READ FROM THE BOTTOM UP… About says it all.

Emails from Mr. Awde to  Mr.Surette of WPD, Manager of Communications. Subject: Sumac Ridge Wind project in Southern Ontario.

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Hello Kevin,

Further to your notice of the creation of a Community Liason Committee….

Please remain assured that as I watch the  destruction and industrialization of the lands around our farm with the Snowy Ridge project that I have no intention of aiding or abetting WPD in the ‘uglification’ of the Sumac Ridge area…. including the proposed totally unnecessary ravaging of Wild Turkey Road.

I have just seen the pictures of  what you have just done at White Pines and can hardly swallow the bile that rose in my mouth.

I do not wish you and your Community Liason Committee well.

I do not wish you success.

I can only hope that you and WPD fail in this project and in every other project you are foisting onto unwilling communities like ours.

I am still praying that WPD is not successful in forcing our City into having to open Wild Turkey Road…and that given the issues with the location for Turbine 5, that there will still be some chance that your project will be required to be modified.

You have helped rip our community into pieces and will leave nothing behind but more industrial garbage that degrades our rural and natural heritage areas.

I remain,

Ron Awde

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Kevin,

I appreciate that you took the time to lay out the position of WPD. It was not necessary. I have no wish to be mildly schooled or patronized by the paid functionary of  a corporation that has nothing but financial self-interest at heart. I understand they need you to ‘communicate’, but your protestations and explanations about this project and White Pines are all just an attempt at ‘smoothing’. And I loathe having PR people try to use this approach on me.

We are all painfully aware that the developers like WPD …who were effectively granted carte blanche by the government to plant turbines wherever they could find desperate and greedy people with ‘marginal’ land and most often, little idea about the grief it would cause…are being supported to the last gasp by the Ministry and government, since malfeasance suits following project cancellations must send a chill down the Minister’s spine.

We all know that the developers will win on all the projects approved in the first disastrous phase of the Green Energy and Economy Act roll-out. The ERT’s have been nothing more than window dressing…they were designed to be a no-fail process in favour of industrial wind developers. You all helped write the legislation to make it so and now, we understand that the wind developers all buy the politicians in order to get their continued support as well.

When I see the ‘preparation’ that has gone into White Pines so far..all I see is the hypocrisy behind the notion that your wind turbines are either green or respectful of the environment. I understand that for the international wind developers, the projects from the first phase roll-out have been very green as far as cash flow and profits from the original deep subsidies go. But beyond that, none of you really care what mess you leave behind or the damage you cause doing it.

And to be blunt, after hearing the arguments from the Ministry of Environment that developers really should be allowed to harm, harass or kill species in order to construct turbines….or that the MOECC is trying to exempt all ‘Green’ energy projects from any environmental review and after seeing the ruination of natural habitat like I have seen with White Pines, there is no way to convince me of the moral superiority of your position.

My original comments still stand.

I cannot wish the neighbours who have destroyed our community, or WPD, or you and other WPD staff, or the construction companies or any of their workers well. I can only hope that at some point  in your lives that you also have all of your civic rights abrogated, that your own homes are overtaken  and degraded by projects that you can do nothing about and that your own joy in living where you do is destroyed beyond despair.

Because you and all the others who have helped make these projects happen do not wish us well. Those hundreds of us who are directly affected by each industrial wind project looming over our homes understand that we are the no-cost sacrifice  in order for the Liberal government to have created the biggest and most expensive off-book economic stimulus project…that for all the people who now just spend all of their lives parked inside in front of their computer looking at pictures of landscapes and nature…but don’t live in it….we are just collateral damage.

I want you to know that the other day, after driving by the Ganaraska project on Highway 115 and coming home to our farm and looking across the hills that were one of the main reasons that we purchased this land and have placed our 200 acres under perpetual conservation care,  that it made me weep out loud for what we are about to lose…knowing that shortly, for the rest of my life…I will never have this beautiful view of my hills again…that we will all be living in the shadow of the equivalent of 45 storey buildings….how could those of us directly affected by not only the sight but also by the reflected noise that we know from experience we will be dealing with because of  our hills…how could any of us not simply despise your company and all of you who really do not care about us as residents of our community.

At the end of the day, I am only glad that with the amount of noise that we have made with many projects across Ontario… we, as citizens,  have hopefully been able to get some of the base rules changed for wind projects, and that with the scrutiny of the auditor general as well, the loss of the  rapacious subsidized rates is helping to destroy the market for the kinds of projects that you are imposing on communities like ours.

So get on with your Community Liason Committees. Having had to participate as a consultant in these window dressing exercises for other controversial projects before….I’m sure that you will attract enough marginalized or borderline personalities, or bored people who think that they are actually going to make some kind of difference. Since there is no real community cohesiveness or spirit left in this area now that neighbours and even families are all at odds over the destruction of our rural environment, it might give some people who still think that you are doing God’s work a chance to get out of the house once a month.

And please. You really don’t have to respond to this email. I also have far better things to do with my time than to engage in meaningless correspondence with you or anyone else from WPD. I remain,

Ron Awde

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