Wind Concerns Ontario is a coalition of 42 citizen groups promoting awareness of the true impacts of industrial wind power facilities across Ontario.    About Us

Amherstburg Echo

It is with great dismay that I find I have to write this statement in response to the notification in the local daily paper that there’s a plan afoot to install up to 700 wind turbines just offshore in Lake Erie. I know that this is part of the provincial government’s Green Energy Act but just who is it going to be green for? In the first paragraph of the act, the government states that it will “boost investment in renewable energy projects and increase conservation.” I submit that it will do everything but increase conservation.

Essex County has been billed as the “100 mile coastline”, the perfect place to retire and enjoy the climate, the picturesque communities, the scenery and nature. In fact, the Ministry of Tourism has devoted a lot of time and energy promoting this concept through the real estate board(s). It seems to be all in vain as the Southpoint Wind Energy Project comes through the county, pushing forward with the blessings of the provincial government, hosting spurious open house discussions to garner public support for their offshore development.

By Ellen van Wageningen   www.windstorstar.com

A Leamington-based company that is proposing to put 700 wind turbines in lakes Erie and St. Clair has hired a high-profile Michigan public relations strategist and former spokesman for the mayor of Detroit.

Daniel Cherrin, who was chief communications officer under former Detroit mayor Ken Cockrel Jr., said Thursday he was hired last week by SouthPoint Wind to speak on its behalf about the controversial project.

Toronto Star

So, “The Ontario government has promised to protect 50 per cent of the boreal forest…” from development. I’ve heard that before. I live in the Oak Ridges Moraine in a section currently under consideration for (surprise!) industrial wind farm development.

 The new Green Energy Act overrides the protections in the Oak Ridges Moraine plan and the act’s environmental assessment requirements are so lax as to be ludicrous. We are now faced with the installation of 30 wind turbines in an environmentally sensitive, “government protected” zone.

 The Ontario government just does what it likes by creating new laws. With 32,000 mining claims and such big money involved, we should all be very skeptical.

Margo Ratsep, Pontypool

Don’t build these low frequency/infrasound-generating machines within 2 km of people’s homes. Governments and corporations who violate this principle are guilty of gross clinical harm. Such governments and corporations should be taken before whatever level of court is necessary to stop this outrage.

I realize these are strong words. They are carefully chosen. They are strong because governments and the wind industry stubbornly—I would add, criminally—refuse to acknowledge that they are deliberately and aggressively harming people. This must stop. The evidence is overwhelming. I repeat, this must stop.

Lynne Turner, Confederate Staff, Arthur Enterprise News

A petition signed by neighbours and adjacent landowners expressing “serious concerns” about the wind farm being built on Lots 2 and 3, Line 2, Wellington North was presented to council Monday evening.

Those signing the petition said the project, “less than a kilometer from an excess of 2000 people, is very poorly thought out in light of recent articles in the local press relating to individuals living in close proximity to wind turbines and the resulting negative health effects some have experienced.”

Terence Corcoran,  Financial Post 

That eerie hissing you hear may well be the air beginning to seep out of the green energy bubble. The sound is similar to the pfffffft and sshhhhsssssp noises we heard in the early days of the dot.combubble collapse or the subprime mortgage meltdown. If you can’t hear it, you are not alone.

While investment analysts are telling their clients to get out of solar power firms and warning about the continuing risks in wind and bioenergy schemes, Ottawa and the provinces are on a mad populist stampede to throw billions of dollars at the green energy monster. The politicians don’t seem to be keeping up with the trends. “Don’t try to catch a falling knife,” warned J.P. Morgan this week in a report that told investors the market continues to fall out of the solar panel module market. It downgraded a bunch of solar companies that have already been in a tailspin since the fist signs of a solar crash back in 2008.

Orangeville Citizen

A large and quickly increasing number of residents in our county and township, as well as in neighbouring Wellington, are deeply concerned about the proposed Belwood Wind Energy Centre Project that Invenergy is seeking approval for. Seeing that there seems to be little awareness of how close to Orangeville this massive proposal will be, we would like to draw your attention why we, and many more residents in this area, do not deem the proposed site appropriate for a sustainable wind energy development and ask you to form and voice your own opinion of this matter.

By DAN PELTON   Orangeville Citizen

An overflow crowd said to be close to 1,500 converged on the community hall in Belwood Tuesday night to attend an open house for the proposed Belwood Wind Energy Centre.

For the most part, they were not a happy lot.

A similar open house was scheduled for Wednesday night at the community hall in Marsville.

At issue is a proposal by Invenergy Wind Canada ULC, a branch of Chicago-based Invenergy LLC, to develop a wind farm with between 25 and 35 turbine locations in an area that includes parts of Centre Wellington and East Garafraxa townships.

Those lining up for hundreds of yards to get into the hall and view Invenergy’s presentation had questions about how such a project would affect property values, health and the overall well-being of the community.

The turbine blades create clouds which hang over the offshore farm even though the coastline remains clear

Read article:   Daily Mail UK

View video on CTV website

Hundreds of residents gathered in Belwood on Tuesday night for a public meeting into a proposed wind farm project.

Many chose the meeting as an opportunity to protest. Opponents say they’re worried about the landscape as well as the possible health hazards and economic impact of the turbines.

Invenergy held the public meeting in hopes of easing tensions.  The proposal calls for up to 35 wind turbines to be constructed.

OTTAWA—In its fight to ensure that a proposed development of industrial wind turbines is located a safe distance from hundreds of homes in the North Gower-Richmond area, the North Gower Wind Action Group has retained the services of an environmental lawyer in the Ottawa office of Fogler, Rubinoff LLP.

The group has asked the developer to share documents related to the development process with the community.

McGuinty Gets Rid of Watchdogs

We, the undersigned, call on the Ontario government to reappoint Andre Marin as Ombudsman for the province for another term.

Please sign here

Owen Sound Sun Times

Wind farm concern widespread

I live in rural Ontario.

I have been labeled by our premier and other politicians as a NIMBY and by others as “anti-green,” an “opponent,” a “detractor” to wind energy. Why? Because I am concerned about the risk to health of Ontario families.

These statements are lobbyist language and more suitable to a playground bully. It is unbecoming for a leader who was elected to look after the wellbeing of our democratic society to dismiss legitimate concerns of its citizens.

Dawn-Euphemia Mayor Bill Bilton is also critical of the province for throwing its weight around.

“It’s frustrating,” he said. “I’ve been involved in municipal politics for more than 25 years and I was always told that planning is a public process.

“I guess on this issue, it isn’t.”

CATHY DOBSON   The Sarnia Observer

DAWN-EUPHEMIA — Two years after hundreds of local residents and the township’s council vehemently opposed a large wind farm, plans are moving forward to start construction.

Officials with the Sydenham Wind Energy Centre say they will start building their $160-million farm in 2011 if Ontario Power Authority (OPA) approval comes through and once an environmental assessment is complete.

The farm will have 29 to 37 wind turbines capable of producing about 70 MW, enough to power 20,000 households, says Sherra Zulerons, national manager for Mainstream Renewable Power LLC.

“Once we make the hole,” said Hanna, “the whole damn dam is going to come down.”   (Donate to the Ian Hanna Legal Challenge Fund Here) 

The Collingwood Connection

A March 6 meeting, outlining the downside of wind turbines, drew close to 200 people to Creemore’s Station on the Green.

Only six or eight people would have shown up 18 months ago, said one speaker, concluding that the groundswell of opposition to wind turbines is gaining momentum.

An area just north of Creemore is proposed for the tower installations as well as a smaller area to the west of the village.

Large users hit with ‘impossible to budget for’ fee hike

[Editor's note: How many jobs will this cost Ontario?!]

Peter Kovessy   Ottawa Business Journal

Landlord Bill Sioulas thought he’d be paying less for hydro after cutting his consumption by almost 20 per cent.

The regional director of Conundrum Capital Corp. changed the lighting and upgraded the rooftops on many of the commercial properties he manages.

The investment paid off, as Mr. Sioulas drew 1.8 million fewer kilowatt hours at 15 of his light industrial and suburban office buildings last year.

Expecting big savings, Mr. Sioulas says he was shocked to open his hydro bill and find a skyrocketing provincial fee had eroded the payoff of his conservation efforts.

by TonyofOz   PA Pundits

Excerpt:   Either way, coal fired power plants will still be in operation for decades to come, because they cannot be replaced by any form of renewable power and new plants are not even being considered.

Pity help the person who has to finally bite the bullet and come out and tell the people that they have been misled for so long. Wait for the political fallout from that.

Read entire article here   

Counc. Cynthia Lemon

By Denis Langlois  Owen Sound Sun Times

Nicholas Schaut says he moved his family to Meaford last year to escape the turbine-covered landscape of Melancthon Township.

A plan for a small, locally-run wind farm north of Shelburne quickly evolved into a 133-tower development that surrounded his home, workplace and the area’s countryside, he said.

“For us, it was an enormous nuisance,” said the organic vegetable farmer.

He said the swooshing, “cyclical humming” sound of the massive turbines disturbed his family’s sleep and caused his young children to wake up in the night. A red beacon light atop the turbines flashes all night, he said, creating a “disco” effect.

700 turbines proposed for lakes      By Sharon Hill, The Windsor Star

Area municipalities and the Essex Region Conservation Authority should develop a regional response to the 700 offshore turbines proposed for lakes Erie and St. Clair, Kingsville council agreed Monday.

“It appears to me the whole thing is stacked against municipalities and citizens,” Coun. Tamara Stomp said of the new Green Energy Act.

She put forward a motion that Amherstburg Coun. Rick Fryer was expected to take to Amherstburg council expressing concerns about the impact of offshore turbines on water quality, human health and animal and plant life.

[Editor's Note:   I think the writer of this article has missed the mark completely here.   Many of our members were offered turbines/money and turned it down.   It is not money we want, it is peace and quiet in a healthy environment.   You cannot put a pricetag on that.   Massive industrial turbines do not belong near family homes under any circumstances.]

by Nathan Stevens, CFFO    stevens@christianfarmers.org
published in  Owen Sound Sun Times

Farmers across this province need the opportunity to diversify their income base through the opportunities provided by the Green Energy Act and the Feed-In Tariff Program.

However, there is growing frustration in the countryside that “have” and “have-not” situations are developing. The CFFO is looking at ways to share the wealth of energy contracts that are proliferating across the province.

Gerson Lehrman Group

There are only few things that can politically shake any  nation. One of them is paying extra tax for: (a) something that doesn’t improve the people’s wellbeing at all, and (b) something that actually makes the people worse off, both, health-wise and their property values-wise.

As these effects, together with higher tax bills for every household, are there for everybody to clearly see it, the combined political effect for any party, contemplating such a policy, equals to a political suicide.

Turbines near Merlin, Ontario

chathamdailynews.ca

Chatham-Kent council complains at the ROMA conference they want control of industrial wind development. How can you complain the horse is out of the barn when you opened the door yourself?

C-K council has ignored and ridiculed concerns over industrial wind turbines from citizens for over three years now.

By Stephen Vance, Staff   Meaford Independent

More than 100 Meaford residents packed Woodford Hall on Wednesday night to learn about the potential health, environmental, and property value effects of industrial wind farms.

The recurring theme of the evening which featured several speakers, was that there is still much to be learned about how wind turbines impact neighbouring communities, and many of the speakers were calling on the Provincial government to slow the pace of wind farm developments until more research can be done.

Wind power is unreliable, expensive and doesn’t result in lower C02 emissions. Why is Ontario still rushing ahead with it?

By Michael Trebilcock, National Post

The  Ontario government’s rush into renewable energy, and industrial wind turbine-generated electricity in particular, is likely to reveal the law of unintended consequences. The government needs to rigorously re-evaluate this precipitous policy before committing billions more in subsidies to it.

First, as to the cost of wind-generated electricity, the feed-in tariff for on-shore wind turbines in Ontario provided for under the Green Energy Act is 13.5¢ per kWh (and higher for smaller projects). This is more than twice the prevailing rates for electricity on the spot market in Ontario (less than ¢6 per KWh).

“The absence of a policy paper or background published research review in Ontario is particularly troubling.”

Download Full Report:  Policy Analysis: The Perils of Picking Technological Winners in Renewable Energy Policy

Audit the Ontario government’s green programs, says Trebilcock-Wilson report for Energy Probe.  Ontario’s strategy of picking winners likely to fail.

Ontario’s provincial auditor or other independent groups should periodically audit the programs and subsidies being offered through the recently passed Green Energy Act to ensure the programs are producing the promised environmental and economic benefits, says an Energy Probe report published today by Michael Trebilcock, Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Toronto, and James Wilson, a recent University of Toronto Law School Graduate.

Energy Tribune Managing Editor Robert Bryce on wind turbines’’ impact on people’s health.   Click picture to watch short video: 

Port Huron, MI  Times Herald, www.thetimesherald.com

An Ontario company’s quest to erect 715 wind turbines in the shallows of Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie has many people asking questions — and rightly so. 

SouthPoint Wind announced plans last week for a 1,400-megawatt project that would dwarf other Canadian efforts to generate electricity from the wind. It would draw power from 165 turbines off the south shore of Lake St. Clair and 550 turbines near the north shore of Lake Erie. 

Minister of Environment, John Gerretsen

McGuinty’s Liberals are now looking to even further “streamline” the process for approving wind projects.    “Modernizing” might be double-speak for doing away with rules developers must follow.   Perhaps it really means doing away with meaningful public input to fast-track wind developments.

John Gerretsen  insists on blindly denying there are any problems with wind turbines.   Now a “new, simplified process for activities that could be categorized as either lower-risk, less-complex or that have standard requirements” is being enacted.

by David Meyer  Wellington Advertiser

BELWOOD – The com­mu­nity hall here might not be big enough to hold all the citi­zens concerned about a pro­posed wind farm that is plan­ned for the area.

Citizens have started a peti­tion against the proposal and one of them, James Virgin, of Belwood, took out a half-page advertisement in this week’s Advertiser to inform residents of the concerns there are for the wind farm proposal.

A few years ago, the pro­vincial government told muni­cipalities to determine policies for allowing wind farms, and Wellington County spent months doing that. After the regulations were accepted by council, Premier Dalton Mc­Guinty unilaterally removed the power to regulate wind tur­bines from the municipalities and said the province was going to allow them.

Feed in Tariff Prices for Renewable Energy Projects in Ontario, Sept/09           (¢/kWh)
Current Avg. Consumer Cost		~6
Solar	< 10kW	80.2
	< 10 MW	44.3
Wind	Onshore	13.5
	Offshore	19

George Monbiot   The Guardian     A week ago the German government decided to reduce sharply the tariff it pays for solar PV, on the grounds that it is a waste of money. Just as the Germans have begun to abandon their monumental mistake, we are about to repeat it.

If people want to waste their money, let them. But you and I shouldn’t be paying for it. Seldom has there been a bigger public rip-off; seldom has less fuss been made about it. Will we try to stop this scheme, or are we a nation of dupes?

By Gary Lamphier, Edmonton Journal

North Americans are dreamers, and for the most part, we seem to like it that way.

We want it all: a pristine environment, wonderful schools and hospitals, cheap gas, great jobs, low taxes, vacuous celebrities to amuse us, and of course, a minimum of dirty, ugly industry.

Owen Sound Sun Times

The editors of the Creemore Echo recently apologized to their readers for not providing a balanced view of the issues of industrial wind turbines (IWTs) because they had received no comments from supporters.

A local group had featured several advertisements in opposition to IWTs and had organized an information meeting. I wrote this response and would like to share it with your readers.

The silence from supporters of industrial wind turbines being erected in residential areas is, I believe, evidence that the true facts of this form of energy are starting to register with all parties.

Sheguiandah First Nation

by Lindsay Kelly Manitoulin Expositor

NORTHEAST TOWN-With less than a month to go before Northland Power holds its final public consultation session for the proposed McLean’s Mountain Wind Farm project, the nearby Sheguiandah First Nation has voiced its opposition to the project.

In a letter addressed to the Northeast Town council, the community makes a brief, but unequivocal, statement that suggests the project should be halted until proper consultation is done with First Nations.

Wind power is a green mirage of the worst kind. It looks green to simple souls but it is a technical nightmare.

Henk Tennekes, Financial Post

Wind energy is an engineer’s nightmare. To begin with, the energy density of flowing air is miserably low. Therefore, you need a massive contraption to catch one megawatt at best, and a thousand of these to equal a single gas-or coal-fired power plant.

If you design them for a wind speed of 34 miles per hour, they are useless at wind speeds below 22 mph and extremely dangerous at 44 mph, unless feathered in time. Remember, power is proportional to the cube of the wind speed. Old-fashioned Dutch windmills needed a two-man crew on 12-hour watch, seven days a week, because a runaway windmill first burnt its bearings, then its hardwood gears, then the entire superstructure.

“Councils” include Municipal, County and First Nations.
Resolutions in detail below list

1. Sheguiandah First Nation **NEW**
2. Northeastern Manitoulin & the Islands (NEMI)**NEW**
3. Wellington County  **NEW**
4. Township of Carling (District of Parry Sound) 
5. Township of Mulmur (Dufferin County) 
6. Township of Arran-Elderslie (Bruce County)
7. Township of Asphodel-Norwood (Peterborough County)
8. North Middlesex Township (Middlesex County) 
9. Adelaide-Metcalfe Township (Middlesex County) 

Lindsay Post

Dalton McGuinty’s government has chosen to ignore empirical evidence that strongly suggest serious health problems do occur with the installation of industrial wind turbines.

Consider, if you will, that gasoline engines will be a memory in the not too distant future. Ethanol is another pie in the sky fuel as it takes fuel to produce it, therefore defeating its very purpose.

Hypocritical stance taken by R. Voakes and P. Innis

[Editor's note: This bizarre reaction from the two Essex Councilors who did everything in their power to get a large land-based project shoved through.  ... So it's OK to site just meters from where children sleep and play....but not in the lake??]

By Gary Rennie, The Windsor Star  

ESSEX, Ont. — The Town of Essex wants the developer of a multibillion-dollar offshore wind turbine project in Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair to come to a special meeting to explain it.

“It scares the living hell out of us,” said Coun. Randy Voakes.

by Robert Bryce, Wall Street Journal

People living near turbines increasingly report sleep deprivation, headaches and vertigo. The wind lobby says there’s no proof

Imagine this scenario:  The oil and gas industry launches an aggressive global drilling program with a new type of well. Thousands of these new wells, once operational, emit a noxious odor so offensive that many of the people living within a mile of them are kept awake at night. Some are even forced to move out of their homes. It’s easy to predict the reaction: denunciations of the industry, countless lawsuits, and congressional investigations.

Public meeting Wednesday
By Don Crosby Owen Sound Sun Times

Wind turbines could be coming to Meaford.

That is why newly-formed Wind Concerns Meaford is holding a public meeting on Wednesday to raise awareness about wind energy concerns in the municipality and elsewhere. At least one developer has a wind testing tower in the former Sydenham Township near Balaclava.

Organic farmer Nicholos Schaut is one of the evening’s speakers. He, together with his wife and two pre-school age children, moved to Meaford from Melancthon Township about a year ago.

Hydro One: Rising debt, higher costs, falling income   Parker Gallant Financial Post

On Feb. 11, Hydro One, Ontario`s electricity transmission giant, released the company’s annual report along with a statement from CEO Laura Formusa announcing that all was well. In 2009, Hydro One “met its net income target and made important progress on a number of strategic fronts.”

End of story, apparently. No major media reported on Hydro One’s annual statement to “investors,” as the company puts it, even though the report is a dog’s breakfast of warning signs and bizarre trends that spell trouble.

As a retired banker, I had a look at the financial information in Hydro One’s annual report. Comparing results from one year to the next gives clues on where a company is headed and what that means for investors, in this case electricity consumers and Ontario taxpayers. Hydro One’s numbers should alarm both of the affected parties.

Guelph Mercury  by Greg Layson  glayson@guelphmercury.com

GUELPH — A second proposed wind farm in part of Wellington County will be met with opposition next month.

Invenergy Canada is seeking approval to build 25-35 wind turbines on approximately 4,000 acres of land a few kilometres northwest of Belwood.

Half the proposed site is in the Township of Centre of Wellington in Wellington County. The other half of the land is in the Township of Garafraxa of Dufferin County.

The Green Energy Act regulations offer little to no protection for our sensitive eco-systems. In fact, previously protected areas are now wide open to industrialization by wind developers. McGuinty has stripped away the power of municipalities and citizens to protect these areas. He has given full rights to the wind developers to do as they please.

Raptors such as vultures, eagles and hawks are the most vulnerable bird to turbine accidents.   The big birds typically soar at about the same height as the turbine blades – roughly 300 to 400 feet.  In one year, the entire population of White Tailed Eagles was wiped out at Smola, Norway.  In Ontario, it has been reported coyotes are numerous around turbine facilities.   Why?  To swoop in and pick up  the dead and injured. 

Video Series Produced by Nettie Peña  
http://web.me.com/thrnotgreen/thrnotgreen

Reuters
Governments around the world are actively seeking private development of renewable energy projects by offering generous feed-in tariffs that often see developers paid many times the market rate for the power they produce.

This has encouraged a surge of applications, but the volume of applications and other challenges associated with these projects present potential risks to prospective investors.

Projects require transmission capacity to carry their energy to market, but the agencies accepting applications for a given jurisdiction often aren’t responsible for managing transmission systems.

Ottawa Citizen

Wind power is being foisted on the unsuspecting Ontario consumer by one of the worst premiers we have ever had. Having squandered hundreds of millions on bailouts for the sinking auto sector, he is now prepared to throw our money at an expensive “alternative” source of unreliable power.

Scott Tracey  Guelph Mercury

WELLINGTON COUNTY — One week after a county committee refused to support a request for a provincial moratorium on wind farms, county council has decided to do so.

Guelph-Eramosa Township Mayor Chris White, who chairs the administration, finance and personnel committee, said since his committee met a week ago there has been a suggestion “some people might want to revisit this.”

Manitoulin Expositor

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced a country ravaged by the Great Depression, he said in his 1932 inaugural speech, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” What strikes us as a palpable quality of the current debate about the Northland Power wind turbine project is an irrational fear that comes in various shades and is not helpful.

Plan would put 700 towers, each 40 stories tall, along St. Clair, Erie shores

BY TINA LAM   DETROIT FREE PRESS

A proposal to put 700 wind turbines along the shores of Lakes St. Clair and Erie, each about as tall as a 40-story building, is provoking controversy in Canada and the U.S.

Migration of the Monarchs

Turbines OK’d despite 6,000 signature petition
Windsor Star    

Hasn’t mankind done enough damage to our planet already?  Approximately four years ago, the Ontario government put a moratorium on placing wind turbines in the Great Lakes.

It made perfect sense to protect, at all costs, one-fifth of the world’s fresh water supply, the fishery, wildlife, Point Pelee, monarch butterfly migration routes, etc.

Then, they lifted the moratorium and the Liberal government’s new minister of Natural Resources reversed her position in lockstep with the party line to explore all avenues of renewable energy.