Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Protestors lose court bid to block wind farm


Three divisional court judges have dismissed a set of appeals from four families seeking to have provincial legislation related to the approvals of large-scale wind farms declared unconstitutional.

The families are concerned about the potential health effects of living as close as 500 metres to the turbines.

The case was considered the first constitutional challenge to the Green Energy Act to reach the appellate court level.

The proposed $850-million K2 Wind project involves setting up 140 turbines near Goderich and another 92-turbine Armow wind farm near Kincardine.

There was a joint appeal by others against the 15-turbine St. Columban project near Seaforth.

The provincial Environment Ministry had approved the projects and the companies argued their projects are safe.

Radio broadcaster Dale Goldhawk had a program Monday detailing how wind and solar power have been granted first dibs on sales into the Ontario grid, meaning that the nuclear power plants near Point Clarke simply blow off steam.

He also revealed that Ontario paid Michigan and New York State about $500,000 to take excess electricity from Ontario on Christmas Day.

The show made the point that Ontario’s electricity system is in a shambles, largely because of Liberal-government policies that force it to buy ever-increasing volumes of the most expensive power from wind and solar projects.