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Farm group ends support for wind turbines
Credit: By JOHN MINER QMI Agency, www.theobserver.ca 20 January 2012 ~~
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Translate: FROM English | TO English
In a major blow to the McGuinty government’s controversial green energy plan, the largest farm lobby group in the province has pulled the plug on its support for wind turbines.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture, which represents 37,000 farm families, issued a call Friday for the province to suspend wind turbine development.
OFA President Mark Wales said industrial wind turbines have split rural communities, pitting neighbour against neighbour.
“The situation is untenable,” Wales said. “It is taking away from what farmers do best and that is grow food and create jobs.”
“We need to slow this down and put some calm out there and then government needs to resolve the issues.”
Wales said technical solutions also need to be found before further development, such as how to store the energy from wind turbines when it is being produced but isn’t needed.
Selling such energy to other jurisdictions at a loss just isn’t good economics, he said.
Wales also said health concerns need to be addressed.
With hundreds of the giant turbines under construction, the Ontario government has come under intense criticism from rural groups for taking planning control away from rural municipalities.
Several Liberal MPPs, including former Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell, were defeated in rural areas where turbines were being installed, helping to push the Liberals into a minority government position.
After the election, Premier Dalton McGuinty shifted veteran London Cabinet minister Chris Bentley into the politically hot energy portfolio.
Jane Wilson, president of the anti-wind turbine coalition Wind Concerns Ontario, called the OFA move surprising and gratifying.
Wilson said the OFA, with its clout, will provide a boost to the coalition’s campaign.
“A lot of rural communities are being just ripped apart by this issue,” said Wilson, adding it indicates the new OFA executive is listening to its farm members.
But Jutta Splettstoesser, a Kincardine area farmer and president of Friends of Wind Ontario, said she was shocked to read the OFA position.
“It was full of unfactual statements . . . I’m so disappointed,” she said.
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