my rant

Each week for the past year I sit in meetings with Wolfe Islanders for the Environment (WIRE) discussing wind turbines and get depressed at the state of our situation and here's why:

The entire project of erecting 86 wind turbines within a 6km radius on the western part of Wolfe Island has been completely undemocratic, and there is a mere handful of us trying to fairly find our way through the mess that CREC (the windpower company), our own town council, and our federal and provincial governmental bodies has created by not establishing proper bylaws that protect humans, wildlife and the environment from the potential health and financial problems living with a wind farm can cause.

Provincially the government is not in a position to implement these turbines when issues across the province regarding noise, set backs, shadow flicker, etc., remain unregulated and left at the discretion of municipalities with no guidelines or direction from the province.

Wind farms have proven themselves to be financially wasteful and have shown they do not fulfill their intent to close any coal-fired plants. It's fast becoming an epidemic. Wind plants are now being drawn within a 60km radius of Kingston without any legislation in place to protect us, but to act solely in favour of the 'for profit' developers.

In my opinion there needs to be a moratorium on all projects until all relevant ministries have policies in place that protect and proper guidelines become available.

This all sounds like it should be easy to achieve right? Unfortunately when dealing with a company that is eager to make a profit, they are going to find any loophole in order to speed up the process. Our municipal gov't has a mandate to fulfill its own Green initiative which this turbine project fills nicely thank you very much. WIRE is trying to put on the breaks and fast. The good news is the interest in starting a coalition of small communities that find themselves in the same boat. Power in numbers creates a stronger presence, a unified front that is harder to ignore than a handful of people trying to make a difference. It's time to rally.