Posts Tagged ‘Toronto Hydro Anemometer’
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).
5 Comments »Open Letter to Ward 43 Councillor Paul Ainslie Re: Toronto Hydro’s Anemometer and His Inaction
Councillor Ainslie,
On November 13th 2009 you wrote a mass email to residents of Ward 43 in which you stated:
“Unfortunately the Province did approve the testing process which will be done via an anemometer for a two year duration. I will be doing everything I can as your City of Toronto Councillor to ensure we receive regular updates on the data being collected by Toronto Hydro. This project is a huge waste of the hard earned money we provide to Toronto Hydro through our tax dollars!”
Where have you been for the last fifteen months while residents have been working tirelessly to oppose this project?
Guildwood has had virtually no representation from you on this issue at City Hall or, for that matter, even in the press. You’ve failed to engage the community or take any meaningful action. What’s more, on a number of occasions you’ve hurt the cause of residents who oppose the turbines.
In 2006, while you were on Council, Toronto City Council approved funding ($100 000) to test offshore wind speeds in order to develop a wind farm. As a member of Council and a Budget Committee member you should have both known about this, and alerted residents to the possibility of a project in the lake. That same year the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, which you were a member of, also approved funding for this research ($150 000). All told this issue was put before two boards and twice before Council, giving you four opportunities to know what was happening and at the very least tell people about it two years in advance.
Instead, you chose inaction and in August 2008 residents found out about the proposal through an advertisement in a newspaper. At that point, a Guildwood resident contacted you seeking your help in order to organize a meeting about this. You chose to ignore that request for nearly two months, and a month after the comment period had closed. Even then, and until now, you have failed to hold a single public meeting on this issue to listen to residents.
With no consultation from residents fighting the proposed turbines, you drafted a motion that not only failed to win the support of Scarborough Councillors, but also made residents appear ‘NIMBY’ because you cited ‘visual impacts’ and ‘beauty’ as the reasons for reconsidering the project. Anyone involved in politics knows that you don’t introduce a motion of this importance until you’re certain you have the votes to pass it, because failing to pass it demonstrates support for Toronto Hydro among a voting majority of Scarborough Councillors.
In November 2008 you asked Toronto Hydro publicly to commit to building no more than sixty turbines off the Scarborough Bluffs. That position is not supported by anyone I’ve spoken to in Guildwood, and what’s worse, even when you were asking them to commit to build 100% of what they wanted and no more, they still refused. It takes a special kind of negotiator to fail to get someone to agree to take 100% of what they want.
By January 2009 you decided not to speak at the community meeting and instead sat silent. Similarly, you were silent when Guildwood residents came under fire from the Premier and Deputy Premier who were vowing to take our rights away, name calling and essentially using the arguments from you used in your motion to label us ‘NIMBY’.
While members of Save the Toronto Bluffs and I were publicly defending the community, you were introducing a motion with Councillor Stintz to help have the City of Toronto help implement the Green Energy Act – a bill that was stripping Toronto of planning control over renewable energy, and residents of their right to participate in decision making.
You have not participated in any of the elevation requests to try to ensure no environmental damage will be done by the anemometer installation. You have failed to use your position on the Toronto Region Conservation Authority to try to protect the lake from this project, or your role on the Atmospheric Fund, the Budget Committee or City Council to do anything to stop this.
Based on your media exposure since January 2009, your failed attempt to take over the Toronto Zoo Board, and subsequent battling over Zoo Board matters, it appears that the Zoo is more important to you than Ward 43 residents.
Your comments that opposition to Toronto Hydro’s project represents a minority opinion in the community, or that George Smitherman calling residents ‘absurd’, and saying residents have worked themselves into an ‘artificial lather’ were both funny and amusing to you, are not the least bit helpful to the cause of residents opposing this project.
You consistently fail to recognize that Toronto Hydro is owned by the City of Toronto and at any time the City could prevent this project from going forward. Yes the province did approve it, but you have had at least a dozen options to kill the project at the City level and time and time again failed to even try. Even if you don’t like it – this is a live municipal issue.
I believe that this is the single largest issue Guildwood residents have ever faced. Being represented by a Councillor who doesn’t live in the Ward or have an interest in local issues is proving to be extremely detrimental to the community.
It is for this reason that any sentence you start with ‘I will be doing everything I can as your City of Toronto Councillor’ must be met with a grain of salt by residents who have seen how unable you’ve proven to be to at handling tasks as simple as writing a letter of support or planning a community meeting.
Waiting until it’s too late to try and look like you’re doing something is very disingenuous and, as someone who has had to get involved to the degree that I have to try to make up for your lack of support or representation for Guildwood residents, I feel the need to make sure that others are aware that your record and your words don’t jive.
I would be pleased to speak to you about real action a City Councillor could take if they were serious about stopping this project, but I have to say, your record would suggest you aren’t.
Sincerely,
John Laforet
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