Irreversible

Heavy equipment began chewing up the landscape this week. They’ve begun on Army Reserve Road near the boundary between Athol and North Marysburgh. Workers are preparing the ground for the construction of turbines 16 and 17 of the White Pines industrial wind energy development. There are 27 turbines to be built as part of this development, plus kilometres of access roads and many more kilometres of high voltage power lines to be strung between Milford and Elmbrook.

The project will kill endangered species. We know this because an Environmental Review Tribunal held weeks of hearings, listening to experts and poring over evidence. The Tribunal is the only appeal mechanism within the Green Energy Act. It is the only public window into the process that judges the suitability of such projects and weighs the risks they pose to wildlife, heritage, property values, local economies and human health. But it made no difference. The Tribunal’s conclusion of serious and irreversible harm did not stop the developer from laying waste to this habitat. It has not prevented the machines from shredding the trees, shrubs and other vegetation on this land.

Little brown bats and Blanding’s turtles cling to a precarious existence in the rugged and mostly wild south shore of Prince Edward County. Their fate, it turns out, matters not at all.

This is the ruinous outcome of the Green Energy Act.

There is no appeal mechanism. There never was. It was all a façade. A fake. It was a place people could go to complain and vent their frustrations over fears for their health, for their livelihoods and the well-being of the natural world.

It would appear as though they were being heard—that their concerns mattered. It had all the appearances of a participative democracy without actually giving people any power or say.

The game was rigged from the outset. The province didn’t even trust its adjudicators. It narrowed the allowable appeal for industrial wind turbines and other renewable energy projects, to the impossibly slender issues of human health and the nature. That someone’s business or livelihood would be threatened by these machines is irrelevant under the Green Energy Act. So too is the view of local government and its land-use planning authority.

Only a serious threat to human health—supported by medical evidence showing how turbine X will cause a recognized sickness in resident Y—may be considered by the Tribunal. With regard to nature, the test is more outlandish—the harm must be serious and can never be undone.

The crafters of the Green Energy Act must surely have figured they had made their law appeal- proof. Yet in three circumstances, provincially appointed Tribunals have threaded this needle and delivered a verdict that should have stopped the projects being considered, by their own rules. The arguments and evidence met the test established by the province—by the folks who crafted the Green Energy Act.

But of course that hasn’t happened.

Wood chippers and heavy equipment are readying the land for construction of 27 turbines soaring 500 feet into the sky—each sweeping an area the size of a football field. From the ground many metres away, the blades appear to move slowly. Gently even. At the tip, however, the blade moves at 80 feet per second. Birds and bats are fast. Not that fast.

Meanwhile, the Tribunal hasn’t said why it has allowed the developer to proceed. It hasn’t explained since it concluded the turbines would be catastrophic for two endangered species, why it has given the developer the green light to build the project.

Meanwhile another County group, CCSAGE, has asked the courts for a judicial review of the Green Energy Act as it relates to this project. They argue that it violates basic principles of justice and fairness established over centuries and protected under an array of laws and statutes.

To do this, they began by asking the folks who approved the White Pines project why they did it. What was the evidence and investigation undertaken to, for example, grant the permit to harm, harass and kill endangered species? What kind of work was done to understand the heritage value at risk? What assessment of the local economy was done? Of water? Of land? Of migratory birds?

They want to see the paperwork underlyng this decision. Only by knowing how these determinations were made can they challenge its legitimacy. Its thoroughness. Its validity.

They want to see the paperwork underlyng this decision. Only by knowing how these determinations were made can they challenge its legitimacy. Its thoroughness. Its validity.

That request was made last fall. It is April and those documents have not yet been produced. No response at all. They (we) have been effectively shut out of the workings of the provincial government. These ministries are now beyond scrutiny.

The Green Energy Act is fundamentally reshaping the foundation of our democratic institutions. Our notions of accountability and transparency are being obliterated by series of dead ends. Our government is learning that it can do anything it wants—with impunity. That makes it dangerous.

Not so sure? Head on down to the County’s south shore this week and watch what a successful appeal of an industrial wind project looks like.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca