Honourable Minister Brad Duguid

Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure

900 Bay Street, 4th Floor
Hearst Block
Toronto, Ontario
M7A 2E1

Dalton McGuinty, Premier
Legislative Building
Queen's Park
Toronto ON M7A 1A1

e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

delivered by e-mail and registered mail

January 28, 2010

Dear Minister Duguid and Premier Dalton McGuinty;

Firstly, allow us to congratulate you, Minister Duguid, on your new appointment as Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Ontario! We hope this will be a new day in Ontario’s management and development of Energy resources.

Our organization currently represents over 250,000 Lakeside constituents and downtown Toronto residents who are questioning the rapid expansion of wind turbine installations (factories) across the province, with ever more intrusive applications pending for the city of Toronto itself. (Ontario Wind Concerns now has 42 community memberships representing over 1.5 million Ontarians.) As you know, former Minister Cansfield called a moratorium on the over 500 project proposals she received under her watch for off- or near shore, industrial turbine factories. The sheer rush and volume for these projects is overwhelming. It is a daunting task to sort out what projects are viable, honest, and are long-reaching for Ontario and Toronto. There are many, as you know, who are questioning this rush, when lower hanging fruit is so readily available. There is also great consternation regarding the shortfalls of the Green Energy Act, which in substance paves the way for some premature technology applications, or applications of projects whose viability down the road well travelled has not met with entire success. You can be assured that the average person is talking about these issues repeatedly and continually. Larry Solomon, Executive Director of Energy Probe, to name one, is articulating the frustration that Ontario feels with respect to this faulty piece of legislation that paves the way for developers.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/03/07/lawrence-solomon-gangreen-energy-act.aspx (Gangreen energy act, National Post)

Our primary consideration is to have viable power that does not harm people or the environment to the extent that emerging studies on wind power increasingly show it does. Wind projects are being placed in or through migratory routes, displacing nature, birds, bats, and obviously causing health problems to human populations that are sited too near the pulsing, throbbing machines.

One of the most obvious bad placements for a turbine factory is in the Lake, 1.2-4 km from the shore off the Scarborough Bluffs. You are well aware, I am sure, of the historic and natural wonders of this site. This is one of the last remnants of an exquisitely preserved geological Cliffside left by the last ice age some 13,000 years ago. It is full of rare molluscs, the tip of the Carolinian remnant forest, which ecosystem houses 50% of all species of birds in Canada, in 1% of Canada’s remaining forested area. It is in short, an area replete with bird, animal and plant life that is special and precocious to the region, to Ontario and Canada. As you also know, over 203 bird species are currently endangered in Ontario, the highest ratio per province. These require protection, not molestation by badly positioned industry.

Indeed, according to several bird specialists, some of whom are undertaking aerial studies of migration in the coming years, certain species of wintering ducks spend their winter months just 2km to 4km off shore of the North shores of the Lakes. This is precisely the area proposed by Toronto Hydro Energy Services for 60-100 behemoth 40 story turbines! How is this ecologically sensitive, or environmentally friendly?

There are more problems associated with this project (notwithstanding the bad economics, the lack of Democratic rights of communities to be involved in the due process). The lakebed of all the Great Lakes, according to Ron Williamson, who is currently undertaking an archaeological plan for Toronto, is gifted with artefacts, and would surely require a full archaeological study before installation of any structures on the lake bed. Many other studies also allude to the “watery” nature of Toronto itself, the richness of the numerous wetlands, rivers, tributaries, and the ensuing rich biological and cultural history of the city. (Toronto's Water from Lake Iroquois to Lost Rivers to Low-flow Toilets, written by Wayne Reeves )

Toronto Hydro Energy Services has not done any studies, as I am aware, including noise, or archaeology study, or possible aquatic disruption, even in its attempts to place an anemometer off shore. Additionally, the placement of this anemometer appears to us to have been haphazard at best, with the current position of the anchoring pegs or columns being some 600 plus metres off the legally permitted position indicated by the MOE in the PER document. The platform of this anemometer was carried off just before Christmas, with more construction to apparently follow in March. To date, residents have complained of noise, often going into the night hours. MOE (Environment) indicated in December 2009 that they are willing to look at noise problems associated with this anemometer. If we have noise with the construction phase of the anemometer (sound travels further over water and is amplified), what can this community and others around us also in the direct line of fire expect to encounter with 40 story turbines! As lawyer Eric Gillespie has mentioned in the Globe and Mail, the scene is being set in many instances, with all the unregulated assaults on communities, as opportunities in an “incubator” for legal challenges.

We are also very concerned about this project as it would apparently have some relevance to water quality: even on land, there are errors, leaks, breakages that would most certainly impact water quality. No where else in the world are fresh water lakes being subjected to turbine installations. As you are aware, the world is currently undergoing massive shortages of fresh water, and in the Great Lakes we enjoy 20% of the fresh water supply for the entire planet. We must not allow these fresh waters to become another instance of refuse (n.), pollution, and greed. The quote below outlines in the damaging words of a wind developer, what the consequences could be for water quality of surface and ground waters, and one can only imagine the impact in fresh water supplies:

Contamination of aquifers and ground water: by Mark Duchamp, former Windfarms/Birds Research Manager of Proact International. Mark has written many papers on this subject. This report contains some revealing quotes from developers' own environmental "studies", including this: "A pollution incident during construction could have an impact of major magnitude on the water quality of the surface and ground waters of the area, potentially irrevocably damaging the ecology." and this: "During the upgrading works a number of potential pollutants may be present on site, including oil, fuels, chemicals, unset cement and concrete. Any pollution incident occurring on the site may detrimentally affect the water quality of the nearby surface waters and groundwater. Where there are fisheries and water supply interests this may have a significant impact."

http://www.savewesternny.org/environment.html

The Scarborough Bluffs is internationally known as a point of historical, geological, native, and biological richness. To entertain the idea of industrializing such a site is cynical, mercenary, and in our view untenable by any stretch of the imagination. Not every piece of nature is up for grabs for the sake of small bits of possible energy (1% at this project, if the wind blows optimally; projects of this scope generally receive about 20% of that intended output! “What is the math: billions of dollars of subsidies for 20% of 1% of Toronto’s energy, maybe, if the wind blows).

Geologist Malcolm Rider is quoted in Dr. Etherington’s new release, The Wind Turbine Scam:

The Highlands are being humiliated by wind farm developers who insist they are saving the environment. They lie: they are here to make a profit. Wind farms produce very little and intermittent electricity. Most of the time they do not work. How can the blade of a bulldozer ripping up 6,000 years beautifully preserved archaeology be saving the environment? How can the turbine blades smashing a golden eagle to bits be saving the environment? How can the government of Scotland destroy such a prize? And use public money to do it?

The friends and neighbours of the (Toronto) Scarborough Bluffs (it is a National treasure), will never allow the humiliation of this land and ecosystem. I must advise you that communities are now banding together to protect the North Shore of Lake Ontario, and that cohesion and common purpose is already spreading across communities south of us as well.

Kindly inform the communities from Leslie Street to Port Union that this ill-advised energy project that threatens an entire ecosystem of the Carolinian Forest south area, a major migratory route for hundreds of thousands of birds and bats, a possible disruption to aquatic life and species, the health of various communities who live in and through these regions and show sensitivity to their guardianship of nature, will be immediately abandoned. Indeed, as this is a Toronto issue, in every case more than a local set of concerns, it would benefit all citizens for you to advertise the cancellation of any and all turbine installations off the North Shores of Lake Ontario immediately.

I welcome the opportunity to speak with you at any time.

Yours sincerely,

Sherri Lange

Director

Toronto Wind Action

416-567-5115 (cell)

Member group of Ontario Wind Concerns

c.c. Premier Dalton McGuinty

c.c. Minister Margarett Best (Minister of Health Promotion)

c.c. Honourable John McKay

c.c. City Councillors via City Clerk

c.c. Mayor David Miller

c.c. Honourable Minister Linda Jeffrey (MNR)

c.c. Honourable Minister John Gerretson (Ministry of the Environment)

c.c. Honourable Minister Deb Matthews (Minister of Health)

c.c. Federal Honourable Minister Jim Prentice (Minister of the Environment)

c.c. Federal Honourable Minister Christian Paradis (MNR)

c.c. Federal Honourable Minister Leona Aglukkaq (MOE)

c.c. Prime Minister Stephen Harper

c.c. Claire Copeland

c.c. Anthony Haines