Wind turbines may have their place but it's not in our precious forests
Dear Mr. Smitherman, Deputy Premier of Ontario, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure:
Re: Response to your letter to Barry’s Bay This Week, October 29, 2008.
While acknowledging the need to promote green energy, we must disagree with certain aspects of your government’s agenda in this regard.
We have previously congratulated Premier McGuinty on his implementation of various green initiatives, prominent among these being the protection of a large swath of boreal forest in Northern Ontario, intended, among other things, to serve as a carbon sink and a source of oxygen to help provide a buffer against climate change.
Why then, would you advocate clear-cutting trees in the prime woodlands of the Madawaska Valley, Whitney and Eganville areas, to install industrial wind turbines and construct massive access roads and associated infrastructure? These forests also contribute to carbon sequestration and at the same time provide for sustainable, selective timber harvesting and many forms of outdoor recreation.
Most of the landowners in this region are committed to properly managing their wood lots; many have planted thousands of trees to return abandoned farm fields to forest. The majority of us are responsible stewards of our properties and we are doing our part to create a greener future for the benefit of citizens everywhere.
It’s up to governments at all levels to recognize the fact that not all solutions make sense in all communities, a fact not lost on the perceptive council of South Algonquin Township.
We wouldn’t advocate paving over productive farmland in Southern Ontario, nor would we support logging in Toronto’s city parks. Industrial wind turbines may have their place, but they don’t belong in the forested countryside of Central Ontario.
That kind of “trade-off” would be totally without merit.
Yours sincerely,
Gord Benner and Joyce Chyrski
19 November 2008
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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