Oxford area citizens band to stop huge Cedar Flats industrial wind power project 

Citizens of South-West Oxford and Malahide have grouped together to stop a huge, 200-megawattwind power project proposed by German power developer wpd.

They have a new website, Stop Cedar Flats, and have developed a petition which names the risks of the proposed industrial power project and demands that it be halted.

The citizens’ group has already hosted three information meetings, including speakers Warren Howard of Wind Concerns Ontario who is also a consultant in municipal affairs, and epidemiologist Joan Morris, who is also a farmer and lives near the Gunn’s Hill wind power project.

The power developer’s website is at wpd-canada.ca.

Cedar Flats is to be located in “southern Oxford County and Elgin County, Ontario,” says a description on the company website.

“The Cedar Flats Wind Project (Project) aims to generate up to 200MW of reliable, clean energy while protecting local agricultural operations and supporting your community.”

Stop Cedar Flats says that the project is proposed for one of Ontario’s richest agricultural zones, and also in an area that is a significant route for migratory birds and bats.

The Government of Ontario has said it wants to protect prime agricultural land, but Stop Cedar Flats says this won’t happen if the power project is approved by the IESO and the Ministry of the Environment.

“Ontario’s Class 1 and Class 2 farmland is the best in Canada. The Cedar Flats Project will permanently destroy thousands of acres through foundations, trenching, and road-building.

• Concrete turbine foundations
• Construction of new access roads
• Trenching for electrical cables
• Drainage disruption

No energy project should come at the cost of local food security. Once prime soil is gone, it’s gone forever.”

Fears of damage to water supply

Aware of the damage to the aquifer and water wells due to wind turbine construction and operation in North Kent, Stop Cedar Flats says the proposed project will overlap vulnerable aquifers and has the potential to affect private drinking water.

While the project has been proposed under the soon-to-be-released Long-Term-2 Request For Proposals by the Independent Electricity System Operator, the proponent must also achieve a Municipal Support Resolution or MSR and conduct a thorough Agricultural Impact Assessment. While neighbouring jurisdictions such as Zorra have already passed resolutions declaring them to be Unwilling Hosts to new wind power development, South West Oxford and Malahide have not done so. (Yet.)

Last fall, economist Edgardo Sepulveda published a cost-benefit analysis titled Chasing the Wind that concluded wind power doesn’t make sense in Ontario. The wind resource is too low, and wind power is produced out of phase with demand in Ontario. Taxpayers pick up the cost as wind power operators get paid anyway, but surplus power is sold at a loss on the electricity market.

Not 2009 anymore

“We don’t need more intermittent, unreliable, expensive wind power,” says Wind Concerns Ontario president Jane Wilson.

“Back in 2009 when the push for wind power started, people didn’t know much about it, and believed the hype. Well, it’s not 2009 now,” she says. “People know what the problems are, and they know that wind power isn’t worth the costs or the risks.

“We’ve had a 16-year experiment with wind. It’s been a disaster.”

Ontario now has 155 communities that are officially Unwilling Hosts to new industrial wind power sites.

Update, June 9, 2025: According to Stop Cedar Flats, the Malahide council has denied the project.