January 19, 2021
Letters, Ontario

Mixed messages

Letters | Standard-Freeholder | The County Weekly News | Jan 18, 2021 | www.countyweeklynews.ca

An open letter:

On Jan. 12, the Government of Ontario declared a state of emergency to address issues of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Premier Doug Ford stated the government is following the advice of the chief medical officer of health for the province, Dr. David Williams.

In North Stormont, the Nation Rise Wind project, comprising 29 3.44-megawatt Enercon wind turbines, is being constructed and it is anticipated they will become operational soon.

People in our community and beyond believe the Province of Ontario should not be permitting a project such as this, given our understanding of the adverse effects expected to result by operating industrial wind turbines in residential neighbourhoods.

We continue to advocate the project should be terminated and the disastrous wind-energy program of Ontario and the harm it has caused to people should be investigated in a public inquiry format.

I wrote to Williams about this and received his email reply on Nov. 26, 2020. He wrote:

“Studies show some people find the sound level of wind turbines annoying.”

In correspondence to a local physician in October 2019, our local medical officer of health, Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, wrote: “wind turbine noise is a “nuisance…”

In Canada, no business should be permitted to disturb the peace and security of our homes and threaten and injure the people in our communities.

A medical officer of health should be trying to prevent these adverse health outcomes; instead ours are ignoring and downplaying the disaster about to hit. This causes a loss of confidence about the advice these public health officers provide to the leadership of the Ontario government.

Ford and Minister of Health Christine Elliott need the people of Ontario to buy in to their pandemic program and the restrictions they are attempting to impose.

As long as these politicians continue to overlook the bad advice they get about industrial wind turbines, they are less likely to achieve the support of the people of Ontario.

Ruby Mekker

Finch


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2021/01/19/mixed-messages/