Posts Tagged ‘Toronto Hydro Anemometer’
National Post: Windmills get support from executive committee, despite residents concerns
This piece by Natalie Alcoba of the National Post more clearly outlines just how badly this motion was flipped on it’s head by the Executive Committee. If Councillors Ainslie and Ashton had not put this issue in front of them in this way they would not have had the opportunity or cause to move a motion of support to ‘promote and nuture’ offshore wind turbines. Paul Ainslie, and Brian Ashton did vote with every member of the Executive Committee four months ago to support Toronto Hydro’s wind test and offshore wind turbines which is why this result can’t be that unexpected in hindsight. I am proud of residents who came out, stood up and spoke out, and pledge to help make sure the next Council resolves this issue favourably for our community. – John Laforet
Below is the text from the National Post:
Windmills get support from executive committee, despite residents concerns
Posted: April 19, 2010, 6:22 PM by Natalie Alcoba
A bid to ask the provincial government to halt any new wind farms failed to sway Toronto’s executive committee today, which instead pledged “to promote and nurture” off shore windmills.
Members of the executive listened to several hours of impassioned appeals both for and against wind turbines, which have raised the ire of several Scarborough Bluffs residents opposed to a project that could see dozens installed in Lake Ontario.
Toronto Hydro is studying whether there is enough wind to warrant placing turbines about two kilometres off shore.
Scarborough councillors Paul Ainslie and Brian Ashton asked the committee to urge the provincial government to place a moratorium on any new industrial wind turbine agreements “until a comprehensive, public, science-based study of the adverse health effects now being reported by Ontarians can be evaluated and their potential harmful effects fully understood.”
But some speakers said studies have drawn no conclusive connection between turbines and health issues.
John Laforet, president of Wind Concerns Ontario, insists no independent studies have been completed. “There’s a lot of concerns about wind turbines, questions yet to be answered,” said Councillor Ainslie. His motion was referred to another committee, which effectively kills it.
Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, one of the loudest advocates of green energy production on council, said the fears people have “are simply wrong.” He quoted Ontario Medical Officer of Health Dr. Arlene King, who said in October “there is no scientific evidence, to date, to demonstrate a causal association between wind turbine noise and adverse health effects.” The executive directors of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and the Toronto Environmental Alliance also spoke in favour of windmills, citing the costly health risks of coal-fired plants to generate electricity.
“I’m not afraid of windmills,” said Mr. De Baeremaeker. “I’m afraid of the amount of carbon that we’re spewing into the air, because all of us just need to turn on the TV to find out what’s happening as a result of climate change.”
No Comments »Toronto Sun: Wind turbine plan blows in controversy
I personally don’t understand why Councillor Ainslie and Ashton decided to introduce a motion and allow it to be considered by a committee where they had not lined up the votes or even had votes of their own. The result was a devastating amendment that not only gutted the motion, but flipped it into a pro industrial wind turbine statement on points that both Councillor Ainslie and Ashton had already voted to support (the anemometer and putting industrial turbines in the lake). It passed unanimously, spelling disaster for residents. Our community is now working from further back than we were before this motion was introduced. We need to come together to stop this project now. Reclaiming our seat on Council will be an important part of the fight. – John Laforet
Text of Toronto Sun piece below:
Wind turbine plan blows in controversy
By JONATHAN JENKINS, QUEEN’S PARK BUREAU
Wind turbines off the Scarborough Bluffs could kill birds, foul the water, wreck the waterfront and damage human health, a stream of concerned residents told city council’s executive committee Monday.
“There is nowhere in the world that you can build turbines so close to shore,” said John LaForet, president of Wind Concerns Ontario.
“There are real risks here to human health and there are real risks to the health of the lake,” added LaForet, a council candidate for Ward 43.
LaForet and other anti-wind proponents were speaking in support of a motion at executive committee calling for a moratorium on wind development across the province, put forward by Scarborough area councillors Paul Ainslie — the incumbent in Ward 43 — and Brian Ashton.
“A persistent and growing number of Ontarians have expressed serious and numerous concerns regarding the impacts of industrial wind turbines on their health, lifestyle, the operation of their businesses and on their property values,” the motion reads, in part.
But while the motion called for the city to press the province to slow down on such projects, it was clear the specific project sparking worries was Toronto Hydro’s plan to test wind speeds off the bluffs for the next two years. Members of the influential executive committee voted to refer the motion for more study, effectively killing it.
If wind speeds are sufficient, Hydro would like to build up to 60, 140-metre tall turbines about two kilometres offshore and generate power — a plan Ashton called a “hideous destruction of a beautiful pristine feature.”
Harry Spindel, vice-president of the Guildwood Community Association, called it a David and Goliath battle between residents and Hydro, with the province’s Green Energy Act effectively squelching local concerns.
“We may well destroy the lakefront environment and our health,” he said. “No matter how you look at it it’s a bad deal for Toronto, not just those who have to look at those industrial giants.”
But the litany of ill effects attributed to the construction of wind turbines was hotly disputed by scientists and environmental advocates who said clean, renewable wind power was the best answer to fighting climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“The science does not show adverse health impacts,” said Dr. Gideon Forman, the executive director of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.
Executive committee member Glenn De Baeremaeker, an ardent supporter of wind power, dismissed health concerns, saying: “The health fears are just that — fears. They don’t exist.”
Toronto Star: Wind farm opponents blocked again
Toronto Star: Wind farm opponents blocked again
Opponents of a proposed wind farm off the Scarborough Bluffs huffed and puffed at city councillors Monday but failed to get even a symbolic call for a halt to the politically charged project.
The executive committee of council heard more than three hours of deputations, mostly from Guildwood residents vehemently opposed to a Toronto Hydro proposal to install about 60 turbines in an offshore ribbon from roughly the Leslie Street Spit east to Ajax.
One after another, they beseeched the 12-member committee to pass along to full council a motion by Scarborough councillors Paul Ainslie and Brian Ashton to ask the Ontario government for a moratorium on wind-power development in Ontario.
Energy Minister Brad Duguid has said such a motion would have no impact on the province’s drive to boost green energy production. But the wind farm opponents, thwarted so far at every turn, gave it everything they had.
John Laforet, president of Wind Concerns Ontario and a challenger in the city election for Ainslie’s council seat in Ward 43, Scarborough East, said that nowhere in the world are there so many turbines so close (2 to 3 kilometres offshore) to a populated shoreline.
Nobody really knows the turbines’ effect on human health, on fish habitat or on shore erosion, he said.
“We need this council to act. You own this problem. You can stop Toronto Hydro,” which is owned by the city, he said.
Anthony Haines, Toronto Hydro’s chief executive, said the utility won’t decide whether to install the 140-metre-high turbines until it gets at least two years of data from a wind gauge and tries to address the residents’ concerns.
“You have our commitment that that process will be full and complete and open and transparent,” he said, noting Hydro has pledged to find 500 megawatts of renewable energy from sources including wind, solar and biomass.
“I think it is important, however, to understand that this (wind farm proposal) is a very important piece of achieving our target,” he said.
Another Scarborough councillor, Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38, Scarborough Centre), made a successful motion to refer the matter to the Toronto Environmental Office, which is to report back to committee after Hydro has the results of its wind tests.
De Baeremaeker said he understands only the aesthetic argument against the turbines. “I think they’re grand. I think they’ll be a tourist attraction, and boats are going to weave in and out of them.”
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