Tne Tribunal winds down, but the fight goes on

Two exhaustive years, two tribunals and one appeal. The digging, the paperwork, the questions and revelations that just maybe the ministries involved aren’t as neutral as they should be, and it’s finally over. Well, for now.

The witness lists exhausted, the hearings for the second Environmental Review Tribunal for the Ostrander Point wind turbine project wrapped up last week, leaving Tribunal panelists Robert Wright and Heather Gibbs yet again with the task of deciding the fate of the County’s south shore and the species that inhabit it.

This time, Eric Gillespie, the lawyer for the appellant—the County group known as Prince Edward County Field Naturalists— fought yet again to prove that the project would indeed harm the population of endangered Blanding’s turtle inhabiting the delicate habitat on the County’s south shore

The biggest revelation came early on. It turned out even though the expert scientist employed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry warned against giving Gilead Power Company the go-ahead to develop the project, the ministry did not listen to his advice.

This led to delays, a torrent of paperwork, arguments over technical terms and fishing expeditions as the Tribunal demanded the ministry deliver documents that would show how thoroughly it processed its permit allowing Gilead to “kill, harm or harass” endangered species.

read more:  The Times, Dec 4 2015

Industrial wind turbine hearings piling on top of each other

Colliding schedules brought out a series of sharp exchanges at the appeal hearing of the White Pines industrial wind project on Friday. On Monday, in a dramatic twist, the appellant, the Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County (APPEC) asked the Tribunal members to step down from this hearing.

There had been a growing sense among observers that the adjudicators in this hearing appear to be driven more by meeting deadlines than ensuring the appellants get a full airing of the facts they believe will stop 27 industrial wind turbines from being constructed between Milford and the gates to the Prince Edward Point National Wildlife Area in South Marysburgh. Parts of three appeal hearings— Ostrander, White Pines and Amherst Island— have all been crammed into the final weeks before Christmas.

The appeal of the Ostrander Point project should have been completed by now. However, a blizzard of emails and documentation—connecting the dots between the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry species-at-risk expert’s advice that the project would in fact cause serious harm to the Blanding’s turtle and the Ministry of Environment’s subsequent approval of the project anyway—has slowed down that hearing’s schedule. This hearing resumes on Thursday in Demorestville.

Meanwhile, hearings into a project that seeks to blanket Amherst Island with 26 industrial wind turbines is getting underway in the first week of December. Eric Gillespie is serving as counsel to appellants in all three hearings.

read more: The Times, Nov 27 2015

APAI – ERT DAY 1 – Good beginning!

NOTE: information about the future schedule and possible bus transport to Toronto is at the end of this message

Location: St John’s Hall, Village of Bath

Tribunal: Mr. Robert Wright & Mr. Justin Duncan

Lawyers for

Appellant (APAI): Graham Andrews, EKG, LLP

Approval Holder (Windelctric Inc.): John Terry & Arlen Sternberg, Torys, LLP

MOECC: Andrea Huckins

The first day of the ERT illustrated the strong support of APAI members in opposition to the Windlectric project. Thanks to APAI members and neighbours from Bath and Nicholson Point who filled the hall in Bath. Your presence is very important and conveys the importance of this hearing to the community.

After the opening remarks, procedural reminders and upcoming schedule by the Tribunal, all parties agreed to the order of appearances of witnesses. Continue reading APAI ERT Day 1 →

December 3

by

Paula Peel, APPEC

On Day 16 of the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT), APPEC expert witness Kari Gunson testified that the White Pines wind project will cause serious and irreversible harm to Blanding’s turtles on the Prince Edward County south shore, and Dr. Smallwood completed his testimony from Tuesday.

Ms. Gunson has worked as a Road Ecologist for 16 years and has co-authored 13 peer-reviewed published articles.   She was qualified by the Tribunal as a Road Ecologist, with experience evaluating the indirect and direct effects of roads on wildlife and their habitat.

Gunson focused on the large roadless areas around wind turbines T12 to T24 and T26 to T29.  White Pines will increase road density in habitat occupied by the Blanding’s turtle, a threatened species, and the new roads will be used by maintenance vehicles, by landowners to gain access to their property, and by farm machinery.  Continue reading Report on Environmental Review Tribunal Hearing on White Pines Wind Project →

How do wind energy companies kill protected bald eagles and golden eagles via turbine strikes every year without facing legal repercussions? They have renewable permits issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) that exempt them from laws making it illegal to kill the birds. However, the U.S. District Court of Northern California has ruled that the FWS violated federal law by extending the duration of the so-called “eagle take permit” from five to 30 years without first investigating the impact it would have on eagle populations. The court made the ruling in August after reviewing a lawsuit against the FWS’s parent agency, the Department of Interior (DOI).

After facing extinction in the mid-twentieth century the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) has rebounded to roughly 10,000 breeding pairs in the U.S., according to the FWS. The agency regards golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) numbers as stable at around 30,000 individuals nationwide. Both species are protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, as well as two other federal laws.

However, wind turbines often strike and kill eagles. Up to 75 of the birds have been killed annually by a single wind farm, the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in central California, but mortalities at other installations are less well monitored. A 2013 paper in the Journal of Raptor Research documented 85 eagle kills at 32 other facilities between 1997 and 2012, but notes that the findings “likely underestimate, perhaps substantially, the number of eagles killed at wind facilities in the United States.”

read more:  Montgaby, 4th December 2015 / Mike DiGirolamo

Court documents were filed for a Judicial Review of Ontario’s approval of a wind power project in an area where wildlife and heritage features are at risk.

PICTON, ONTARIO, CANADA, November 30, 2015 /EINPresswire.com/ — Picton, ON, November 30 2015: CCSAGE Naturally Green (CCSAGE-NG) filed notice in Divisional Court at Ottawa today for a Judicial Review of the Renewable Energy Approval process for the White Pines wind power project in Prince Edward County.

The power project was approved by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change in 2015. Part of that approval included a permit issued by the Minister of Natural Resources and Forests to “kill, harm and harass” endangered or threatened wildlife species. Continue reading ONTARIO GROUP FILES FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW OF WYNNE GOVERNMENT WIND FARM APPROVAL PROCESS →

The next generation is watching, Barack Obama told the Paris climate conference this week: ‘Our grandchildren, when they look back and see what we did in Paris, they can take pride in what we did.’ And that, surely, is the trouble with the entire climate-change agenda: putting the interests of rich people’s grandchildren ahead of those of poor people today.

Unfair? Not really, when you look at the policies enacted in the name of mitigating climate change. We’ve diverted 40 per cent of America’s maize crop to feeding cars instead of people, thus driving up the price of food worldwide, a move which according to one study killed about 192,000 poor people in 2010 alone, and continues to affect nutrition worldwide. We’ve restricted aid funding for fossil-fuelled power stations in developing countries, leaving many people who would otherwise have had access to electricity mired in darkness and cooking over wood-fires — the biggest environmental cause of ill health, responsible for more than three million deaths every year.

Closer to home, by pushing up energy prices with climate policies, we’ve contributed to the loss of jobs of steelworkers in Redcar and Scunthorpe, and of aluminium workers in Northumberland (where I live and where coal from under my land has supplied the now-closed Lynemouth smelter — whose power station announced this week that it will reopen as a ‘biomass’ plant, that is to say burning wood from American forests, producing more carbon dioxide per unit of energy and at twice the price of coal). We’ve also worsened fuel poverty among the poor and elderly and we’ve damaged air quality in cities. These human costs are not imaginary or theoretical: they are real.

But ends can be used to justify means, and omelettes cannot be made without breaking eggs. We justify the painful impact of policy by saying over and over that it helps to avert a far greater threat that faces ‘our grandchildren’. So exactly how great is that threat?

read more:  http://new.spectator.co.uk/2015/12/the-green-delusion/

Office of the Auditor General of Ontario Annual Report 2015    2015AR_en_final

On Day 15 three experts testified at the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) that the White Pines wind project will cause serious and irreversible harm to birds and bats.  All had concerns with the project location on a migratory path on Lake Ontario’s shoreline.

Dr. Michael Hutchins, Director of the American Bird Conservancy’s Bird Smart Wind Energy Campaign, was qualified as a biologist with specialization in animal behaviour and with expertise in the impact of wind energy projects on birds and bats.  Hutchins told the ERT that one function of the Bird Smart Campaign is to educate decision-makers so turbines are properly sited.   White Pines is in a high-risk location.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommends three-mile setbacks from the Great Lakes.

Hutchins cited a recent U.S. study showing significant displacement of breeding grassland birds in mid-western states after turbine construction.  White Pines will displace protected Bobolink, Eastern Meadowlark, and Eastern Whip-poor-will, and the impact could easily result in local extirpation.

Bill Evans has researched the impact of wind projects on birds and bats for 20 years.   Evans was qualified as an expert in avian acoustic monitoring and nocturnal bird migration.  He said that a number of species in Ontario, including the Purple Martin, have been in long-term decline, but Stantec did no surveys of Purple Martins during late summer when large numbers gather to roost.  Evans noted that Purple Martin collision fatalities are increasing at Ontario wind facilities and made up 6.09% of all bird fatalities in 2014, higher than in 2012. Continue reading Report on Environmental Review Tribunal Hearing on White Pines Wind Project‏‎ December 1 by Paula Peel, APPEC →