Tag Archives: Wind farms

09.09.09
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Lake Erie off shore wind turbine opponents urge MoE assessment

A proposal to put 15 wind turbines as close as one kilometre offshore in Lake Erie should require an environmental assessment, Gord Meuser, a spokesman for the group Citizens Against Lake Erie Wind Turbines, said Friday.

SouthPoint Wind has completed its environmental screening report but Meuser said the group will be asking that it be bumped up to an environmental assessment with more studies specifically on Lake Erie and the impacts the turbines could have here. He said there aren’t other freshwater wind turbine projects for comparison.

“We’d be the guinea pig,” Meuser said.
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09.09.09
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Wind farm opponents accuse Ontario Energy Minister Smitherman of ducking protesters

Opponents of new wind farms in Ontario are accusing Energy Minister George Smitherman of trying to duck protesters.

A group called Wind Concerns Ontario says Smitherman’s office hasn’t told anyone the energy minister will attend Thursday’s grand opening of the Wolfe Island wind project near Kingston.

The anti-windmill activists say Smitherman is “deathly afraid” he’ll face protests at Wolfe Island after he ran into about 50 protesters at a wind farm near Kincardine in April.

The government still had not put out an announcement late Wednesday afternoon indicating that Smitherman and Environment Minister John Gerretson would be at the Wolfe Island event.
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09.03.09
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Ontario wind farm projects are being assessed by proponents and not independent environmental experts, figures show

ripley-industrial-wind-turbines
Not a single wind farm project proposed in the past four years in Ontario has undergone an independent environmental assessment by the province, figures obtained by The Free Press show.
Despite requests from citizens’ groups for the assessments, 31 projects have been allowed to go through after a less stringent screening process undertaken by the wind farm proponents themselves.
“It demonstrates the process is a sham,” said John Laforet, president of Wind Concerns Ontario, a coalition of 33 smaller groups.
“Each of these projects is a foregone conclusion.”
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08.14.09
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Ontario’s big windy gamble. The province is betting on wind power, and critics are lining up.

Ontario is already North America’s friendliest jurisdiction for wind and other renewable energy projects, thanks to its recently proclaimed Green Energy Act, meant to speed along approval, and the establishment of European-style 20-year fixed-price energy contracts. (Power companies are now required to integrate all new green energy projects into their grids and pay producers 13.5 cents per kilowatt hour for onshore wind farms, 19 cents/kWh for offshore wind, and up to 80.2 cents/kWh for solar power, versus about six cents/kWh for both hydro and nuclear energy.) The province, which is committed to shutting down its coal-fired plants by 2014, will have 1,200 megawatts of wind power in operation by the end of this year, and there are 103 more “shovel ready” wind developments, totalling 3,263 MW, in the pipeline. The proliferation of giant turbines—80-m-tall towers with 40- to 45-m blades—is already nearing the 5,000 MW supply ceiling the Ontario Power Authority has said it can easily integrate into its aging grid. But soon, there will be no more limits. Smitherman is promising a series of major power infrastructure announcements in coming weeks that will not only make wind a much bigger part of Ontario’s energy mix, but open up vast new areas of the province to commercial wind development.
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08.13.09
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McGuinty government is flying blind when it comes to the development of wind power.

Erie Shores Wind Farm

Erie Shores Wind Farm

Long Point Waterfowl is worried that the McGuinty government is flying blind when it comes to the development of wind power.

The waterfowl study group has set aside $300,000 for a two-year probe of wind turbines and their potential impact on waterfowl in the lower Great Lakes. Long Point Waterfowl is undertaking the research to address gaps in its understanding.

Scott Petrie, executive director of Long Point Waterfowl, is disturbed that the province wants to steamroll dissent on green energy projects when the scientific record is silent on the question of migratory waterfowl and wind turbines.

“I find what the McGuinty government is doing is very scary,” Petrie said. “They don’t want anybody speaking out against turbine locations. I’m very concerned about the Green Energy Act. We’re just trying to provide direction and to help ensure that green energy is as green as green can be.”
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08.03.09
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Don’t back down on wind turbines

For renewable energy to have a future in Ontario, public support and confidence in wind farms is essential. The province should lead the way by ensuring that Ontarians have access to the most up-to-date research on the impact of wind turbines on public health.

In April, the government said it would fund a university-based research initiative “to examine potential public health effects of renewable energy projects.” But the initiative has not yet been launched. The province ought to make it a priority, with a special focus on wind turbines. That would ensure that Ontario’s regulations governing wind turbines are based on the best possible evidence.

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07.18.09
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Huron County agricultural group seeks moratorium on wind power projects

The Huron County Federation of Agriculture will be visiting municipalities throughout Huron County asking them to follow Huron East’s lead by passing interim control bylaws on commercial wind energy projects within their borders.

The federation’s directors discussed the current debate around wind turbine developments at their June meeting and passed two resolutions.

One was to request lower-tier municipalities in Huron to enact a moratorium on commercial wind energy projects pending results of an epidemiological study conducted into the health impacts of the specific infrastructure on residents living near such developments.

The other was to support the study.

President Wayne Black says he’ll be attending council meetings throughout Huron County to talk to councillors about their thoughts about wind projects.
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07.08.09
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Health risks of industrial wind turbines debated

The managing director of the company behind two Oxford County wind farm proposals suggested the speakers at a recent “Wind Energy Information Night” overstated the alleged health risks of industrial wind turbines.

Bart Geleynse of Prowind Canada Inc. said the speakers at the Hickson Central Public School meeting were claiming a causal relationship between wind turbines and health risks without any compelling evidence.

“I’ve seen nothing that leads me to believe that except anecdotal and quite emotive statements by people making a name for themselves,” Geleynse said.

But the speakers at the June 25th meeting didn’t share Geleynse’s skepticism. Both David Colling, an electrical pollution consultant, and retired pharmacist Carmen Krogh were adamant about the link between wind turbines and a number of adverse symptoms, including dizziness, nausea, headaches and tinnitus.

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07.08.09
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Queen’s University study to determine health effects of turbines

By now, the residents of Wolfe Island, Ont., are getting used to the whirr and thump of wind turbines overhead. By next year, they’ll get a glimpse of whether those whirrs and thumps could be damaging their health.

Researchers at nearby Queen’s University have embarked on the first study to probe whether wind turbines built over communities can cause adverse health effects. The study measures residents’ health and well-being before the turbines arrived on the island, again when the turbines were built but not yet operational and again after they’d been operating for a few months.

People living close to turbines in other regions have reported nausea, headaches, dizziness, anxiety, sleep deprivation and tinnitus – an incessant ringing in a person’s ears.

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