June 22, 2012
Nova Scotia

Community airs concerns about wind farms

CBC News | www.cbc.ca/ 21 June 2012

A meeting to talk about the future of wind turbines in Kings County drew a crowd Wednesday night.

There are currently no large-scale wind farms in Kings County, but three companies have expressed interest in setting up such operations there. In addition to local companies Scotian Windfields and Watts Wind Energy Inc., the Spanish conglomerate Acciona would like to build a 25-tower farm.

The current bylaw says a turbine can’t be set up within 700 metres of a residence.

Barry Brown said that’s still too close.

“It concerns me because my home, my mother’s house, my uncle’s home across the road are all located within a kilometre of where one of the large industrial wind [farms] would be sited,” he said.

He worries a large number of turbines nearby would decrease his property value.

“For someone like myself, a small-business owner, I don’t have a lot of pension plans. I put my value in my home, and if that value is reduced, that’s a real problem.

John Cummings also lives near a proposed site.

“There’s a lot of people getting sick near windmills,” said Cummings. “It’s unexplained, the science doesn’t prove it, but that doesn’t negate the fact that there’s some very ill effects as a result of these large turbines.”

The municipality will hold a second meeting on the issue July 3. After that, a vote will determine whether to keep the current bylaw, or write a new one.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/06/22/community-airs-concerns-about-wind-farms/