The Editor:
First off, thanks for taking the time to read my last letter to you and getting back to me. That said, I still have not heard back from Mr. Ballard nor Mr. Thibeault, nor did you answer my two questions.
I acknowledge that my last letter was a tad long and that you may not have had the time to read the whole thing, and as such I am re-asking my two questions and await your response.
- Given that the timing of the Notice of Posting to the Environmental Registry is completely inappropriate, will you repost the 45-day period to start Jan. 1, 2018?
- Who is ultimately accountable to the citizens of North Stormont when problems arise during the construction and 20-40 year operational period of the Nation Rise Wind Farm Project? Do we send our bills to the Premier of Ontario, the project developer/owner or to the participating landowners who invited the foreign-owned wind developer into the township in the first place?
While waiting for you to answer my two questions, I spent numerous hours between field and office work reading the thousands of pages of EDPR prepared documentation in the off chance that you will not move the end of Christmas Day deadline to submit comments into the MOECC Registry.
What are my conclusions to date, you may ask?
Well the EDPR prepared documents are generously sprinkled with hundreds if not thousands of promises to the people, birds and bats and the environment of North Stormont.
For example EDPR is promising that each turbine will not kill more than 10 bats and 14 birds per year, they will keep turbine noise within the old (not new) MOECC noise guidelines (we’ll hardly hear them like a soft whisper at most) and they will “lightly grade“ the areas where the access roads and lay down areas will go in.
There are two problems with this: EDPR seems to have problems “keeping promises” at least to my wife and I. Perhaps others on my distribution list have had better experience. EDPR made one promise to me and another to my wife during the so-called “consultation meetings” with citizens of North Stormont, and sadly they are zero for two in keeping their promises with us.
Your Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) does not appear to have the tools, resources, and/or interest to strictly enforce wind turbine companies’ promises. The most recent example of this came to light this past week in the Kincardine area where citizens have lodged numerous complaints about noise emanating from the Enbridge Underwood Wind Project. The turbines have been in place since 2007 and given the number of complaints received since the project start up the MOECC and Enbridge decided to perform a noise audit in 2011. Here comes the head-scratcher: we are two weeks away from the end of 2017 and the noise audit is still not completed. The MOECC confirmed that the MOECC and the wind project developer have been going back and forth with each other for over six years and they still can’t figure out whether there is a problem or not with noise levels emanating from the turbines. In the meantime, citizens within the project area continue to have their lives disrupted because of the turbines.
This is unconscionable in 2018 Ontario.
Ontario is blessed to have an Auditor General that is absolutely committed to rooting out waste and mismanagement in Ontario. An example of this happened again this past week where Ms. Lysyk dropped another bombshell on the Energy File where she reported that private electricity generators fleeced the rate and taxpayers of Ontario to the tune of some $260-million over the past few years.
The Energy File seems to be in complete and utter disarray.
Again Ms. Wynne I urge you to cancel the Nation Rise Wind Project to avoid further embarrassment to your government and if that is not possible just yet, please allow us to enjoy our Christmas season without the need to continue reading the worthless pile of turbine documents.
I look forward to hearing your answers to my two questions soonest.
Thanks for your time and attention.
Raymond Grady, Crysler