Mark Davis Speech at CAW turbine protest
April 14, 2012
CAW wind turbine protest parade in Port Elgin
Archive for April 18th, 2012
Apr 18
Bluewater school trustees steer clear of wind moratorium
Bill Henry — Owen Sound Sun Times — April 18, 2012
Bluewater school trustees are staying away from the politics surrounding wind energy.
A motion from Trustee Kevin Larson asking to halt industrial wind turbine development in Ontario, until health studies are completed and analyzed, went down to a 6-4 defeat Tuesday night in Chesley.
“It’s a very hot political item,” Bruce Peninsula trustee Terry Bell said. “Unless we’ve got some definitive evidence that it’s affecting our students, which we don’t have, then I don’t think we can make any wild statement about the pros and cons of these devices.”
Owen Sound trustee Marg Gaviller agreed. There is “no concrete evidence” of harm from the turbines, she said.
CBC NEWS! Ministry of the Environment “We take this noise issue very seriously”
From CBC News — April 21, 2012
Conservative MP Bob Dechert has wrapped up a fact-finding mission to solve the mystery of wind turbine noise, a persistent low frequency noise that has trigged hundreds of complaints over the past several years.
The noise has annoyed residents of Ontario since 2005.
The noise, described as a low-frequency sound, has become a significant annoyance in Ontario, with an estimated 22,000 residents taking part in a telephone forum held in February to discuss the issue.
Jim Bradley, Ontario’s environment minister, sent letters to local municipalities asking them to take action on the problem. The ministry has received close to 500 complaints about the noise, Bradley said.
Meanwhile, Dechert, the parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, has met with representatives of the Great Lakes Commission, the Council of Great Lakes Industries and the Regional Office of the International Joint Commission to discuss the problem.
Ottawa ‘takes this issue seriously’
“The government of Canada takes this issue seriously,” Dechert said in a release. “It is important that we find a solution that works for the people of Ontario.”
Gary Gross is among those who live near wind turbines and has had enough of the noise.
“I was in bed, it was about 2:30 a.m. and I could just hear this pulsing noise,” he told CBC News. “I decided to get up, it disturbed my sleep and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”
Dechert, an MP representing Mississauga-Erindale, will prepare a report out-lining ways to find a solution to silence the hum.
“Our government is prepared to collaborate with all levels of government so a solution can be implemented in due course,” he said.
Now, if you want to know the true story about what this “serious noise issue” really is, click here.
Message from McGuinty to wind opponents? Too bad.
The Goderich Signal Star — April 18, 2012
Letter to the Editor:
We moved to Goderich to settle into a peaceful, healthy retirement, and had hoped to buy a home here or in one of the coastal towns. Finding nothing suitable here, we began exploring alternatives until we learned of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) industrial wind turbine (IWT) recently constructed at their Port Elgin ‘educational’ complex, against the vociferous objections of the local population and council. We also discovered that Saugeen Shores had applied to be considered as a site for a waste nuclear fuel storage facility. And then there’s the close proximity of the highly controversial Bruce Nuclear Generating Plant. We’re very aware of the purported health risks associated with nuclear and wind electricity generation, but many people obviously are not – or they’ve allowed themselves to be duped by unscrupulous politicians and the ‘corptocracy’. After thorough research and thoughtful consideration, we have decided to search elsewhere.
Answers are certainly important, but so are questions. If we fail to question the decisions of those who supposedly represent us, then we must assume responsibility for the consequences. Thomas Jefferson said that anyone who relinquishes freedom in exchange for security deserves neither. If we fail to hold our elected representatives and their appointed bureaucrats responsible, and adopt an apathetic posture by failing to ensure our wishes are implemented, then we have only ourselves to blame for any adverse consequences.
AU — Taxpayers should not gamble on renewables
Link to the AustralianThe Australian — April 19, 2012
RENEWABLE energy is powered more by the winds of the zeitgeist and the flow of taxpayers’ money than it is by westerlies or sunshine.
Political fashion — in the form of a carbon tax — is about to deliver another $10 billion to the renewables sector.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation will seek out projects that might otherwise not be funded because their risk or projected low returns dissuade private investors, and invest them with public funds. The outcome, almost certainly, will make some recipients rich, increase the costs of electricity and create additional losses for taxpayers. Governments that intervene as financiers to pick winners, with political goals counter-weighing commercial imperatives, invariably pick some losers. Julia Gillard and her ministers should remember the 1980s disasters of Victoria’s Tricontinental, Perth’s WA Inc and South Australia’s State Bank when state governments directed their banks and finance corporations to leverage commercial outcomes for political gain. The result was financial collapse and political capitulation.
P.E.I. — Eastern King residents accept Wind company bribe
How truly sad that the residents in Prince Edward Island succumbed to the temptations of a bribe from a wind company. It will be interesting to see how quickly they regret that decision. — Donna Quixote
CBC News — April 18, 2012
Final vote 171 in favour, 137 against
The promise of up to $9 million convinced residents of Eastern Kings to vote in favour of having more wind turbines in their area.
Tuesday’s vote came two years after residents told a private wind farm operator not to develop in the region. People living in the area had said they did not want to see any more wind farms constructed at the eastern tip of the province.
The lastest plan would add up to 15 turbines to the existing provincially-operated wind farm.
Clearview Township landowners against wind turbines
Morgan Ian Adams — QMI Agency — April 18, 2012
CLEARVIEW TWP. — The fight against two wind turbine projects is not about to blow over.
Twenty more residents have joined two collective actions against WPD Canada and the landowners who would host the turbines, bringing the value of the two claims to more than $17 million.
John and Sylvia Wiggins launched a suit earlier this year against WPD and Beattie Bros. Ltd., claiming the threat of wind turbines being located near their property on the 6th Conc. had devalued their property and made it difficult to sell.
The Wiggins’ claim sought an injunction and $2 million in damages related to the proposed Fairview Wind Farm.
Today’s Farmer — Not a whole lot good about wind turbines
Green energy woes discussed at Lambton NFU annual meeting
John Phair — Today’s Farmer — April 17, 2012
There’s not a whole lot good about wind turbines, or for that matter, Ontario’s Green Energy Act.
At least that seemed to be the general opinion expressed at the annual meeting of Local 328 (Lambton County) National Farmers Union, held recently at the Forest Agricultural Society Hall.
The organization’s outgoing president said issues surrounding wind generators and the Green Energy Act were among his greatest concerns for the rural community as he wrapped up his term of office.
“The thing that had the biggest impact on me are issues regarding wind generators and green energy and the true costs behind them,” said Joe Vye in his report to the membership.
OFA — Changes needed in Species at Risk legislation (2012)
Keith Currie — April 17, 2012 — Ontario Federation of Agriculture
Farmers encountering endangered species on the farm can face serious financial repercussions due to the loss of the use of their farmland. That’s because once a species is considered a Species at Risk in Ontario (SARO), it receives automatic protection for both the species itself, and for its habitat.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) will be seeking amendments to the Endangered Species Act, 2007 that would help address the important issues of biodiversity, while being respectful of farmers who rely on their land for their livelihood.
The Act came into force on June 30, 2008, and is supported by The Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario (COSSARO), which is a government-appointed committee that determines which species of plant or animal should be added to the SARO list. There are five categories for species at risk, ranging from species considered “extinct” such as the passenger pigeon, to species of “special concern” such as the snapping turtle.
California May Credit Big Hydro Power to Green Energy Goal
James Nash — Bloomberg — April 17, 2012
California, the second-largest U.S. hydroelectric producer, would count large water projects toward its goal of having renewable resources supply a third of its power under a bill approved by an Assembly committee.
The measure would remove a limitation that now counts only smaller hydropower projects, capable of producing 30 megawatts or less, to qualify toward California’s renewable portfolio standard. The biggest U.S. state by population, which consumed 8.5 percent of the nation’s energy in 2009, generated 13.2 percent of U.S. hydroelectric power, second only to Washington State, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
California adopted a formal target for renewable energy sources, such as solar and water, in 2002 and expanded it last year to require investor-owned utilities to generate 33 percent of their power from such sources by 2020.
Environmental advocates and state Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, a Berkeley Democrat, said allowing the large hydroelectric projects to count toward the renewable goal would uproot the purpose of the rule. Skinner said utilities could build giant hydroelectric facilities in neighboring states and Canada, then export the power back to California.
