By Doug Draper
It wasn’t a good night for residents opposing plans to erect giant wind turbines in their rural Niagara communities.
Rural residents opposed to wind turbines in their communities pack regional council chambers, Photo by Doug Draper
More than 70 rural residents from the West Lincoln, Wainfleet and surrounding areas packed the gallery in the Niagara regional council chambers this past June 14, hoping the council would support a motion that would call to Ontario’s provincial government to, among other things, agree to a moratorium on approving any more wind farms until independent studies are completed on health and other impacts they may be having on people and their properties.
Their hope was ultimately dashed however, when 18 of the 24 regional councillors who sat through close to two hours of discussion and debate voted against a motion that also called on the province to restore planning authority to local governments – something that the province’s Green Energy Act stripped away when it comes to proposals for wind and solar energy facilities.
Deb Murphy, co-chair of a residents’ group opposing plans for a large wind farm in the West Lincoln/Wainfleet, Pelham/Glanbrook area, told councillors she started out a a big believer in wind turbines. “I thought they were green. … I thought they were going to make our lives better,” she said, but information she has reviewed since have convinced her they can be a hazard to peoples’ health, can drive down property values, kill birds and bats, and cost energy customers significantly more than conventional sources of energy, just to subsidies their construction and operation.
“There may be a place for wind turbines,” Murphy concluded, “but not that close to where people live.
Wiesje Dobrucki, another resident from the West Lincoln area, echoed many of the concerns raised by Murphy and said everything she has learned about impact of wind turbines on other communities has convinced her that she would never lease any of her family’s farmland for the turbines. “The health and welfare of (her children and grandchildren) is far more important than the $50,000 (per wind turbine a company would pay her family) if we sign up,” she said.
The council also heard from wind farm proponents like Tom Rankin, an engineer and president of St. Catharines, Ontario based Rankin Construction which has built wind farms and now has a partnership with Niagara’s regional government to possibly build and operate about four or five of the towering turbines near the shores of Lake Erie in Wainfleet.
Rankin said he and his company have made enough money that he could simply retire and not have anything to do with wind energy at all. But he said he has two grandchildren in his own family who have respiratory problems and he believes wind energy is green source of energy that can, among other things, contribute to cleaner air. Rankin took issue with those who claim that wind turbines are too noisy, calling that charge “a bunch of baloney.”
Government standards say any sound from a wind turbine should not exceed 40 decibels. The noise a person is subjected to along the sides of a busy urban street like Martindale Rad in St. Catharines has been measured at 50 to 65 decibels, he said. “I think the 550 metres (the minimum distance the province says a wind turbine should be located away from a residence) is a very high standard.”
Walter Sendzik, the executive director of the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce, told the council the green energy sector is expected to grow rapidly across North America over the next decade and Niagara should do what it can to be part of that growth, along with the jobs and wealth it could create. For those who charge that wind farms cost too much to subsidies, said Sendzik, the cost of nuclear reactors is far greater and “I don’t think anyone wants a nuclear reactor in their community.”
The seven members of regional council who voted in favour of the motion for a moratorium and independent studies on the impacts of wind turbines included St. Catharines councillors Andy Petrowski Brian Heit and Alan Caslin, Welland councillor Peter Kormos, Pelham Mayor Dave Augustyn, West Lincoln Mayor Doug Joyner and Wainfleet Mayor April Jeffs.
This June 18 and four days after that meeting, a company called ENERCON Canada Inc. announced plans to build wind turbine parts in the Niagara municipality of Lincoln, creating at least 50 full-time jobs.
(Niagara At Large invites readers to share your views on this post, remembering that we only post comments by individuals who also share their first and last names.)
Niagara At Large 
Hi Doug!
You have written in support of green energy and wind energy in the past and I wonder if you have actually bothered to research since then?
As for the Regional Council they chose to ignore any Conflict of Interest and should be called to question, though I doubt if you will?
The majority who voted against were from the previous Council! They have a half million dollar wind energy business deal with Rankin, the major Niagara Region proponent, who actually appeared, to oppose the motion.
They decided to ‘invest’ the tax dollars of the ordinary Niagara Region folk, the ones who who came to that meeting hoping the Regional Council would actually listen to them. No such luck, the majority of Councilors chose to opt for the fantasy world of green energy, a world that the rest of the world are frantically trying to back away from.
I think most of all Doug, I am surprised that you appear to have no objection to private, for profit companies steamrollering industrial construction over the wishes of local communities and signing contracts that guarantee them enormous contracts when all they have to offer is perhaps a maximum 30% efficiency from their projects!
It’s a sweet deal Doug, and apart from the wind energy companies no one in Ontario will benefit by as much as one single cent! In fact many will suffer financial loss and some will become ill.
Oh! And 50 jobs? They lost more than that in Stevensville, a local company who build IWTs, not so long ago!
Come off your fence Doug, before you hurt yourself! If we don’t stop these industrial machines appearing in the Niagara Region then we all lose and big time!
Give me one single credible reason why wind energy makes sense?
Andrew Watts
A Response from Niagara At Large publisher –
Hi Andrew – Since you asked me a few questions, let me answer.
You asked me to give you one credible reason why wind energy makes sense. Well other than the fact that it has made sense in other jurisdictions in this world for the better party of two centuries, let me answer with the words ‘climate change’ and, even if you are one of those that think climate change is some sort of commie plot to get you to cut back on your use of fossil fuels, I would ask you to consider the stinking, smothering ball of gaseous shit our unsustainable burning of fossil fuels is turning this planet into. I would submit that even for the climate change deniers, Canada’s doctors, through their professional associations nationally and provincially, have calculated literally thousands of premature deaths per year, and billions of dollars worth of costs to our health services systems, etc, due to smog related pollutants which are also among the group of pollutants involved in the atmospheric activities that are giving us all kinds of more frequent, severe weather fun.
I’d like to see a comparable study from the professional medical community in this country and others linked wind energy to thousands of premature deaths per year.
I’d also be interested to know how much more you think wind energy is costing us than nuclear, which in the case of Pickering and Darlington nucelar plants, which happen to be in my relatives’ backyards by the way (and they have taken the hit in their backyards (two of those relatives are nuclear engineers that can teach all of us more about the cost of that form of energy) for your ability to turn on your lights for going on decaces now, ran into billions of dollars worth of over-runs we are all still paying for. You folks call the government funding for solar and wind subsidies, but what do you think it is around the billions spent on nuclear, cold-fired plants and, more recentl the Big Becky project for the Sir Adam Beck hydro facilities? If that funding isn’t a subsidy, what is it? A gift from Santa Clause.
Finally, on all of the apparent health and property damage these wind farms cause, I would suggest that various groups are cherry picking the studies they want to feature to make their case for or against wind turbines. For every study or story I have read on how bad these facilities are, I have read as many that suggest they are not a problem. As a long-time environment writer, I recall that for years while I was working at The St. Catharines Standard, there was a group in Niagara that was thoroughly convinced that flouride in drinking water was a potential killer, and they kept pressing me to write that story in the paper. Contrary to your apparent impression that I don’t do research, I asked for all of the information the World Health Organization and Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia had on the potential human health effects of flouride in drinking waters, in the amounts that municipalities typically added to drinking water supplies for tooth decay purposes, and most of the studies I got back (contrary to the cherry-picked pieces used by the anti-flouride group) failed to show a health problem. When I reported what I had taken the trouble to read from more than a foot-high stack of studies, conducted all over the world, and that there was nothing definitive at all on health effects, I had the anti-flouride group saying that I had been duped and that governments were probably conspiring to keep studies showing that flouride use, at that level, was causing cancer, etc., out of the public realm.
You correctly report that I have written positvely about green energy and wind energy in the past, and I can only say guilty as charged.
You also ask me to be more objective and later say I am ‘sitting on the fence’. I thought being objective was more or less about sitting on the fence so I am a little confused here.
At the end of it all, Andrew, I don’t think anything would satisfy you and others than an absolute dumping on wind energy by me. I then wonder if you, in your community, would be willing to embrace the next plan that might be needed in place of solar or wind for a coal-fire plant or nuclear reactor to meet our future energy needs in your backyard. Don’t just say it is okay for my relatives and friends to go on living with the reality and possibly risks of having nuclear power stations in their communities in Pickering and Darlington.
Let us all have a more rational and reasonable dialogue about the true costs of our energy use and future here, including our wastes of energy through excessive use of air conditioning and other home-power consuming units, etc. Having commented in the past that the one major thing I take issue with is the current provincial government’s unwillingness to give local residents and planning authorities proper say in the siting of wind facilities, is it possible to have that discussion.
I recall inviting you to contribute posts to this site, arguing your views on wind energy, a couple of years ago, and you indicated that for some kind of conflict reasons involving one or more members of your family working for government, you could not do that. That is not my problem. I extended the invitation to post on this site, knowing full well that you would argue against wind energy proposals in this province on certain grounds.
– Doug Draper, Niagara At Large.
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Dear Mr. Draper,
If you actually believe everything you have written in your reply to Andrew Watts, I have some shorefront property in Arizona that you might be interested in.
A response from Doug Draper – Yes, Babette, I actually believe everything I wrote to Andrew Watt, and I am not going to bit on the shorefront property in Arizona, but thanks for the offer.
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I am a big fan (pardon the bad pun) of wind power! I have been for quite a number of years after seeing large wind farms in southern Saskatchewan and Alberta on a trip home to Vancouver Island back around 2002.
Here in Ontario the government has done quite a bit to hinder wind power development! I know, I know, you are all going to start screaming that McGuinty is pushing wind power. His government has screwed it up royally!
Instead of making it feasible for individual home owners to invest in wind (and solar) options for their home, the government has very sneakily made it almost impossible!
Sure, they will pay you a ridiculous amount of money if you put in a wind or solar system — but then there is an $800 per YEAR licence fee to be permitted to feed into the grid. That does not cover the exhorbitant cost of the necessary equipment to feed into the grid either! The connection equipment usually costs far more than the actual wind or solar generation system.
My partner would love to put a windmill on her property but it just isn’t economically feasible. Her property is right on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment in the Hamilton area and there is plenty of wind. But when she saw what happened to a local dairy farmer who installed windmills to power his dairy barns, she quickly decided against proceeding. After installing the windmills, the government more than doubled the assessment on his property, which in turn more than doubled his tax bill! The increased costs made the entire investment in the windmills useless – it was costing him MORE – thanks to Ontario government rules and regulations.
Instead of encouraging the big, commercial developments, Ontario should be encouraging smaller, individual or neighbourhood size wind and solar developments. The government should also NOT pay huge premiums to buy that power – instead of 80 cents per kwh, perhaps 10 or 15 cents (nuclear/natgas/coal costs 5 cents). And there should not be exhorbitant taxes or fees to feed into the grid.
If we had more small developments, we could wean ourselves off non-renewable resources much more quickly. Each homeowner would have a vested interest in the system and would be more willing to make it work for the benefit of all.
As it stands right now, government regulations are designed to encourage only the big, commercial operations. I don’t have a problem with a private company going into the power generation business — but they should not get preferential treatment.
The big commercial windfarms that I saw in western Canada and in the United States tend to be in areas much less densely populated than southern Ontario. I disagree with those who express concerns about the “noise” of windmills – your car makes more noise! But I think perhaps 500 metres is too close to homes. I think a distance of 750 metres to a kilometre might be better for the big commercial windmills.
Personally, I find the windmills located near Dunville to be fine. We can see them from my partner’s family cottage near the mouth of the Grand River — and I find them to actually be somewhat soothing.
All in all, even though I am much more “right of centre” than most other Niagara At Large readers, this is one case where I am strongly in agreement with Doug!
Oh heaven help us Doug — we have found something to agree on — the world must be coming to an end!! tee hee!
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So how many families is it ok to make sick, to force from their homes to become refugees living where ever they can? Is there a magic number of vicitms that have to suck it up for the rest of the population? Is there anything wrong with destryoing their home, in most cases their biggest investment?
This is happening to people wherever turbine projects start up and our government will not mitigate the problems. There are people who have been out of their homes for 3 years and following all protocols in place, pleading for help. Is this OK? Would you tell your affected neighbour it is required to stop climate change?
These facilities are not safe. They make some homes uninhabitable and the low frequency noise, loud cyclical noise and rampant dirty electricty makes people ill. Do the research. Why would any health professional or engineer spend their lives collecting data to try to help these people if it were not the truth. The only reason they are doing this is because the government is denying the harm.
Anyone who comes forth with this information is labelled anti-wind and this is just not true. How can you have a balanced look at things if the very people who are trying to get others to take a look at the realities are being continuously discredited?
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Germany is almost as radical as Suzuki.
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science-matters/2012/06/germany-recently-reached-a-renewable/
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At the end of the day, the communities affected have voiced their collective concern and wish to NOT have these installations in their backyard. We live in a democratic society I thought and the will of the people must be considered accordingly. My family did not fight for freedom and rights in other parts of the world, only to have those rights and freedoms trampelled on by the the likes of COMRADE McGuinty and his merry band of imcompetents back here in Canada.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe Green energy is a direction we should strive for. It just should not be at the expense of our rights as tax payers and solutions need to be discovered that consider that accordingly. I am tired of kneejerk and poorly contrived solutions that end up costing us billions and adversely affecting our quality of life all things considered. I think we all know that if this province was as accountable to its shareholders as a business is the board (our politicians) would be fired.
Just think – It could be YOU who has your rights as a taxpayer violated next!
A response to Doug, how come the average life expectancy in Canada/Ontario has increased so much at the same time statistics relating to premature deaths resulting from pollution are used as a pro argument for the installation of these windmills? Talk about the manipulation of statistics to bolster an argument. I would hasten to say the impact of sitting in traffic breathing in the exhaust of the car in front of you or living in places like Hamilton would be a bigger contributing factor to respiratory statistical findings.
Again this discussion should not overlook the core issue here; The rights of a tax-paying community to self-direct its’ own environment.
Just sayin…
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Why did we spend millions of taxpayers dollars to build Becky, when all along the powers that be were planning to install the wind turbines. Are those people in Becky’s path going to be compensated for the damage this seven storey tunnel have caused to their homes.
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