Toronto Hydro Windfarm Meeting STACKED!
Supporters of wind farms from Downtown Toronto made their way out to the beautiful shores of Scarborough to support a wind farm in someone else’s backyard last night. Instead of taking public transit, they came on rented school busses. I recorded two busses compliments of the Toronto Environmental Alliance that came to stack the meeting and try to convince Toronto Hydro residents were in favour of a project that they are not. I watched one idle for five minutes. Over 1000 people descended on Sir Wilfred Laurier CI to express their views. It took hours, but Guildwood residents were able to get to the mics after the bussed in, and paid supporters were through with their speeches.
It was a disgusting display. With the greatest respect to the paid staff from a number of organizations that stacked the room and flooded the mics for the first part of the meeting — you’re voices are heard through your professional lobbying efforts and advocacy budgets. The meeting was for residents to express their views. Peter Tabuns – the MPP from Toronto Danforth and contender for the NDP leadership showed up to speak passionately in favour of the development and glad hand all the bussed in attendees.
Members of the Toronto Environmental Alliance’s paid staff took to the mics to read responses received through their website – but could not muster a single member of their organization from Scarborough to speak. Representatives from various union’s spoke in favour, while virtually all residents who spoke were opposed to the plan.
Toronto Hydro representatives sat on the stage and told their sad story about how this wasn’t actually about a windfarm, but just a test to see how much wind is there. No one bought that. They admitted to having no scientific proof that this site would be viable but clinged to the idea of building a windfarm off the Bluffs. They refused to rule out building more than sixty when Councillor Ainslie asked them to commit to that as a limit for the site. I have to admit, watching Councillor Ainslie ask someone to make a pledge on camera was a bit ironic and did remind me of his own pledge not to run.
Even with busses, and paid organizers working against the community, there were still more people in opposition to the project than those in favour.
The fact remains of sixty five sites the Ontario Power Authority thinks could be viable for offshore windfarm development the Scarborough Bluffs are not on the list. That means this site is not even the 65th best option for an offshore windfarm. Toronto Hydro’s response – it wasn’t an exhaustive report. Good one guys.
MY favourite laugh line of the Toronto Hydro presentation was that this would not cost tax payers anything and we would not pay for it. Really? Toronto Hydro is 100% owned by the City of Toronto, and all bills include the matter of this massive hydro debt. I wonder where they hide their money tree to pay for this one.
The wind mill at Pickering – which is right on the water operates at 18% capacity. This is over a five year period and means 82% of the time it is not functioning to the degree it should. How these guys think this project would be any different is beyond me.
What was presented to us last night was Toronto Hydro’s plan to force a windfarm on a site that they have no scientific reason to believe it will be viable. They refused to say what the minimum threshold would be for viability before the research is complete. They refused to allow independent access to monitor the data collection online. They also refused to limit the possible size of the project. They don’t know what it will cost or how much power it will create. They have no answer for why this site and not the nine other sites that the OPA recommended on Lake Ontario for offshore wind. They may was well have summed it up with “But I really wanna build a wind farm here”.
The most bizarre argument they kept making was “but Copenhagen has a wind farm just three km off hits harbour” – Copenhagen is about a fifth the size of Toronto, it’s wind farm is less than forty percent of the minimum size being discussed for this project, and just under 20% of Denmark’s power comes from wind farms and they are a major producer of wind turbines. – Besides that, Toronto and Copenhagen are quite similar I guess.
When someone asked if there is a city the size of Toronto with an offshore wind farm, the response was Copenhagen. When the questioner pointed out the size of the city in comparison to Toronto, he was told he was wrong and told that Cincinnati which was said to be “bigger than Toronto” (Cincinnati has a population of 330 000) and they are looking to build an offshore wind farm. A lot of us were a bit sick hearing about Copenhagen and one man took to the mic and pointed out that the Danish were also pioneers in pornography. This is something I would not know, and felt best not to google, so I will just throw it out there.
I am all for green energy, and like many people from Guildwood I am very concerned about the environment, but I would only support viable projects that will actually have an impact. If the City of Toronto wanted to get serious about climate change, they would focus on more projects involving solar thermal water heating. Currently the City has plans to work with two private companies – one of which is from Scarborough to install solar thermal water heaters on the roofs of some twenty municipal buildings in Toronto. Projects like this can actually work and ease pressure on the power grid. Enwave also has a great potential to help ease pressure off the grid, by utilizing the lake’s cold water to cool buildings in the downtown core.
Let’s work with homeowners to create a program that focuses on making solar thermal water heating units more affordable for individual family homes. If there was some kind of green mortgage plan similar to Dion’s idea and perhaps run through Toronto Hydro, that allowed individual home owners to borrow some or all of the cost of one of these units and pay it back through energy savings, we could go a long way to addressing global warming in our city. Sixty windmills put in a crappy location off the Bluffs is far too small, and too ineffective to make a real impact, and will simply make people feel good when they see pictures of them taken on sunny days.
Click here for some of the press from last night:
Below is more Information on the Toronto Environmental Alliance Busses:
This was posted by Richard Lawrence in the “Clean Energy Education Forum”
– Note the 116 Morningside bus runs from Kennedy Subway station and stops literally right in front of Sir Wilfred Laurier CI. Unlike TEA’s busses, it departs every five to ten minutes and does not idle. I guess you’d need to be from Guildwood to know that.
“Hi Everybody,
Just in case you are from the Toronto Area, there is a very important public meeting tonight concerning the proposed offshore wind project by Toronto Hydro. There are links to more information at the bottom of this email. Sign the petition to support the project here:
http://www.torontoenvironment.org/windmills/petition
To attend:
7:00 pm
Monday November 24, 2008
Sir Wilfrid Laurier Collegiate
145 Guildwood Parkway
Scarborough
* Free bus transportation from Kennedy station is available between 5:30 and 6:30. While there is no cost for the bus, it is necessary to register in advance to ensure there is sufficient space. Please email
More information:
Toronto Hydro:
http://www.torontohydroenergy.com/generation_offshore.html
Toronto Environmental Alliance:
http://torontoenvironment.org/windmills”
Tags: Councillor Paul Ainslie, Guildwood, Lake Ontario, Lake Ontario Wind Farm, Meeting, November, Richard Lawrence, Scarborough Bluffs, Stacked Meeting, TEA, Toronto Environmental Alliance, Toronto Hydro, Toronto Wind farm, Wind Farm, Wind Turbine, Windfarm Meeting
November 26th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
[...] Toronto Hydro Windfarm Meeting STACKED! I recorded two busses compliments of the Toronto Environmental Alliance that came to stack the meeting and try to convince Toronto Hydro residents were in favour of a project that they are not. I watched one idle for five minutes. … [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
If you noticed for last night’s meeting the Toronto Environmental Alliance bussed in piles of people, mostly from the north and west ends of the city. I know I asked some of them where they lived and the rest said they were organized by the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations (a group that gets all of its operating money some $400,000 a year from the city).
The Toronto Environmental Alliance gets almost all of its funding from the City of Toronto through the Toronto Atmospheric Fund.
Its former head Gord Perks was encouraged to run for city council in 2006 and supported through an automatic dialing program from Mayor Miller’s campaign office.
Mayor David Miller’s friends include Gord Perks, Keith Stewart formerly of TEA and now the envirofreak at the WWF and TEA co-founder and board member Michael Shapcott employed at the Wellesley Institute created out of the old Wellesley Central Health Foundation meant to fund equipment for the old hospital which they took over and redirected the about $40 MILLION in assets to “advocacy”.
I wonder how the former hospital contributors feel about their donations being hijacked for these partisan troublemakers but then I doubt most know about it.
Shapcott has even said he is going to be the public face of the $17 BILLION a year nonprofit sector in Canada.
Shapcott along with the other two publicly endorsed Miller for mayor in both 2003 and 2006.
So this must be why Miller has increased TEA funding……. so they can pay for buses to ship activists in to drown out the voices of local residents in meetings!
Aren’t you glad to know that the city uses our tax dollars to fund these idiots to oppose the voice of local residents many issues?
December 9th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Good post. It’s a tough issue to talk about because it’s so nuanced. I think you handled it well.
December 9th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Starting an online petition to try to stop the Wind Farm at Scarborough Bluffs.
December 17th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Ok, so what are you doing to reduce the demand for hydro? Have you replaced all your lightbulbs with CFL’s. That’s a pretty easy one. Have you put everyting on power bars? That’s a bit harder. How about your hot water. Are you like the typical wasteful North American who has 40 or 50 gallons of hot water on stand-by 24/7? Better start doing these things and more, or they are going to rebuild those coal plants.
I know what you are thinking, they will just build natural gas power plants. They are clean, and Canada has lots of natural gas, right? Guess again, do some real reseach into natural gas and you will see that the industry is working as fast as it can to just keep up with demand. There are many jurisdictions in North America that are planning the same thing, and gas prices are going to sky-rocket in the next few years as they come on-stream. Typically, demand in the summer is low and that gives the industry time to build up reserves for the winter, but when there is demand year round that will not happen. Just wait until the first hot summer followed by a cold winter. We will be shivering in our cold houses. But,I am guessing from your youthful optomissom that you don’t own a house and don’t have a natural gas bill.
December 17th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Hi Peter,
I have actually replaced all of my light bulbs with CFLs – I did that the first week I moved in. Everything but my alarm clock and fridge are on power bars that are turned off when I leave my house. When I’m not home, I leave no lights on, and make a point of turning lights on and off when I go from room to room. I pay my own electricity bill and that’s part of my incentive.
I’m a renter so I can’t do anything about the source of my hot water, but I don’t take excessively long showers and wash my clothes on cold. I also buy local and organic food when possible to ensure the carbon foot print of what I’m eating is minimized.
I don’t drive a car, take the TTC, but only when I can’t walk (for reference, I walk approximately 12 km a day as opposed to even taking transit).
It’s great that you can read what I’ve written and then try an assume things on my part that I would not assume while mocking my age. Good one, ass. But in seriousness, I am a strong supporter of solar thermal water preheating (getting the base temperature warmer before using natural gas to make it comfortable), and the idea of green mortgages to allow for home retrofits.
I am doing my part to reduce my energy consumption, and have not advocated for natural gas to be the solution, as I recognize that natural gas is a commodity and therefore we have limited control over both future cost and availability.
Frankly, Peter if you think 100 wind mills placed in a stupid spot that all current data suggests is not viable will solve the problem – you’ll be freezing in your cold house anyways and it will be your own ignorance that did it to you.
I reject that by disagreeing with a bad project that has no scientific merit, I am some how ungreen and a knuckle dragging carbon burner who just doesn’t care about my future. I do care, but am wise enough to recognize that wind mills might be a feel good thing, but in this location, and in the overall Ontario experience, they don’t produce and cost incredible sums to build. The hydro they produce costs seven cents a kilowatt hour more than Ontario residents currently pay. If you’re so for this project, how about you start recalculating your bill using the eleven cent per kilowatt hour instead of five and do your part. You see that argument is about as ridiculous as your trying to blindly suggest I’m a fan of natural gas.
Do not ever presume you know what I’m thinking, particularly when my thoughts have been articulated above. I know it is easier to throw a “I know what you’re thinking”, then come up with a stupid argument and defeat it, but that does not make it my argument.
April 18th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Be part of the tenants movement, join the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations, $15 per year, or only $10 per apartment if you sign up your building a group members.
FMTA Fundraising Reception Show
Date: May 22, 2009 7:00pm
Location:
Ramada Hotel
300 Jarvis St.
Toronto
Come and help support the FMTA this year and their great work as tenants only voice with the Toronto and Ontario governments.
Enjoy a terrific show, Hors D’oeuvres, a Cash bar and Door Prizes for only $30.
Contact 416-646-1772 for more details or e-mail fmta@torontotenants.org.