September 28, 2012
Letters, Ontario

Misleading information

The Chronicle Journal | www.chroniclejournal.com 27 September 2012

The editorial, Influential Postcards (Sept. 25) incorrectly states, “Horizon made concessions . . . the company agreed to reduce the number of wind turbines and move the closest one back more than a kilometre from the nearest home – twice the distance mandated by the province.”
This information, from Horizon, is one more example of misleading and incorrect information provided to the public over three years.
The proposed Horizon turbines could never have been 550 metres away. The Ministry of Environment’s setback of 550 metres is considered the absolute minimum for a very small wind farm of five turbines or less and a noise output level of 102 decibels, not for the 14 turbines proposed by Horizon.
The Ontario Environmental Protection Act states when a 107-decibel level is reached or the number of turbines in a wind farm increases, the setbacks must be increased quite dramatically to 950-1,500 metres to provide protection to the people living near the turbines.
The reason for reducing the turbine number by two is unclear. That change was in the lawsuit settlement against the city which the public has had to file a Freedom of Information request to obtain.
The use of a postcard campaign with incorrect and misleading information (including the absurd claim of not destroying the maple forest) and offering a free trip or cash, undermines the seriousness of what is being proposed and makes a joke out of the provincial public process with respect to power projects.
I can’t agree more that “rather than a nice contest and pretty postcards this ought to be a straightforward proposal for a good, clean energy idea at a time when those ideas are needed.”
It is time for this fiasco to stop. This ill-conceived, ill-researched, ill-planned project needs to be shut down and Horizon needs to understand that this is not how business is conducted here or anywhere.
The Nor’Wester Mountain Range is the wrong location for industrial wind turbines and by their actions, Horizon now has no support from many citizens of Thunder Bay and, via council resolutions, by both the Municipality of Neebing and Fort William First Nation.
Irene Bond
Thunder Bay


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/09/28/misleading-information/