Cancelled

New Ford government to recall the house to end White Pines projectThe White Pines industrial wind project in Prince Edward County has been cancelled. Provincial Government House Leader and Bay of Quinte MPP Todd Smith announced on Tuesday that his government will recall the Legislature in order to cancel the White Pines project, currently under construction in Athol and South Marysburgh.The decision puts the brakes on the assembly of nine industrial wind turbines south of Milford. Smith cited the fact that the project received its Notice to Proceed “during the election period before the government had a chance to make any decision on the project” to explain why his government was acting so decisively.“We have decided to recall the house because it is clear there are areas of public interest that require urgent attention,” said Smith. “The people of Ontario cannot afford to wait, and they won’t have to.”

The first wind turbine has been fully erected at wpd’s site in Milford. The blade assembly was put together on the ground, and then hoisted into place early Monday morning.

As Smith was making his announcement a protest was underway on Bond Road, used by the heavy equipment and machines building the turbines. Angry shouts gave way to exuberant cheers as the news rippled through the crowd.The protest quickly turned from an aggressive tone, to a tone of revelry as the group realized that, for now, they had won. Their MPP had come through on a promise and many in the group were quick to give praise Smith for doing what he said he was going to do. Activists like Cheryl Anderson first sounded the alarm eight years ago with Ostrander Point, and Peel was clearly emotional after the event.“I remember the very first meeting we had about wind turbines at St. Andrew’s Church on King Street and somebody asked what could they do? I responded by saying that, when they wanted to change our Post Office, the people of Prince Edward County rose up. When they wanted to charge $5 for the ferry across Glenora, the people of the County rose up. What must happen is that the people need to rise up to make a difference. Well, today we rose up. We were successful and it feels great,” says Anderson. The initial protest was designed to block the road and stop the truck carrying a giant piece of equipment and ask the driver’s permission for a three-minute photo opportunity. The whole plan took 10 or 15 people to successfully execute and the group even employed pairs of eyes along the travel route to get an accurate time of arrival. One individual integral in this whole operation is Liz Driver, who took on the role of getting in front of the convoy and stopping it with her own car.Driver donned a white hardhat and a reflective vest in the car, got in front of the convoy and stopped it at the exact location she was supposed to.“Everyone was getting into their place and I was sitting in the car waiting to jump ahead of the convoy. As I was waiting for the whole thing to go down I get a call from Beth Harrington, who was another person instrumental in helping to stop Ostrander Point. I was wondering why she was calling me at that moment just as the truck with the turbine appears over the hill. She said ‘Liz, Todd Smith has just announced the project is going to be cancelled!’ My first thought was that we can’t tell anyone until we successfully execute this action, so we did and that’s when we let everyone know the good news. This has been six long years of work on this initiative. We’ve lost, and we’ve won, but today is a fabulous day for the County. We are so lucky to have Todd Smith as our MPP. He has worked with us all of the way,” says Driver.The protests were also in conjunction with a motion being put forth this Thursday at the Committee of the Whole by councillors Steve Ferguson and Bill Roberts. The motion was to address some issues regarding a Notice To Proceed on the project that was issued by the Independent Electricity System Operator on May 11th, 2018. In a recent court appearance, wpd was facing three charges of failing to maintain a silt fence, which is a violation of the project’s Renewable Energy Approval. The charges facing wpd fall under Ontario’s Environmental Protection Act Section 186.3, which focuses on failure to comply with the terms and conditions of an environmental compliance approval, certificate of property use or renewable energy approval, or of a license or permit. The charges are said to have come from complaints from local residents. The case has been held over until October 5.