March 4, 2011
Ontario

‘News to us’

By Jamie Smith, www.tbnewswatch.com 3 March 2011

The fact that a company proposing a wind project on the Nor’Wester Mountains has submitted its Renewable Energy Approval is news to the group opposing the project.

MPP Bill Mauro (Lib., Thunder Bay-Atikokan) told members of the Nor’Wester Mountain Escarpment Protection Committee Thursday at its monthly meeting that Horizon Wind Inc. submitted its REA Feb. 14.

NMEPC member Karl Piirik said no one from the committee heard anything about that even though NMEPC members attended every open house the company held, submitted contact information and are supposed to be on the company’s email list.

“That’s huge news to us,” Piirik told Mauro.

Piirik said that’s one of the committee’s main concerns. No questions asked by committee members at the open houses have ever been answered by the company even though public comment is part of the REA.

“The whole process to date has been nuts,” Piirik said. “The fact that we even need to be here is nuts.”

But Mauro told the 50 NMEPC members at the South Neebing Community Centre that if their concerns haven’t been addressed under Horizon’s submission to the province that’s a good thing for NMEPC because the province wouldn’t approve the application.

“I actually look at that as a good thing (for NMEPC) not a bad thing,” Mauro said. “They’re not doing what they’re supposed to do. Isn’t that a good thing?”

Mauro said he has always been against the proposed location for the Big Thunder Wind Park but apologized to NMEPC for not speaking publicly about it sooner. Mauro said he didn’t want to “throw stones at the city”.

“I don’t think it’s a good choice. I never have,” said Mauro.

Until the REA was submitted, Mauro said it wasn’t a provincial matter because the proposed 17,000 acre location is city property.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/03/04/news-to-us/