March 15, 2012
Nova Scotia

Gulf shore residents continue opposition to wind farm proposal

The Amherst Daily News, 13 March 2012

PUGWASH – Nearly 200 Pugwash area residents have registered complaints with Environment Minister Sterling Belliveau through the Gulf Shore Preservation Association’s website.

Association chairwoman Lisa Betts said many more have sent letters of opposition directly to the minister, the premier and Cumberland North MLA Brian Skabar.

“Many of the responses received by the ministry are impassioned, but educated, pleas from residents who understand what is at stake here,” Betts said. “The public was given 30 days to review and comment on the environmental assessment. Thirty days is not enough time for the layperson to wade through all the technical information.”

Betts said the association is fortunate to have members with knowledge of the information to identify some of the shortcomings in the assessment.

“We have concluded that it is a mixture of out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant and inaccurate findings bundled together to push forward a project that is simply in the wrong location,” she said.

The association has asked the minister to throw out the environmental assessment.

The minister could approve or reject the project, or approve it with conditions.

Atlantic Wind Farms wants to erect up to 12 turbines in the Pugwash area around the Irishtown Road.

Company president Charles Demond has repeatedly said the assessment it submitted was based on several years of gathering information and listening to what Pugwash area residents had to say.

The windfarm that’s being proposed is smaller than one shelved several years ago and its turbines will be farther from both the shoreline and from cottages in the Gulf Shore area.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/03/15/gulf-shore-residents-continue-opposition-to-wind-farm-proposal/