Mysterious handiwork: Eighty-six plaster hands turn up beside road and no one knows how they got there

Art installation or environmental protest?

No one is sure what the 90 or so plaster hands, each holding a rock, that appeared on a Wolfe Island sideroad this week are meant to symbolize.

Nor does anyone know who created them and placed them beside the 2nd Line Road on the west end of the island, but it just so happens that they are situated on a contentious piece of ground.

It was here, last winter, that the township widened the road by dumping rocks — much like the rocks in the plaster hands — along a long strip of provincially significant wetland.

Some residents claim the work was done to allow wind turbine company Canadian Hydro Developers to move its equipment and machinery down the road — something the company denies.

Now the rock encroachment is the subject of a formal request for an investigation under the provincial Environmental Bill of Rights.

“I would love to know who the artist is,” said Gail Kenney, a cosignatory to the investigation request. “We don’t know what the statement is. It could be what you want it to be.”

Kenney was alerted to the presence of the plaster hands on Wednesday morning by a friend who was out on 2nd Line Road walking her dog.

Kenney and her friend went up and found the pieces, as well as wind farm manager Mike Jablonicky, who was also examining the creation.

The two know each other well. Kenney is the head of Wolfe Island Residents for the Environment, the citizens group that has expressed ongoing concerns about the environmental and health fallout from the 86-turbine project.

Sitting beside the hands is a flat rock with the number “86″ scratched on it

Kenney said she told Jablonicky that she knew nothing about the plaster hands and that it had nothing to do with her organization, “but I was very excited about the artwork because it enables me to share some issues.

“You see this shot rock here and the wetland? This is an encroachment into this wetland. It has been disputed and we have requested an investigation by the Ministry of the Environment. We contend this encroachment has to do with the wind turbines.”

Kenney believes the rock encroachment, about 150 metres long and pushing about five metres into the wetland, was created in order to move back a series of hydro poles that were blocking Canadian Hydro Developers from bringing their gigantic turbines and pedestals down the road.

“The township says they put it in,” said Kenney. “Canadian Hydro Developers provided the material free of charge. They provided the labour free of charge.”

Canadian Hydro spokesman Geoff Carnegie confirmed that his company supplied the rock.

“The material was additional material from the wind project,” said Carnegie. “We donated the material to the township for the roadwork.”

He said the donation enabled the township to keep its costs down and save taxpayers money, but the widening was in no way done to allow for the movement of the turbines.

“Work on the 2nd Line was the township doing the road expansion work. It was not done in any way to facilitate the project,” said Carnegie.

Kenney said such work on classified wetland could only be approved if the township did the work.

“This is the most sensitive area, environmentally,” she said.

By PAUL SCHLIESMANN

The Whig Standard

17 July 2009

Tags: Wind power, Wind energy

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