Turbine dispute raises temperature
The wind farm issue was front and centre at last week’s Township of Madawaska Valley council and tempers flared over claims that the township had prevented a woman from giving a presentation on the effects that wind turbines have on human health.
Carmen Krogh, who in past weeks has spoken at several venues, is a pharmacist who says she has experienced the detrimental impact on her health that being close to wind turbines has had. She has also researched the issue, and had sought to appear before Madawaska Valley council to present her findings.
A company named SkyPower wants to build six industrial wind turbines in the hills north of Wilno, a plan that has encountered vociferous opposition from many local residents.
Council meetings are usually sparsely attended, but Monday night’s was packed with people, most of them opponents of the turbine proposal.
The township has a 15-minute limit on presentations, but Krogh said she would need more time and the presentation did not go ahead. In the meantime, several flyers promoting Krogh’s presentation, emblazoned overtop with the words “Cancelled by order of council” were distributed around the municipality.
At Monday night’s meeting, Wilno resident Pauline Sedgeman spoke to council. Sedgeman is a member of SOS, which opposes the Wilno project, but she stressed that she was speaking as a private citizen. She then told council of her “deep disappointment that my mayor and my council would not allow Carmen Krogh to present tonight.”
Shortly afterward, Mayor John Hildebrandt recalled seeing one of the flyers on a bank machine in town on Sunday morning bearing the words “Cancelled by order of council.”
“Let me tell you,” a visibly angry Hildebrandt told the meeting, “there was no order of council cancelling this.
“When you get this kind of stuff, it puts council in a bad light,” the mayor said, adding that Krogh would be welcome to speak. He said the council has not made up its mind on the wind farm issue and, having heard plenty of information from opponents, is waiting to hear the proponents’ case. In the meantime, he urged people to refrain from “getting personal” on the issue.
Township Clerk/CAO Pat Pilgrim said the dispute stemmed from “a lack of understanding” between herself and Krogh.
When a person in the crowd charged that some councillors were calling the wind farm opponents “hippies,” Hildebrandt bristled again.
“This guy never called anybody a hippy – ever.”
In addition to Sedgeman’s presentation, Wilno resident Evan Bloom also spoke. He told council that the property he and his partner Anne Mullin live on will be surrounded by the turbines. He called the approval process for the turbines “a sham,” and said the SkyPower proposal would “destroy the village’s history, culture and its heritage. It will destroy one of the most pristine landscape views” in the region.
Bloom urged council to join the roughly 10 other Ontario municipalities that have imposed moratoriums on wind farm approvals.
Township Council did endorse a resolution passed by the County of Prince Edward recently that calls upon the federal and provincial governments to commission the necessary research to determine the health and other impacts of prolonged exposure to wind turbines; and to create regulations in accordance with the findings of that research.
By Douglas Gloin
25 February 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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