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Tag Archives: property value loss wind power

“Too close to homes…property values threatened”

27 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cornerview Farms, Feed In Tariff Ontario, FIT subsidy Ontario, Green Energy Act, Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen, property value loss wind power, property value wind farms, wind farm North Gower, wind farm Richmond, wind mills Greece, wind mills in Europe

An Ottawa-area reader wrote to the Ottawa Citizen, in response to a totally city-centric column by writer Kelly Egan, in which the columnist said he likes the Feed In tariff program because he thinks it helps small, local energy initiatives. So, so wrong.

If only the FIT program had done that, there actually would be jobs, there actually would be energy savings…but that’s not what happened—the subsidy program was created for the giant corporate wind power industry. The rooftop solar panels Mr Egan so likes to see from his “bedroom window” in the city have almost nothing to do with it. On the other hand, the people of rural and small urban communities will have their lives changed for ever by the advent of huge wind power generation projects. Here is the letter. Note how the writer also describes what he has seen in his European travels—what Ontario is doing is not like anything elsewhere.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/close+residences/8297595/story.html

Too close to residences

By Savas Adamantidis, Ottawa CitizenApril 26, 2013

Re: Tied to be FIT, like it or not, April 24.

Reading columnist Kelly Egan’s article on the touchy subject of wind turbines, I just felt sick to my stomach.

Having a residential property adjacent to a farm where an industrial wind turbine project is in the works makes me a stern opponent of this kind of project. It is costly, detrimental to health and a threat to the value of my property.

I invite Egan to switch places with me and watch his lifetime toils evaporate just for the sake of enriching powerful lobbies of already rich people.

It is a shame that our government insists on disturbing and ruining people’s lives by allowing such projects so close to residences. Our beautiful province is so vast and for sure this kind of project can be built in remote areas where people’s lives are not affected and the enrichment of the government’s friends can continue with us footing the bill.

I have visited many countries where wind turbine parks were nowhere close to any residences nor farms. Even in Greece where bribery can seemingly get you anything, such projects are built far away from inhabited areas.

I wonder what it took to convince our politicians that building them close to homes is good for everyone. I feel so powerless in a country like Canada where the person is valued – but it appears that our politicians do not adhere to this notion.

Savas Adamantidis, North Gower

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Donations welcome to help us with legal fees and other expenses. PO Box 3 North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

Don’t look for ‘justice’ in wind turbine debate

09 Tuesday Apr 2013

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Anne McNeilly, Ben Lansink, David Cooper, Dr Hazel Lynn, Feed In Tariff Ontario, FIT Ontario, Green Energy Act, health effects wind power, health effects wind turbine noise, health effects wind turbines, infrasound wind turbines, Ken Lewenze, Port Elgin turbine, property value loss wind power, Toronto Star, wind power development, wind power Ontario, wind power scam

This commentary, written by a journalism prof, is an excellent summary of the issues around the wind power scandal in Ontario … and a question as to why the Ontario media in the main, doesn’t “get it.”

Check out the original here, and feel free to comment at The Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/04/09/dont_look_for_justice_in_ontarios_debate_on_wind_turbines.html

Don’t look for justice in Ontario’s ‘debate’ on wind turbines

It’s wealthy corporate behemoths supported by the government against vulnerable people with limited financial resources.
Don’t look for justice in Ontario’s ‘debate’ on wind turbines

David Cooper / TORONTO STAR

Anti-wind-turbine groups converged on the convention centre in downtown Toronto last week to protest wind farms, a story largely ignored by the mainstream media. (April 3, 2013)

By: Anne McNeilly Published on Tue Apr 09 2013

When there’s social injustice, you don’t expect large corporations, the provincial government and a union like the CAW to be climbing into bed together to ignore the problem. But slap a motherhood label on the issue, such as the so-called “Green Energy” Act, and all of a sudden it’s OK to ignore the very real hardships, both health and financial, happening to people in non-Liberal ridings.

What’s more surprising about the wind-turbine debacle, though, is the relatively low media profile that Ontario residents who are being negatively affected by the monster machines are receiving. News outlets and publications usually lap up stories of social injustice. The problems associated with lead paint, urea-formaldehyde foam insulation, asbestos and cigarettes are all famous for the media attention they received that led to change.

But it was difficult even to find news stories last week about the wind turbine protest at the energy conference in downtown Toronto. People from across the province pooled their resources to hire buses to come to the city to try to draw attention to their plight. If there was a broadcast or a print story, I didn’t hear or see it.

And despite public outrage and protests, the Canadian Auto Workers’ union last week started operating a monster wind turbine, built with government subsidies, in its Port Elgin convention centre parking lot that violates the 550-metre Ontario setback regulations. Residents, particularly children, are already experiencing the sleepless nights, anxiety and migraines being experienced by others around the province. Who cares? Certainly not CAW president Ken Lewenza, who has secured a seat on the province’s wind gravy train. When I recently suggested to a colleague who works on a documentary radio show in Toronto that the problems with turbines were worth a story, she responded: “I think they (wind turbines) are beautiful.” And that was that.

On one “side” of the wind-turbine debate are wealthy corporate behemoths supported by a government that removed the democratic rights of its citizens, without debate, to launch a misguided and ill-advised initiative that’s going to cost taxpayers’ into the billions. On the other “side,” you have vulnerable Ontario residents with limited financial resources who have had their democratic rights trampled and monster industrial monsters rammed down their throats.

Many are sick, although they are having trouble getting urban residents and to believe it, and many now own property where the value has been cut by as much as half. To ignore a situation where one “side” holds all the financial and political power while the other side struggles to make their voices heard, but not from lack of shouting and protesting, is a grave injustice.

So why are those who have found themselves living next to these industrial “farm” factories not getting more attention? Is it because of the greater good? If only that were true. Anyone who has done even five minutes of research knows that turbines are never going to solve the province’s or the world’s energy problems, despite the propaganda being spun by the wind companies and the province with its “Green Energy” Act, a brilliant piece of propaganda.

The fact is, is that the energy produced by turbines can’t be stored and they produce a fraction, (an estimated 20 per cent or less) of what they are capable of at times of the year when their energy is most needed, winter and summer. The auditor general outlined last year how the province “leapt before it looked” into this billion-dollar boondoggle that’s already costing taxpayers plenty.

A roundup of peer-reviewed health research, which is difficult to link to due to academic pay walls, from a variety of medical and science researchers can be found in the August 2011, 31(4) issue of the Bulletin of Science, Technology and SocietyAugust 2011, 31(4) issue of the Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, and is easily available at any public or university library. In addition, the medical officer of health in Grey Bruce, Dr. Hazel Lynn, submitted a report to the Ministry Health in February that found that there is, indeed, a link between health and wind turbines. Hard data on how property values have been cut by as much as half can be found in a report done by Lansink property and appraisals here: http://mlwindaction.org/2012/10/04/new-ontario-wind-turbine-property-value-analysis-ben-lansink-aaci-p-app-mrcs)http://mlwindaction.org/2012/10/04/new-ontario-wind-turbine-property-value-analysis-ben-lansink-aaci-p-app-mrcs)

Curiously, or maybe not, is that when energy issues arise in Liberal ridings — a planned natural gas plant, for example, in Oakville, or offshore Toronto turbines that would have obstructed “the view” of Scarborough Liberals — the projects are quickly quashed. So far, Premier Kathleen Wynne, nicknamed McWynnty by those in turbine-infested locales, has had little to say beyond acknowledging, sort of, that there’s maybe a problem and that municipalities should be more involved in the siting process for wind turbines. Well, yes.

Let’s be clear. People forced to live beside wind turbines are emphatically not anti “green” energy — what they are opposed to are industrial machines that are ruining their lives, while the government, and the media, turn a blind eye to the problem.

Anne McNeilly is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at Ryerson University who likes to vacation in Bruce County, at a place that is more than 550 metres from the nearest turbine.

 

Dalton McGuinty’s legacy: highest electricity bills in North America

21 Monday Jan 2013

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

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

cost of renewable power Ontario, cost wind power, cost-benefit renewable power, Dalton McGuinty, electricity costs Ontario, health effects wind power, Parker Gallant, property value loss wind power, property value wind farms, Robert Lyman, Wind Concerns Ontario

Here, from Parker Gallant, a comment on what Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal government has done to Ontario. We have spent billions on new “renewable” power sources, without actually adding any generation capacity. How does that make any sense?

But here’s the kick: by the end of 2016, Ontario consumers will be paying $2,055 a year MORE for power because of the McGuinty government’s policies.

Read the article, originally published in the January 18 Financial Post, here:

http://www.freewco.blogspot.ca/2013/01/ontarios-power-trip-mcguintys-legacy.html

Ottawa’s own Robert Lyman has already had a comment:

I was glad to see the article that Parker Gallant published in the National Post. For the first time that I have seen, it draws together the costs of the decisions taken by the McGuinty government in the electricity field since it came into office. The results are striking.
The “bottom line” is that the costs to the average Ontario homeowner, which have doubled since 2004, will double again by 2016. Over the next four years, the additional costs per ratepayer/taxpayer will be about $2,050. The cost of wind turbines is only one part of that cost, but it alone will add $2.5 billion per year to the costs of the electrical system. All of this, on a net basis, has not added one bit to Ontario’s generation capacity, as the province has essentially shut down the inexpensive coal plants and replaced them with the super-expensive wind and solar plants and the “smart meters”.
This analysis, never before assembled (to my knowledge), provides a powerful case against the electricity policies of the current Ontario government.
Of course, this just deals with the costs to consumers and small- and medium-sized business; never mind the dropping property values in rural communities invaded by wind power companies, the reduced appeal of Ontario tourist destinations and–most horrific of all–the damage to the health of some Ontario citizens forced to live near these power projects.
Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca and follow us on Twitter at northgowerwind.
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