Posts Tagged ‘Joyce McLean’
Toronto Observer: Windmill Project Has Some Locals Spinning Mad
Below is an article originally published in the Toronto Observer that may be of interest to Guildwood and other waterfront residents. McLean, who is cronically wrong, is right that the government will utimately make this decision which makes it even more important that residents opposed to this project elect me to be thier voice so I can take our fight to City Hall and end Toronto Hydro’s misadventure off our shore.
Windmill project has some locals spinning mad
Sarina Adamo
Posted 08 April 2010
In five years, a wind farm may be spread across the waters off Scarborough — or not, if the opposition wins the debate to save the shoreline.
Despite the wishes of protesting Scarborough residents, an anemometer is currently under construction in Lake Ontario. A sign that Toronto Hydro is serious about continuing with the project, the anemometer collects data over two years to help determine if there’s enough wind.
More wind means the first offshore turbines in Canada are that much likelier to be built near the Scarborough Bluffs.
However, plans for the windmills are being delayed by Save Our Shorelines activists.
“It doesn’t make sense to build any industrial machinery where we get our drinking water,” says John Laforet, president of Wind Concerns Ontario and Ward 43 council candidate. “You have to draw the line and say that our health and our drinking water are too important.”
So many people opposed to the turbines, that he doesn’t see them being built by the time of the 2015 Pan Am Games, Laforet said.
The government must assess sediment movement before and after construction and how this may trigger environmental problems, Jovan Stefanovic , University of Toronto professor of geomorphology.
In the meantime, the project seems to be going ahead.
“You have an environmental assessment process so that everybody’s opinion can be aired, but really it’s the governments that decide whether they can proceed,” said Joyce McLean, Toronto Hydro director of environmental affairs.
It is impossible the turbines create enough noise pollution to cause health problems, McLean says, referring to the minimal noise heard from the onshore turbine at Exhibition Place.
“What we do know about onshore wind turbines is that when they’re turning you’re hearing the wind more than the actual sound of the machine,” McLean said.
Onshore wind turbines have an acceptable distance of 550 metres around them, she said. “You’re not going to hear them when they are two to four kilometers away.”
The location chosen for wind testing along the Scarborough Bluffs is in the middle of a 26-km province-approved stretch of land.
But finding locations to generate renewable energy is only one step in the energy consumption issue.
“Controlling how much we are using is a critical first step,” McLean said. “We’re looking at solar installations across the city and helping homeowners who wish to do that for their own means.”
Guildwood Residents Rejoice! Toronto Hydro Gives Community an Early Christmas Gift
When I found out today that Toronto Hydro Energy Services has abandoned plans to install the offshore Anemometer in 2009 – adding a further delay to this project which is now 18 months behind schedule. Scarborough Bluffs Residents should be proud of the work they’ve done through their activism to push Toronto Hydro’s timeline back so close to the winter months, making construction effectively impossible – something it took them almost two months of trying to realize.
We always said if we could push them into the winter months – we’d have more time. To the folks at Toronto Hydro – my heartfelt thanks to you for giving us more time to defeat you.
Toronto Hydro Energy Services employs some of the dimmest lights I’ve personally encountered at the ‘Director’ or ‘Vice President’ level. These foolish individuals who’ve flatly refused to do any sort of meaningful environmental assessment have failed to understand the conditions, and had them moving their construction barge all over the general area looking for a place they could install the device.
Guildwood residents are quick though and pushed back whenever it appeared not to be in the correct spot. We now have emails from Joyce McLean stating on two occasions the construction barge was at the right coordinates at which point it moved again, and she once again confirmed it was in the right spot, and then it moved again. Once again – something she says simply can’t be true.
Many of us had that ‘kick in the stomach’ feeling watching this barge try and figure out how to anchor something in the sand bar off the Bluffs, worried and wondering about the anemometer or possibility for turbines in the future. Seeing this play out, and being able to literally hear the voices, the songs on the radio, and the sound of a generator running from the barge have shown how the sound will travel over water – something that will only strengthen community resolve.
Toronto Hydro Energy Services is in for one hell of a fight. Residents will not back down until Toronto Hydro’s proposal is defeated and disgraced. Not a single turbine will be going off our shores, and those who want to keep pushing the idea have my sincere pledge that we, residents of the area will fight you and will never give up until this horrible idea is gone, and our lakes are protected from the untold environmental degradation involved in installing these things.
Toronto Hydro took a big step forward in their defeat by backing off on this proposal. Something they claimed would take a month took nearly two and ended in failure. Just like this whole proposal will soon enough.
Residents have a lot of work to do to convince our City Councillors who have been slow and ineffective, the City of Toronto and Toronto Hydro Energy Services to stop this proposal.
2 Comments »Of Course Wind Energy Lobbyist Rob Silver Supports Rossi’s Proposed Sale of Toronto Hydro
In his latest piece “Why selling Toronto Hydro is a good idea” Rob Silver – a former McGuinty Senior Advisor turned energy lobbyist left out some details which are pertinent to why a guy in his particular trade would be so keen to see Toronto Hydro sold off.
Toronto Hydro owns an incompetent sister company called Toronto Hydro Energy Services that is proposing to build turbines in a part of Ontario where we all know they won’t work. Because the City of Toronto is the 100% shareholder in theory residents should be able to win this fight and keep this money making asset (this is why the City shouldn’t sell Toronto Hydro) from blowing $700 million bucks it doesn’t have on a project that doesn’t work.
Silvers however has made a good amount of money pushing a product that doesn’t work on former colleagues of his. Robert Silver (links are to his filings in the lobbyist registry) has represented the Canadian Wind Energy Association an industry lobby for the corporate welfare cases that make up the wind industry in Canada and fought so hard to have citizens rights taken away.
Joyce McLean – the Director of Strategic Services at Toronto Hydro Energy Services is the past chair of CanWEA. In fact the bottom of every email she sends shares that fact.
Toronto Hydro is a member of CanWEA (Robert Silver’s former client).
Silver has also represented the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association - an organization that founded the Green Energy Act Alliance and literally developed the framework to deprive citizens of their rights, strip municipalities of their planning controls and trample democracy to keep their financially not viable clients in business.
In fact his former boss Dalton McGuinty cited Scarborough Bluffs resident’s opposition to Toronto Hydro’s illegal application to install a wind testing device as the reason for introducing the bill Rob Silver’s clients (OSEA) wrote to take my rights and the rights of my neighbours away.
CanWEA is a member of OSEA as is the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, and the City of Toronto. The Toronto Atmospheric Fund is funding part of Toronto Hydro’s research and the City of Toronto is the 100% owner of Toronto Hydro.
Rob Silver has also represented Trillium Power – a wind farm developer with a pipe dream of putting a ridiculous amount of turbines in the east end of Lake Ontario. Trillium Power had previously been set back by the Ministry of Natural Resources ‘we-don’t-know-what-we’re-doing’ moratorium on offshore wind development in the Great Lakes. The end of that moratorium opened the door for Toronto Hydro to continue planning their project which has been under development since 2003 in some way or another.
Currently Silver is listed as the active lobbyist for Enbridge Inc. – which owns a wind farm in Ontario that is believed to be harming the health of local residents. In fact at a Liberal BBQ Silver’s former boss was hosting, that was being catered by Silver’s client Enbridge – I was threatened with arrest for organizing a protect to voice opposition to Silver’s other client (OSEA’s) Green Energy Act and it’s impact on our ability to oppose Toronto Hydro’s project that was being by the former Chair of another one of Silver’s former clients (CanWEA).
He also lobbies for the Renewable Energy Task Team which is co-chaired by Mike Crawley – President of Aim Power Gen, and the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario). Silver also lobbies for Vestas - the Danish wind turbine manufacturer in addition to lobbying for other wind energy types which can be found here.
Silver’s employment and client list has him firmly onside with the folks who are breaking down the process, denying citizens their right to participate and using pressure and influence to prevent citizen opposition from derailing projects.
In this light Toronto Hydro’s proposal is the most vulnerable as it is still in theory subject to the democratic will of folks who are at least marginally accountable to their constituents.
If I was Robert Silver I would support selling Toronto Hydro too. But as the President of Wind Concerns Ontario, and a Ward 43 resident there is no way I could support any plan to sell Toronto Hydro so long as it has a dual mandate because such a sale would harm my community and this is something folks like Rob Silver must know.
That being said, based on Rocco Rossi’s performance today I wouldn’t expect Rossi knows what Toronto Hydro is up to. His issue knowledge appeared weak when he suggested amalgamation happened in 2000 (it was 1997) or that Councillors voted themselves a pay increase this year (they decided not to vote to cancel an increase they’d passed in 2006).
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