wind turbines were hurting Ontario residents and that no other project should be permitted until a thorough and independent study of the health effects was conducted and shown to be safe.
The Prince Edward County Field Naturalists presented expert evidence on the rare and sensitive alvar habitat at Ostrander Point. Evidence showed that a number of endangered species of birds and animals shared this unique ecosystem, and that tipping the balance to industrial development would put the survival of endangered species in peril.
Read the full article here.
24 Monday Jun 2013
Posted in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power
Tags
Alliance to protect Prince Edward County, APPEC, Environmental Review Tribunal, Eric Gillespie, Gilead Power, Green Energy Act, health effects wind farms, health effects wind turbine noise, indirect health effects wind turbines, infrasound wind turbines, Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Ostrander Point, prince Edward County
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.
-30-
For more information, please contact:
Henri Garand, Chair, Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County, 613-476-4527, hgarand@xplornet.ca
27 Monday May 2013
Posted in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power
Tags
APPEC, CCSAGE, Dalton McGuinty, Gilead Power, Green Energy Act, honsety wind power developers, Northhumberland, Ostrander Point, prince Edward County, Quinte, Watershed, wind power developers marketing ploys, wpd
Here from the Spring edition of the beautiful Watershed magazine is a summary of how wind power development has been rolled out in Ontario under the McGuinty government and the Green Energy and Green Economy Act.
Outrageous loss of rights and freedoms.
Read the article here:
http://watershedmagazine.com/?p=2258
Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com and please donate to help us with legal costs at PO Box 3 North Gower ON K0A 2T0
28 Sunday Apr 2013
Posted in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power
Tags
Algonquin Power, Alliance to protect Prince Edward County, APPEC, Carlyn Moulton, CCSAGE, cost benefit wind power, County Coalition for Safe and Appropriate Green Energy, Environmental Review Tribunal Ontario, Gilead Power, health effects wind farms, health effects wind power, health effects wind turbine noise, infrasound wind turbines, Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Ostrander Point, Paul Catling, PECFN, prince Edward County, Prince Edward County Field Naturalists, Regent Theatre Oicton, touism and wind power projects, tourism UK and wind power, White Pines wind power
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
(A grey-blue gnat-catcher, photographed by a Prince Edward County resident)
12 Tuesday Mar 2013
Posted in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power
Tags
Algoma Region, autistic children wind turbines, CFRA, Conestogo wind power, Environmental Review Tribunal, Group of Seven, Jane Wilson, Long Point Waterfowl, North Perth wind farm, Ostrander Point, Ottawa wind concerns, Randy Pettapiece, Roy MacGregor, Scott Petrie, Steve Madeley, STOP WIND SCAM, wind farm noise and autism
There have been some interesting TV news stories and radio interviews lately, let’s catch up, shall we?
MPP asks Premier to halt wind power project: CTV news, Kitchener. Note that MPP Pettapiece speaks of a referendum conducted in his riding, the results of which were that 96% of those surveyed said NO to the wind project. Note also the proximity of the turbines to a public school which has a special program for autistic children, who will be very affected by the noise and shadow flicker. The wind power developer doesn’t care. The province doesn’t care.
The story is here: http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/mpp-asks-premier-to-put-an-end-win-energy-project-1.1189439
The last two days, CFRA’s morning show has been running interviews on the negative effects of wind turbines and wind power projects. Monday was an interview with Ottawa Wind Concerns/Wind Concerns Ontario chair Jane Wilson and the Globe and Mail’s Roy MacGregor. The topic was the wind power projects proposed for the scenic Algoma Region of Ontario, which is visited by countless tourists from around the world annually, who come to see the unparalleled beauty, made famous by Group of Seven painters.
Tuesday, CFRA’s Steve Madeley interviewed biology prof and executive director of the Long Point Waterfowl Conservancy on the negative impacts of turbines on wildlife. Note that Dr Petrie says Ontario’s setbacks are inadequate, that some areas of Ontario have been the “worst possible” place to put turbines, and further that because wind power developers do the environmental assessments themselves, they “always come up with the right answer.”
This interview is important coming as it does in the midst of the Environmental Review tribunal for the project at ostrander Point, a “globally significant” area for migrating birds.
To catch the radio interviews, go to http://www.cfra.com/interviews/ and scroll down the list. They’re only about 10 minutes each.
STOP WIND SCAM signs are now on Prince of Wales, Roger Stevens, Third Line Road, and more…get one today! Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com
03 Sunday Feb 2013
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
bald eagles Ontario, cost benefit wind power, Dalton McGuinty, Environmental Review Tribunal, Feed In Tariff Ontario, Gilead Power, Globe and Mail, health impacts wind power, Margaret Wente, North Gower wind power project, Ostrander Point, Ottawa wind concerns, wind farms and bird kills, wind farms and environment, wind farms Ontario, wind power and environment, wind power Ontario
And here it is: wind power generation is not “green” … it won’t replace fossil fuel power generation it doesn’t save lives, and it doesn’t even really work very well. That, and it is actually harmful to the environment, as the power projects displace the natural environment, and harm birds and other wildlife.
Here in the weekend edition of The Globe and Mail, is Margaret Wente’s column on the McGuinty government’s legacy in Ontario. Let’s hope North Gower-Richmond-Ottawa isn’t a victim of the legacy too.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/mcguintys-legacy-is-a-green-nightmare/article8131320/
This week marks the preliminary hearing in the appeal against the wind power project approved for Ostrander Point, on the south tip of Prince Edward County, which is recognized as a “globally significant” Important Bird Area by the Ontario government and Nature Canada, and where rare plants and endangered wildlife exist. (Hearing is in Picton at the Town Hall, Friday February 8th, starting at 11 a.m.)
Mark your datebook for Thursday night, CBC’s Doc Zone is carrying the made-in-Ontario doc film “Wind Rush.” Catch a preview here: http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/wind-rush.html?subpage=windmill
Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca
31 Thursday Jan 2013
Posted in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power
Tags
CCSAGE, County Coalition for Safe and Appropriate Green Energy, environmental impact wind power, Garth Manning, Gilead Power, health impacts wind power, Jane Wilson, Kathleen Wynne, Ontario Green Energy Act, Ontario Liberal government, Ontario wind power, Ostrander Point, Ottawa wind concerns, Wind Concerns Ontario
A community group located in Prince Edward County is calling upon Premier-Designate Kathleen Wynne to institute safe setbacks from wind power generation facilities in order to protect the environment and human health. The County Coalition for Safe and Appropriate Green Energy or CCSAGE, released its open letter and a news release today.
The letter is from CCSAGE Chair Garth Manning QC, who says it is abundantly clear that the current setbacks are not adequate and were not based on any scientific evidence. Manning referred to the Auditor-General’s report of 2011, which was critical of the haste and lack of study behind Ontario’s Green Energy Act.
Jane Wilson, President of Wind Concerns Ontario (and Chair of Ottawa Wind Concerns) agrees: “We’re seeing dead birds by the thousand already, and hundreds of people exposed to the environmental noise from wind turbines in this province are now ill. It’s time for the government to step up, admit mistakes have been made, and act to protect the health and safety of people, and the future of the environment.”
Two wind power projects are currently proposed for Prince Edward County, one at Ostrander Point, a “globally significant” Important Bird Area, which is currently under appeal by community and naturalist groups. Hundreds of thousands of birds migrate through the area twice a year. Bird deaths at nearby Wolfe Island are higher than the wind developer there predicted.
The Open letter from CCSAGE may be viewed here: http://ccsage.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/open-letter-jan31-lh-1.pdf
A Backgrounder document is also available on their website for media and others.
Contact us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca
Wind Concerns Ontario is at http://www.windconcernsontario.ca and windconcerns@gmail.com
27 Sunday Jan 2013
Posted in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power
Tags
cost benefit wind power, David Frum, environmental effects wind farms, environmental effects wind power, Environmental Review Tribunal, expensive electricity Ontario, health impacts wind farms, national Post, noise wind farms, Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Ostrander Point, Ottawa wind concerns, rising electricity bills Ontario, Vic Schroter, wind power Ontario, wind power Prince Edward County, wind scam
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)?
—-
Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca
Donations welcome PO Box 3 North Gower On K0A 2T0
We have new signs: STOP WIND SCAM! Contact us if you want one!
27 Thursday Dec 2012
Posted in Wind power
Tags
Alliance to protect Prince Edward County, Dalton McGuinty, Environmental Commissioner Ontario, Gilead Power, Gord Miller, Jim Bradley Minister Environment, Ostrander Point, Ottawa wind concerns, Point to Point Foundation, prince Edward County, Prince Edward County Field Naturalists, Wind Concerns Ontario
Citizens of Prince Edward County were stunned when, just a few days before Christmas, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment announced it had approved the Ostrander Point wind power project.
Ostrander Point is at the southern tip of Prince Edward County and is considered an “Important Bird Area” which, according to Nature Canada, is “globally significant” for the number of migrating birds passing the area each year in the spring and fall.
The Ontario Government doesn’t care.
The Ministry of the Environment doesn’t care.
They don’t care that Ontario’s own Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller not too many months ago, advised the government not to locate wind power generation projects near the 70 or so Important Bird Areas in the province.
Stunning.
Of course, groups are lining up to file an appeal (how contemptuous is this government of democracy? The 15-day appeal period comes at the most holiday-intensive time of the year and actually only affords EIGHT business days for citizens to respond) including Prince Edward County itself.
And of course, the Legislature is pro-rogued so that not even our MPPs can stand up in the House and object.
What can you do?
Learn more about the project and Prince Edward County at
http://www.windconcernsontario.ca
Write to the Minister of the Environment, Jim Bradley and complain. You can email him at:minister.moe@ontario.ca
and write to Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller at commissioner@eco.on.ca
Consider joining one of the community groups in Prince Edward County (see the link to APPEC, above) and join Wind Concerns Ontario (link above)
and donate to Ottawa Wind Concerns.
PO Box 3, North Gower ON K0A 2T0
Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca to join our (confidential) email list for bulletins.
South shore, Prince Edward County
Ottawa Wind Concerns 