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Windfarm proponent says federal agency not opposed to turbines
However, airport board chair Charlie Tatham dismissed WPD’s news release as “misleading... and was conceived with the intention to deceive those who don't know the system. “Neither Nav Canada nor Transport Canada comment on proposed wind turbine locations around airports such as ours,” Tatham said in an email to the E-B. “So, if some outfit like WPD comes along and constructs 50-storey high structures off the end of our main runway, those agencies have no authority and, indeed, nothing to say about it.”
Credit: By Morgan Ian Adams, Enterprise-Bulletin | Thursday, April 4, 2013 | www.theenterprisebulletin.com ~~
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COLLINGWOOD – The federal agency that governs air traffic says regional airport authorities will have to restrict circling movements south of the facility’s main runway if a wind power developer’s plans to erect turbines in Clearview Township goes ahead.
In a letter to WPD Canada – which has a proposal to erect eight 500-foot turbines in an area north of County Road 91 – Nav Canada officials say that several of its turbines are in the circling areas for two categories of aircraft (airline and military jets) conducting instrument approaches, and “implementation of a ‘Circling Restriction’ prohibiting aircraft from conducting a circling approach south of runway 13/31 would allow the currently-published circling minimum descent altitudes to remain unaffected.”
In a news release from WPD – which accompanied the release of the letter from Nav Canada – company president Ian MacRae said WPD continues to seek a meeting with the regional airport board to discuss the facility’s instrument approaches.
“ It is expected that the discussions will lead to the design, testing and implementation of modified procedures,” said MacRae. “We also are sensitive to the amount of time it takes to develop and implement these new procedures, so we are available to meet with the Board in the very near future so that no lapse in functionality occurs.”
According to WPD, Nav Canada’s letter indicates if the approaches were amended to require aircraft to circle to the north, pilots flying the approach could descend to the current circling approach minima and remain clear of the turbines that will be located to the south of the airport.
In its news release, WPD suggested Nav Canada’s position was it had no objection to the location of the turbines.
According to the news release, WPD has requested to meet with the airport board eight times to resolve the board’s concerns.
However, airport board chair Charlie Tatham dismissed WPD’s news release as “misleading… and was conceived with the intention to deceive those who don’t know the system.
“Neither Nav Canada nor Transport Canada comment on proposed wind turbine locations around airports such as ours,” Tatham said in an email to the E-B. “So, if some outfit like WPD comes along and constructs 50-storey high structures off the end of our main runway, those agencies have no authority and, indeed, nothing to say about it.”
Tatham said should the turbines be constructed, the federal agencies’ only involvement would be to require the airport to either close the runway, or alter the published approach and departure procedures for pilots accessing the facility, “to try to avoid these extremely dangerous intrusions into our air space.”
“Our focus for the past year has been to try to convince the province that WPD’s proposal to erect their turbines so close to the airport will negatively impact the airport and will inevitably kill someone,” said Tatham.
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