Anti-Lake Erie wind turbines group to meet
The Citizens Against Lake Erie Wind Turbines will hold an information meeting Sunday at Kingsville’s Lakeside Park.
The meeting will be held in the pavilion from noon to 4:30 p.m.
The citizens’ group is against a proposal to put wind turbines in Pigeon Bay in Lake Erie south of Kingsville and Leamington but Sunday’s gathering is not a rally as proposed by a Kingsville town councillor last month.
Gord Meuser, a developer and member of the Citizens Against Lake Erie Wind Turbines, said some residents thought the issue went away in 2006 when the province put a moratorium on offshore wind developments. After further study, the moratorium was lifted last year.
“This indeed is back on the table and with the Green Energy Act it more than likely, no matter how much protest we put up, more than likely is going to happen,” Meuser said Monday.
The act announced last week will take power away from municipalities on where turbines can be located. In this case Kingsville and Leamington already have no say on where the offshore turbines will be located because the lake bed is owned by the province.
Meuser said the province doesn’t want to have green energy projects delayed by NIMBY — not in my back yard — arguments. Meuser said some opposition could be classified as a NIMBY argument but the citizens’ group is concerned about what he called a possible “drastic” effect on tourism for birdwatching and fishing. Pigeon Bay sits beside Point Pelee and residents have questions about what the turbines on the lake bed will do to fish spawning and bird migration routes among other things.
“All you need to do is show us that it will not have a negative effect on these other environmental issues that have a great impact on this area’s economy,” he said.
The group wants a full environmental assessment done.
SouthPoint Wind has issued a notice of commencement of an environmental screening, a less involved process than an environmental assessment. The offshore proposal by SouthPoint Wind says the first stage of construction will be for 9.9 Megawatts at each of the three wind farm sites on the lake.
Meuser said residents don’t know how many turbines could be built in the lake. The project in 2006 had a maximum number of sites of 119. Meuser said that looks to be down to 15 turbines, three at each site, now but the environmental screening talks of provision for future expansion. SouthPoint Wind has said it won’t release any more information now than what’s on its website and the number of turbines isn’t stated.
Meuser said he’d like residents to write to SouthPoint Wind to ask questions. The Citizens Against Lake Erie Wind Turbines group is also circulating a petition asking the province to ban wind turbines in Pigeon Bay.
The petition gives a number of reasons including the proximity to Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary and Point Pelee National Park, and the intake pipes to the
Union Water System. Other concerns include property values, the impact on the spawning area for smelt, pickerel, perch and bass and the adverse effect on the economy which benefits from tourism for wildlife migrations, sport fishing, boating and diving.
By Sharon Hill
4 March 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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