Renewable energy developers – and those who regulate them – need to be more sensitive to the concerns of residents who are going to have massive wind turbines built near them, a group of Canadian academics says.
In a paper published Monday in the journal Nature Energy, the eight authors – six of whom are university professors or researchers – analyze why there is so much debate over the placement of wind turbines in Ontario.
Ontario has the greatest number of wind turbines of any province, and their construction has created considerable conflict between developers and those opposed to the installation of large industrial machinery in rural environments. Often these fights end up pitting neighbours against neighbours, and they can become big political battles at the municipal level.
Ontario has altered its rules since it first encouraged wind farms in its Green Energy Act in 2009, said Stewart Fast, a senior research associate at the University of Ottawa and one of the paper’s authors. But even though the new rules encourage more input from local governments and residents near proposed turbines, these changes haven’t been enough to stop the disputes, he said. …
Who pays for wind turbine teardown? Not clear, says lawyer
What goes up must come down
“No pocket you can go to in 20 years”: Environmental lawyer says taxpayers and landowners could be responsible for costs
Farmersforum.com , January 2016
By Brandy Harrison
Toronto- With more wind turbines coming to Eastern Ontario, there has been a lot of talk about what happens when it comes time to take down the towers. While the provincial government may put the onus on wind project developers to pay for teardown, it’s far from certain they’ll be able to collect if a company goes bankrupt — which could mean taxpayers are on the hook, says a Toronto-based environment and municipal lawyer.
“Many of these companies are relatively small, or based outside of Canada, and that creates what appears to be a real risk as there will be no pocket you can go to 20 years from now when a cleanup is actually required,” says Eric Gillespie, who has represented landowners and municipalities with wind turbine concerns.
It’s anybody’s guess who would end up paying for decommissioning — the landowner, the municipality, or provincial taxpayers, he says.
Farmers shouldn’t underestimate what it takes to remove a single turbine, Gillespie warns. The nacelle — the central hub containing the generator — is 80 to 100 metres in the air and weighs as much as 70 tonnes. “It’s not something where you just call your neighbor and ask him to bring his tractor over.”
While Ontario costs are yet unknown, world-wide decommissioning has ranged from $30,000 to $80,000 per turbine.
But the worst case scenario can be avoided if funds are set aside as part of the approval process, suggests Gillespie.
Decommissioning plans are required to get renewable energy approval but they don’t have financial strings attached.
There is already a good model in place, says Gillespie. Under the Environmental Protection Act, the government will ask for financial assurance if there is a risk of adverse effects that could require remedial work. A letter of credit or security is required up front.
“Anything other than that might keep lawyers busy for a long time but won’t help communities. It’s about addressing the issue now rather than waiting for the end and crossing your fingers. It should be the companies that are earning the profits that have to pay the bill.”
France, host of the U.N. climate conference, prides itself on being one of the world’s top innovators in wind energy technology, and wind turbines have become a symbol of the country’s commitment to clean energy. But the French government is coming under fire from farmers and others who say the proximity of some of the turbines is hurting wildlife and cattle. VOA Europe Correspondent Luis Ramirez went to a dairy farm in the northern Picady region to get one farmer’s story.
South Shore Prince Edward County: how did a power plant get approved for this? [Photo Point 2 Point Foundation]
This is a report from the appellant in the ongoing appeal of the 29-turbine White Pines project approved for Prince Edward County. Yesterday saw several avian experts testify, giving amazing testimony as to what damage could be done by turbines inside an Important Bird Area for migratory species.
Note the testimony about Wolfe Island (the turbines there are now relatively small compared to what is being built and planned) and how many birds are being killed; compare to the wind power developer’s consultant opinion. Not even close.
Report on Environmental Review Tribunal Hearing on White Pines Wind Project
December 1
by
Paula Peel, APPEC
On Day 15 three experts testified at the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) that the White Pines wind project will cause serious and irreversible harm to birds and bats. All had concerns with the project location on a migratory path on Lake Ontario’s shoreline.
Dr. Michael Hutchins, Director of the American Bird Conservancy’s Bird Smart Wind Energy Campaign, was qualified as a biologist with specialization in animal behaviour and with expertise in the impact of wind energy projects on birds and bats. Hutchins told the ERT that one function of the Bird Smart Campaign is to educate decision-makers so turbines are properly sited. White Pines is in a high-risk location. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommends three-mile setbacks from the Great Lakes.
Hutchins cited a recent U.S. study showing significant displacement of breeding grassland birds in mid-western states after turbine construction. White Pines will displace protected Bobolink, Eastern Meadowlark, and Eastern Whip-poor-will, and the impact could easily result in local extirpation.
Bill Evans has researched the impact of wind projects on birds and bats for 20 years. Evans was qualified as an expert in avian acoustic monitoring and nocturnal bird migration. He said that a number of species in Ontario, including the Purple Martin, have been in long-term decline, but Stantec did no surveys of Purple Martins during late summer when large numbers gather to roost. Evans noted that Purple Martin collision fatalities are increasing at Ontario wind facilities and made up 6.09% of all bird fatalities in 2014, higher than in 2012.
Dr. Shawn Smallwood was qualified as an ecologist with expertise in avian wildlife behaviour and conservation. In addition to 70 peer-reviewed publications Smallwood has done research at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (WRA), a California wind project notorious for its high raptor mortality.
Smallwood told the ERT that impact monitoring at Wolfe Island indicates the highest avian fatality rates in North America other than at Altamont Pass WRA. Based on methods commonly used across the rest of North America, Smallwood estimates that Wolfe Island kills 21.9 birds per turbine per year. This is nearly twice the number reported by Stantec using searches only within a 50-foot radius, less than half of standard practice. Smallwood considers Wolfe Island one of the most dangerous wind projects on the American continent.
Smallwood predicts similar or higher fatality rates at the White Pines project because the peninsula is targeted by migrating birds as a stopover site and because the project is surrounded by wetlands and woodlands intensively used by birds. Moreover, many threatened and endangered species occur at the site. Stantec surveys for White Pines foster a high level of uncertainty because 19 hours of field work is so minimal that it’s impossible to know much about the large project area, and no surveys were done for migratory bats.
Smallwood recommends that serious and irreversible harm be assessed from a biological perspective, not from population analyses. Fatalities cause harm not only to the individuals killed but also to mates, dependent young, and social connections. Serious and irreversible harm should not be based only on body counts.
The ERT resumes Thursday, December 3, 10 a.m., at the Prince Edward Community Centre, 375 Main St., Picton.
Community Group Files Request for Judicial Review of Wind Farm Approval Process
<!– newsBody:PICTON, ON, Nov. 30, 2015 /CNW/ – CCSAGE Naturally Green (CCSAGE-NG) filed notice in Divisional Court at Ottawa today for a Judicial Review of the Renewable Energy Approval process for the White Pines wind power project in Prince Edward County.
The power project was approved by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change in 2015. Part of that approval included a permit issued by the Minister of Natural Resources and Forests to “kill, harm and harass” endangered or threatened wildlife species.
CCSAGE cited institutional bias, lack of evidence-based studies, disallowance of municipal input, and denial of natural justice in its court filing, which is supported by 1,500 pages of evidence showing that the government’s approval process violated the constitutional rights of citizens and communities as well as international treaties and agreements.
Ontario’s Green Energy Act permits appeals of wind power approvals only on grounds of serious harm to humans, or serious and irreversible harm to animal and/or plant life and to the natural environment, but not on other grounds such as a biased approval process, violation of constitutional rights, harm to local economies, harm to heritage features, diminution of property values, or violation of international treaties and agreements.
CCSAGE NG Chair Anne Dumbrille said that because the existing appeal process is biased in favour of the wind power developers, the group’s only choice was court: “The Environmental Review Tribunal is a government-appointed panel that follows government rules with the result that it allows destruction of environmentally sensitive areas. Our only recourse is to Canada’s courts, where rules of justice prevail,” she said.
CCSAGE NG was aided by research done by five students from the Osgoode Hall Law School at York University.
CCSAGE NG is a federally incorporated not-for-profit corporation working to ensure that “Green Energy” initiatives of governments and industry are safe and appropriate for the citizens, wildlife and the natural and heritage environments of Prince Edward County.
Birds? What birds? MNRF “biologist” misses the fact the South Shore of Prince Edward County is a designated Important Bird Area. It is slated for a 29-turbine wind power project.
There have been many appeals of wind power project approvals in Ontario —in fact, almost EVERY approval since 2009 has been appealed—but the two appeals ongoing in Prince Edward County currently are interesting as they focus on the approval process for power projects, and the expert oversight citizens expect is part of it.
The truth? There isn’t any oversight.
If the wind power developer says there are not at-risk or endangered species in the project area then, well, they must be right. According to the government, that is.
The Ostrander Point appeal is now in its fifth phase as the appeal has bounced from the quasi-judicial Environmental Review Tribunal to court and back; we learned there that the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources at-risk species expert recommended a permit NOT be granted for the power project.
And now, testimony at the White Pines appeal, also in Prince Edward County, is showing that the developer and the government relied on inadequate and incomplete consulting reports, and the government never bothered to check. At yesterday’s hearing, the MNRF “biologist” (she has a BA in environmental studies) stated that she was “unaware” that the County’s South Shore was a site for thousands of migratory birds, or that the power project site had several species of at-risk or endangered wildlife.
We invite you to follow along the excellent reports of the White Pines appeal (Ostrander Point has now heard all the evidence and will see final submissions in mid-January) at both Wind Concerns Ontario and the Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County (APPEC).
Writing in yesterday’s National Post and for Postmedia, Michael Den Tandt puts the climate change discussion into perspective and in particular, has some advice for the new federal government on “clean” energy:
The Liberals will also need to take pains to avoid the multi-billion-dollar waste and anti-democratic outrages of Ontario’s Green Energy Act, which foisted inefficient, hugely expensive and environmentally harmful wind turbines on rural communities that in many cases did and do not want them.
Expensive.
Inefficient.
Actually harm the environment they are supposed to be saving—that’s the lesson to be learned from Ontario about wind turbines. Only Ontario hasn’t learned it, as the government contracts for 300 more megawatts of wind in 2015 (well, turns out we have to wait now until 2016 to learn which communities are on the chopping block), and another 200 megawatts in 2016.
Worse, Big Wind has convinced the Ontario government that the 3-megawatt machines are actually “quieter” and so, new regulations for turbine noise, to be released shortly, will have zero mention of low-frequency noise or infrasound, because Big Wind says it isn’t a problem. Meanwhile, anecdotal reports out of communities where the 3-megawatt behemoths have begun operating show that people are getting sicker, faster.
Analysts such as Tom Adams, Scott Luft and Parker Gallant repeatedly offer data that shows wind power is not only high impact on the environment it is for very little benefit, and is costing Ontario in terms of competitiveness, and standard of living.
Ontario has a lot to learn, not the least of which is how to protect its citizens.
All residents in White Pines project area will be affected by noise: top acoustician testimony
Report on Environmental Review Tribunal Hearing on White Pines Wind Project
November 20, 2015
by
Paula Peel, Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County (APPEC)
APPEC’s health appeal continued on Day 10 with expert witness Dr. Paul Schomer testifying before the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) on the White Pines wind project. The remainder of the day was spent making adjustments to the schedule following WPD’s abrupt announcement that it was dropping an appeal of the disallowance of two turbines (T7 and T11) by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC).
Dr. Schomer, a former Standards Director of the Acoustical Society of America with 48 years’ experience in noise measurement, was qualified by the ERT as an expert in acoustics. He told the Tribunal that all residents in the White Pines project area will be affected by audible and inaudible sound and a number of residents will be seriously affected. The effects reported by people living near wind projects are similar in nature to the effects experienced by participants in a 1985 University of Toronto study on infrasound. At lower levels and at higher levels of pure tone some participants experienced nausea and dizziness. However, when overtones were added at higher levels, participants experienced headaches and fatigue.
Dr. Schomer considers that internationally-accepted noise standards and protocols are being flouted in Ontario. For example, A-weighting is not supposed to be relied on when sounds have low-frequency content such as those emitted by industrial wind turbines. Canada is one of the countries that voted for this rule. He also calls for changes in current Ontario regulations to adjust up to 10 db(A) for wind turbine noise in rural areas. Other suggested adjustments include up to 3 db(A) for weather conditions and 3 to 4 db(A) for locations downwind of turbines. Dr. Schomer is highly critical of WPD’s current predicted average sound as it merely indicates that 50% of the time 50% of the residents will be exposed to sound above or below the limit. The wind industry should be held to a higher level of accountability: db(A) limits should be met 95% of the time.
Dr. Schomer pointed to a very important figure in the Health Canada Report. Only 1% of people are shown to be highly annoyed at 30 – 35 db(A) sound levels. However, at 35 – 40 db(A) the number jumps to 40%. Dr. Schomer sees this as evidence of a community response to wind turbine noise, and that what Health Canada says, what independent acoustic experts say, and what communities say should carry weight in Ontario.
Through experience Dr. Schomer has found that when community responses disagree with the physics, the physics is usually wrong. This has been confirmed by his involvement in six studies of wind farms, including the 8-turbine Shirley Wind Farm in Wisconsin where three families abandoned their homes and about 60 other people reported adverse health effects.
A Conservative senator is calling out large environmental groups for their silence on the impact of wind turbines on bird populations.
Ontario Senator Bob Runciman, who in 2011 introduced a motion that was unanimously passed by the Senate calling for a moratorium on wind turbine developments in Important Bird Areas, said large environmental groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund and the David Suzuki Foundation have not addressed one of the biggest criticisms of wind energy.
“Thousands of birds are being needlessly slaughtered simply because these industrial wind farms are located in the wrong places,” Runciman wrote in a letter Monday. “Yet the very organizations dedicated to protecting wildlife have been shockingly silent. I’d like to know why.”
In an interview with the Whig, Runciman said the impacts on bird and bat populations has been ignored by groups such as the World Wildlife Fund Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation.
“Organizations that have essentially been silent on this. I think that has had a positive political impact for the government,” Runciman said.
“There’s simply not the recognition levels raised and no real effort to make people aware of it or express concern themselves as an organization.”
Runciman said those groups do not want to be appear to be opposed to green energy and do not want to get on the wrong side of the Liberal government.
Runciman also said larger environmental groups are based in large urban centres, such as Toronto, while wind energy projects are being proposed or built mainly in rural areas.
“I’m not talking about green energy itself, I’m talking about putting these turbines in these areas where they are going to kill thousands and thousands of birds and bats and jeopardize a significant amount of endangered species,” Runciman said.
Gideon Forman, a climate change policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, agreed that wind turbines shouldn’t be placed in sensitive bird and bat areas.
But Forman said the impact on bird and bat populations should not be used to derail efforts to introduce more renewable energy in Ontario.
“Windmills do kill some birds but you need to put that in context,” Forman said.
“The greatest threat to birds, and indeed other wildlife, will be climate change so we absolutely need to ramp up properly sited renewables. We need to transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy source, among them wind.
“We do need to put them in the right places. An important bird area is not the right place.”
Forman said research has indicated the number of birds killed by windmills is “tiny” compared to the number killed by flying into buildings and high tension power lines, pesticide use, vehicles and house cats.
“You need to put it in that context.”
Forman said the Suzuki Foundation is a charity and is non-partisan and has members in all areas of the country.
The provincial government is currently evaluating proposals from more than 40 companies bidding for large renewable energy contracts. Of the 565 megawatts of renewable energy the contracts are expected to produce, 300 megawatts is to come from wind energy.
Wind energy projects have been proposed, approved or built for areas stretching from Prince Edward County, Greater Napanee, Amherst Island, off shore near Main Duck Island and on Wolfe Island.
It’s a high-stakes legal battle over London-area wind farms that pits a self-proclaimed, Canada-loving, Texas oil tycoon against the federal government.
Mesa Power Group LLC vs. Government of Canada, a case that could leave taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, is expected to be ruled on within weeks, four years after the claim was launched by T. Boone Pickens under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Though the federal government is the defendant, Pickens’ real quarrel is with Ontario.
In submissions and testimony before the NAFTA panel hearing the arbitration case, Pickens’ company claims it failed to win contracts for four massive wind farms in Huron and Bruce counties in Southwestern Ontario because of political interference at the highest level.
“This whole process was not carried out in good faith. This was not honesty. This was not fairness. This process was infused with raw politics, arbitrariness, and an egregious abuse of authority,” Mesa lawyer Barry Appleton said in his closing submission to the panel’s three arbitrators at a hearing in Toronto in October 2014.
The claim contains allegations that have not been proven.
In his own testimony before the NAFTA arbitrators, Pickens described how he was a big fan of Canada because of its rule of law.
“My experiences were so good that I enjoyed telling people about it,” he said, relating how he came to Canada with less than $100,000 in 1959 and sold out 20 years later for $610 million.
But his experience in Ontario left him disappointed, he said.
“You always feel bad when you lose, and then you look to see why you lost, and here we lost because we didn’t have a level playing field,” Pickens testified.
Home to Ontario’s largest wind farms with its largest number of the highrise-sized turbines, Southwestern Ontario is no stranger to the controversies generated by the power-producing windmills. Critics have decried them as a threat to human health, divisive to rural communities and a financial blow to a province that signed up producers with early sweetheart deals paying them far more to generate power than consumers pay.
Details of this latest dust-up are found on a federal government website containing submissions by Mesa, the governments of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and transcripts of the claim heard before a NAFTA tribunal last fall.
Mesa argued that other wind farm companies, Florida-based NextEra Energy and Korean-based Samsung — both, industry giants — were given illegal, preferential treatment and inside information that doomed Mesa’s projects.
“It was a cesspool. It was shameful. I feel very badly after seeing what went on here for my fellow Ontarians and the ratepayers of Ontario. They are having to bear the burden of the shameful behaviour,” Appleton said in a transcript from the hearing.
Responding to Mesa’s arguments, also at the hearing, Canada’s lawyers rejected Mesa’s assertions and said the company’s failures were self-inflicted.
“This is a case which is, as the expression goes, about sour grapes. It is a case about an investor who took a business risk and is unwilling to accept that that risk did not pay off,” government of Canada lawyer Shane Spelliscy said.
Spelliscy said Mesa’s applications for contracts with the Ontario Power Corp. were “sloppy” and “poorly done.”
When contracts were handed out, Mesa didn’t get one because its proposals weren’t highly ranked in a process monitored by an independent third party, Spelliscy said.
If they had put together better applications, they may have been successful, the federal lawyer said.
“There was no discrimination,” he said.
According to Mesa’s submissions, it decided to develop wind farms in Ontario — one, a 200-megawatt proposal in Bruce County would have been the largest in Ontario — after learning the province was offering 20-year contracts at a fixed price of 13.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.
“Make no doubt about this, this was a highly attractive rate,” said Appleton.
The rate meant there was no shortage of competing applications. A critical factor for companies became whether there would be enough transmission capacity for wind energy in the areas where they’d selected to build.
Appleton said Mesa had no idea that Ontario had cut a separate deal to allocate transmission capacity to Samsung, a Korean industrial giant, which promised to build manufacturing plants in Ontario.
And Mesa, unlike some of its competitors, was never informed about rule changes, a chance to switch its transmission points in order to increase its chances, he said.
Part of Mesa’s case was based on e-mails from Bob Lopinski, a registered lobbyist for NextEra, to Energy Ministry officials during the allocation process.
Lopinksi, a principal at Counsel Public Affairs, had previously served as director of issues management and legislative affairs to then-premier Dalton McGuinty and advised the Liberal leader on selecting cabinet ministers.
Appleton said though Lopinski and NextEra executives were communicating with Ontario government and Hydro One officials, Mesa understood no such communication was allowed.
Canada’s response filed with the NAFTA panel was there isn’t any evidence NextEra was ever provided with non-public information.
Mesa has asked for damages of $653 million plus interest.
The company claims it already invested $160 million on preliminary work for four proposed wind farms in western Ontario and would have spent $1.2 billion-plus on construction:
![South Shore Prince Edward County: how did a power plant get approved for this? [Photo Point 2 Point Foundation]](https://ottawawindconcerns.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/southshorepec.jpg)
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Ottawa Wind Concerns 