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Archive for November 10th, 2012

Nov 10

lowell mountains vermont

Vermont — “It’s not just about the view”

Annette Smith — Vermonters for a Clean Environment — vtdigger.com — November 9, 2012

Recent media attention about wind energy development in Vermont, misses a critical reason why so many communities around the state are saying “no” to utility-scale wind on Vermont ridgelines. It˙s not just about the view.

When you focus solely on the view, you miss some of the other issues that are driving opposition. After working on the subject for three and a half years, Vermonters for a Clean Environment (VCE) knows there are numerous other complex issues — impacts to water quality from stormwater runoff, wildlife habitat fragmentation, bird and bat mortality, reductions in property values, and health impacts from noise in particular. Wind proponents condescendingly state that “people just don’t like to look at them,” in an intentional attempt to marginalize Vermonters who are concerned about wind projects’ impacts. Rather than address the issues, proponents belittle people who are directly affected.

These concerns are not based on selfish hysteria, but science. The Society for Wind Vigilance http://www.windvigilance.com is focusing credible, peer-reviewed science on the health impacts of wind turbines. They held a forum of doctors, acousticians, victims, and other interested people in October 2009, which I attended. Wind turbine noise is not a new story, making it all the more frustrating to see the noise problems left out of almost all the reporting being done in Vermont this fall about wind energy.

The wind industry is in denial about the noise impacts from their huge machines, and refuses all requests to hire experts that are acceptable to neighbors rather than the usual firms who are paid to defend developers’ interests.

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Decapitation of Lowell Mountains in Vermont

Devastation to the Lowell Mountains (Vermont)

Deforestation to make room for wind turbines (Lowell Mts.)

Nov 10

wind developer wolf

UK — Wind developers have run out of wild spots and are now hunting in populated areas

This is Cornwall.co.uk — November 10, 2012

Wind turbine buffer zones ‘could hinder communities’

Councils must not bow to pressure from campaigners to create buffer zones around towns and villages to prevent wind farms blighting people’s lives, a new report claims.

The study comes as a battle rages across the region between renewable energy plant developers and locals who say turbines are being built much too close to homes.

Pressure on the Government to legislate increased in May when a Private Member’s Bill proposing a minimum distance between turbines and residential premises had its first reading in the House of Lords.

But now Pro-renewable energy agency Regen South West has produced a report – Residential buffer zones for wind turbines: the evidence – which reviews the latest evidence on the noise, safety, health impacts and public opinion of wind turbines.

Cheryl Hiles, Regen’s director of sustainable energy delivery, said policies that put “whole areas of land off limits” without assessing specific local circumstances are in conflict with national policy and could “result in communities losing out on the chance to host their own turbines”.

She added: “As with any other development, the planning process should take a robust approach to ensuring wind turbines are appropriately sited and any impacts are minimised.

“This can be done most effectively by taking a case-by-case approach to each proposed development.”

… CPRE spokesman Bob Barfoot said: “The distance has got to depend on the size of the turbine and other factors such as topography.

“The bigger the turbine the further away they should be.

“But developers have run out of wild spots in the wilderness and are now hunting in the most populated areas.”

(To read full article, click here)

Nov 10

dalton mcguinty honesty

Ontario — Liberals deny more gas plant documents exist

Alex Ballingall — Toronto Star — November 9, 2012

The Ontario government says documents the opposition wants to see on the controversial and costly cancellation of two Ontario gas plants don’t exist. But the NDP isn’t buying it.

The party is accusing Premier Dalton McGuinty of “extraordinary stonewalling” after a freedom of information request for documents on the scrapped gas plants — code-named “Project Vapour” — came back with nothing.

“We received notice back that no such documents exist,” said New Democrat MPP Peter Tabuns (Toronto—Danforth), noting emails on Project Vapour have already been released.

“If it wasn’t so Kafkaesque it would be completely farcical.”

Tabuns told reporters that previously released emails from the premier’s office prove “without a doubt” that there are more documents on the Liberals’ hotly disputed move to cancel construction of gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga, costing taxpayers at least $230 million.

He said he doesn’t rule out Liberal “incompetence” to explain why his party’s request for information reaped nothing.

Controversy over the plants swelled at Queen’s Park in recent months as opposition parties clambered to pin Energy Minister Chris Bentley with a historic contempt motion for withholding information on the issue.

The gas plants, cancelled before the provincial election on Oct. 6, 2011, faced strong local opposition in key Liberal ridings the government didn’t want to lose.

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