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National Wind Watch: Wind Energy News- Wind power’s grip on Augusta weakening as ‘God’s Country’ presses its case
- Commissioners blow commercial wind turbines out of the county
- Wind farm battle turns personal; Opponents claim lack of due diligence by county officials
- Judge grants plaintiff’s motion to move Ocotillo wind lawsuit from federal to state court
- A new hurdle for wind farm? Opponents want higher bar for approval
- Wind farm under threat
- Wind act doesn’t treat all Mainers equally
- 170-foot blade breaks off wind turbine
- Industrial Wind Action: News Watch
- Wednesday meeting to detail Greenwich wind farm proposal
- Turbine plan is off the radar due to complication
- Gamesa cuts 394 jobs in Spain
- Lee board OKs wind farm project; 12-9 vote overrules decision by lower panel
- Wind farm battle turns personal; Opponents claim lack of due diligence by county officials.
- German energy shift faces headwinds
- The road to a greener America is littered with road-kill
- Dank blasts last minute tax credits
Tundra Swan Reports
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- Wind Wise Radio
- Stay tuned for what’s coming up on WWR.What we are working on: WWR will return on the 9th of January with Pat Swords and Christine Metcalfe and Aarhus Convention; Also Clive Hambler Conservation lecturer at Oxford. We sift through all of the suggestions and try to pick the most relevant, timely stories for each week. Please send them along!
- Stay tuned for what’s coming up on WWR.
Ontario Wind Turbine Map
We need as much support as possible. Council will be debating/voting on 2km setback like Township of Wainfleet has implemented.
I implore that everyone within driving distance that can attend this meeting, does attend this meeting. There will be reps. from the wind co. NRWC, and turbine farmers there trying to hardsell the benefits of this project. The innocent victims of this travesty will be there to explain the various negative effects this industrialization of rural Ontario, can, and is having, on rural Ontario. Anyone is entitled to ten minutes to state their case. Many have expressed the intention of calling for, the mayor’s resignation if he does not support the vast majority of his constituents in this fight. We have agreed as a community that the cost of the legal battle, divided over many thousands of people, will be far less than the money lost by the innocent victims who, lose control over their farms and properties because of the close proximity to these turbines (572ft. high), to say nothing of the people who cannot sell their homes to escape the nightmare, and the ones forced to either take a huge cut in their price,(therefore their life savings), or leave the place entirely, barren and deserted, as has happened so many times before. This is all of our fight, hope tom see you all there.
The West Lincoln rural people against wind turbines are coming together to fight anyone who stands in the way of democracy. We are defending our children, our schools, our dependent population, our farm animals and other stock, our homes, our health and our democratic right to have a say in our future. We HAVE to do this OURSELVES because no else will help us. YEP…we are a grass roots group and proud of it!!!
We are calling for a two kilometer setback between MR HUGE TURBINE and receptors in our area.
Our Municipal Township Council is partially supportive. We need all of them on board. The regional council has bought into wind companies….so no support from that quarter. (This is the stuff of Hollywood movies.) The provincial government is tied into big talk, big money, big corporations and big fear of lawsuits. The federal government is tied into sidestepping.
We need the help of everyone involved with and opposing Industrial Wind Turbines.
We have 2 important meetings ahead…Monday January 14th and Monday January 28th at the South Lincoln High School in Smithville.
Remember… “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, but because one’s conscience tells one that it is right….” Martin Luther King.
There are many rumours flying around that the mayor will be asked for his resignation if he chooses not to support the majority of citizens in this battle as he is supposed to do in a democracy. This is more important than any other issues we’ve had to deal with before, and a mayor or council unwilling to protect their constituents, must not be tolerated.
Just tell the whole Council that if they don’t vote in favour of a setback it will be the end of their political careers!………….It seemed to have work up our way last Monday when the townspeople marched on the Township Hall…………..once these politician’s realize that their place at the tax payer trough is coming to and end, they usually do the “right” thing!
That’s our intention Big Green, “Would you like to vote in favour of a 2km setback and keep your jobs?” It is a reasonable question, I believe. Democracy means the wishes of the majority rule. Nuff said.
DEMOCRACY vs. BIG WIND SHOWDOWN
The proposed motion by West Lincoln Council on Monday January 14th to investigate the best means to enact 2km setback of IWT from adjacent residents is shaping up to create the largest audience of pro/con supporters of wind energy that this rural Niagara Township has ever witnessed and perhaps even provincially for any rural municipality. In preparation for this meeting the Township has relocated the meeting from the Council Chambers to the adjacent South Lincoln High School Gymnasium.
This meeting follows closely on the heels of West Lincoln’s forced cancelation of their December 10, 2012 Council Meeting where the size of Council Chambers was not able to accommodate the large number of residents who had arrived wishing to address Council on the wind turbine issue. That night a number of NRWC’s host farmers (financial beneficiaries) had come out to speak out in favour of the NRWC project and had dressed up in their “Yes to Wind” T-shirts only to be outnumbered by a larger number of West Lincoln Glanbrook Wind Action Group members and potential wind turbine victims.
The cancelled Council meeting subsequently took place on Wednesday January 9th at the larger South Lincoln High School gymnasium where over 300 anti-wind protestors attended and where the pro wind side was visibly absent. Following several presentations against the proposed industrial wind projects Alderman Alex Micallef introduced a notice of motion to investigate the means to enact a 2km setback bylaw to be discussed at Council’s upcoming January 14th Planning/Building/ Environmental Committee Meeting as well as discussion on Development Charges and Fees as it pertains to Industrial Wind Turbines.
Certainly with billions of dollars of wind energy subsidies at stake we understand the NRWC and their associated host farmers and paid lackeys will be coming out in force to speak their garbage so in response the West Lincoln Glanbrook Wind Action Group strongly encourages your attendance and voices be heard at this most critical meeting to show support for the 2km setback and for those council members who truly represent the best interests of the majority of West Lincoln residents.
The WLGWAG also asks your understanding that this is only a first step towards achieving a 2km setback and will not entail an immediate vote on the enactment of this bylaw but rather the commencement of a serious investigation and crafting of a defensible and enforceable bylaw. The benefits of not rushing a hasty bylaw this week will be to create a sound, solid and well researched bylaw that better stands a chance of approval at our local divided Council, is defensible in court and overall best serves the community’s interests to stop the travesty of this industrial wind turbine scam.
Again don’t forget that we truly care about our community and accordingly represent the good side so please maintain your temper, act civil and don’t be goaded into any altercations or shouting matches that could discredit our side or solidify the social rift that they have brought into our community.
It will be extremely interesting to see the reaction of the turbine farmers to the real facts, instead of the fairy tales told to them by Big Wind. Money will soothe any qualms I suppose…
The following is our letter sent to the mayor and council members of the Township of West Lincoln on January 10, 2013.
Congratulations on your brave move to put forward a by-law requiring Industrial Wind Turbines to have a 2 km. setback from non-participating neighbours.
There are many thoughts that we could share with you at this time.
It is always the right time to do the right thing. It may not always be popular, it may not always be understood, it may be expensive but it is always the right time to do the right thing. And you were elected to serve and protect the residents of West Lincoln. The non-participating neighbours understand that they risk their health, their environment and the devaluation of their property value. People living more than 2 km from IWT’s may feel a great sense of relief that they will not be affected by this provincial initiative but the research we have been studying does not reach that conclusion. We have read studies that 3 MW IWT’s are having an impact on households 5 to 10 km away. Noise, vibration, low frequency sound, etc can travel a long way.
It is important to remember that the tobacco industry funded advertising campaigns and hired public relations people and legal consultants to ridicule doctors for warning about the risks of cigarette smoke. Powerful organizations have guaranteed access to the media no matter how flimsy their argument or how self interested. We may not all be searching for the scientific truth or transparent in our dealing with each other. Rigor is required for research that is published in peer-reviewed journals. Anyone can put their opinion in a pamphlet, use the mass media, or the Internet. Unfortunately, we have never seen opinions protect anyone.
A fundamental tenant of living in a civilized society dictates that you can not do something on your property that has a negative effect on mine, without compensating me. You can not dam up the river so my cows have no water to drink, nor can you blow up the dam and flood me out. Many by-laws are in place with respect to noise, vibration, pollution, etc.
Before we set off on a path of full desecration of our rural landscapes we need peer reviewed evidence that there is NO health impact on humans and NO devaluation of property values. We also need to see FULL economic justification that wind turbines ARE necessary, that they DO save CO2 emissions and justify the need for subsidies and the increased costs on the utility bills of the general public. Until we have all these answers there should be an immediate moratorium on the installation of IWT’s in agricultural areas. Until then every decision/policy maker will be culpable for the harm that is being done.
The precautionary principle has prevented disasters in the past. When we just rushed ahead of the science we got all the fall out from asbestos, thalidomide, DDT, tainted blood, smoking and cancer (a conclusion the tobacco industry still denies!). Industrial Wind Turbines will be put on this list unless they are sited much further away (than the minimum 550 meters allowed by the provincial government) from all residences.
Given that government ministers, ministries, agencies and municipalities have an ethical duty and legal obligation to protect the health, safety, quality of life and well being of citizens and their properties – do the right thing – pass the by-law and protect the people.
Someone needs to remind the CHCH TV reporter attending the meeting in West Lincoln tonight and reporting, from the scene on the 11:00pm news, that the set-backs being recommended by WLGWAG are NOT either 200m or 200kms but 2,000m or 2kms! ….. and he was there all evening??? Where was his mind? Certainly not on his job! Great Job WLGWAG!!! All of rural Ontario applauds your efforts!!