Friday Deadline

From: Tom Haynes-Paton
Date: 8/4/2009 11:06:36 AM
Subject: FRIDAY DEADLINE: Eight Reasons the Digby Wind Power Project is a bad fit for Digby Neck

Tom's note: I favor wind energy. But because of the serious potential health threats to residents, not when located in the midst of a residential community like Digby Neck.
And also for economic/environmental reasons not on Digby Neck, because it will seriously disrupt and damage our area's primary eco-tourism destination. My business dropped 50% for a 4-week period while they merely resurfaced the Digby Neck highway. Many tourists, told about the disruptions, went via the South Shore instead. The wind farm construction is to take more than a year. And worse, with permanent industrial wind installations, "The best kept eco-tourism secret Digby Neck" will become industrial-park Digby Neck.

Skypower Inc. is now trying to flood Nova Scotia Environment Minister Sterling Belliveau with a "I support the Digby Neck wind farm" form letter.

Please mail or email EA@gov.ns.ca your own concerns by this Friday's postmarked deadline to:
Environmental Assessment Branch
Nova Scotia Environment
PO Box 442
Halifax, NS B3J 2P8 Or phone the Review Manager at 902-424-7630




For further background information, see the helpful summation article below.






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From: fntp1@ns.sympatico.ca
To: fntp1@ns.sympatico.ca
Subject: Eight Reasons the Digby Wind Power Project is a bad fit for Digby Neck
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 11:42:01 -0300



Digby Neck needs your help again if it is to remain unmolested by thoughtless industrialization.



Perhaps you have heard that a 20 turbine wind farm, "Digby Wind Park", is proposed for the Gulliver's Cove/Rossway area of Digby Neck. Construction is scheduled to begin in September with an April 2010 "in service" date for the 30 megawatt facility.



The proponent is a partnership of Scotian WindFields Inc. of Nova Scotia and SkyPower Corp. of Toronto.



The project is currently undergoing a provincial Environmental Assessment (EA).



SkyPower's EA, prepared by Jacques Whitford Stantec Ltd., was filed on April 30, 2009. On June 19, the Deputy Minister of the Environment found it lacking and gave the proponent a year to come up with additional information.



Two weeks later on July 3, SkyPower filed their Addendum with most of the additional information in the form of a new turbine layout.



The deadline for comments on the Addendum, which can include comments on the original EA, is next Saturday August 8. All documents are available for review on the Department of Environment website www.gov.ns.ca/nse/ea



Please take the time to send your comments on this proposed project to the NS Department of Environment. Contact information is at the end of this email.

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Regardless of how you feel about the benefits of wind power, the Digby Wind Power Project should not be allowed to go ahead for the environmental and health reasons summarized below:



1) According to the Addendum, there are 113 residences within 2 km of a proposed turbine. Of these, 39 are within 1 km of a turbine - several are 600 to 700 metres away from a turbine even in the latest turbine layout.



There is peer-reviewed medical evidence that there are likely to be health effects among some of these residents. Current knowledge indicates that these health effects are caused by the low frequency noise (LFN) created by the 77 metre diameter rotors (rotating blades) slicing through the air, not from the mechanical noise of the gears in the nacelle. Dr. Nina Pierpont, a medical doctor in private practice in upstate New York has studied cases of people affected by large turbines. She suggests turbines be located a minimum of 2.4 km (1.5 miles) from occupied buildings.



Though the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) cites the opinions of acousticians to dispute Dr. Pierpont’s work, we know of no medical doctor who has reviewed her work and found her methods or conclusions to be unscientific. See www.windturbinesyndrome.com for more on Dr. Pierpont's work.



With the Addendum, the proponent submitted a paper prepared by CanWEA that "reiterates that peer-reviewed scientific literature have consistently found no evidence linking wind turbines to human health concerns."



2) Health Canada, in their submission on the EA, asked the proponent to Please ensure that the environmental assessment contains a discussion regarding the audibility of the turbines and it is advisable to also develop a communication strategy to accurately disclose the potential noise related to the project to nearby residents prior to project construction....Please provide a discussion of the potential for low frequency noise at the nearest residential receptors, and provide an assessment of whether or not monitoring for low frequency noise is warranted.



In the Addendum, the proponent responded there is no evidence that the wind turbine technology proposed for the Project presents any potential problems related to the generation of infrasound energy. Infrasound is generally accepted to be frequencies ranging from 0 to 20 cycles per second (Hz). Low frequency noise (LFN) is 20 to 200 cycles per second (Hz). They are clearly avoiding the question.



3) If any residents in the local communities of Gulliver's Cove, Rossway and Waterford do end up being affected by the 118 metre tall machines, the 35.4 kilovolt overhead connector lines running between them, the substation, or the new 69 kilovolt transmission line to be built to connect to the grid at Digby, the proponents offer no mitigation other than creating a registry for complaints.



4) If residents wish to sell their homes and move away, rather than live with the noise and annoyance of the machines, or the drastic change in their landscape, the proponents offer no guarantee that their homes won't have lost most of their current value by being within a wind farm. Many people will have no option but to continue living in what may become a very undesirable and disturbing place. Many local families have lived in the area for generations.



5) The proponent states that the project will have no significant negative effect on tourism in the area. NS Tourism, Culture and Heritage in their submission on the EA stated that the general area does have an extensive history and natural beauty which gives it tourism appeal and potential. The department has several concerns about the impact of the project on the area and its people. These concerns about the impact of the project on tourism in the area are not addressed in the Addendum as they were not specifically spelled out in the Deputy Minister's decision.



6) The new turbine layout creates a row of ten turbines along approximately 2500 metres of the ridge of the North Mountain, west of the village of Gulliver's Cove.



Digby Neck in this area is about 3 km wide and the turbines would occupy the northern half of the width for a distance of 2.5 km along the Neck. Digby Neck is a known bird migration corridor, particularly during the fall migration (flying north to south). Nearby Brier Island has the international designation "Important Bird Area".



There is no discussion in the Addendum of the impact of the latest turbine configuration on migrating birds or bats. The conclusions in the EA are that Although Digby Neck itself is considered to be an important bird migration corridor, no such importance has been identified for the Project area itself. The mitigation proposed, in the event of bird or bat fatalities, is that "it is likely" they will count the bodies for two years after construction.



7) Ecology Action Centre which, like many environmental groups, supports the development of this type of wind project expects that municipal land use by-laws will make sure they are sited in locally appropriate places.



In Digby Municipality, a draft by-law was developed over the past year by the Planning Advisory Committee with input from concerned residents. This by-law was then rejected by Council on July 20, after the proponent strongly voiced their objections to it during the final hearing on June 29. Incredible as it may seem, three of the four councillors who voted against the draft by-law also sit on the Planning Advisory Committee which developed it.



Though we participated in the municipal planning process in good faith we remain without any protection from a local land use by-law to regulate wind development in Digby Municipality.



8) Lease agreements for the lands to be used for the wind farm were negotiated in secret. There was no public consultation about the project by the proponent until months later.



Two members of council were informed of the proposal at a secret meeting in July 2007, reportedly after key lands had been secured through lease options. The ill-fated by-law process was begun the following spring as additional Lease Options were being signed.



The first public meeting, in open house format, was held by the proponent in November 2008. Between the Deputy Minister's decision on June 19, 2009 and the upcoming deadline for comments on the Addendum, August 8, there will have been three additional open houses.



Repeated requests from concerned residents for a formal, recordable public meeting to answer our questions have been rejected by the proponent. This lack of true public consultation during the planning stages of the project is unacceptable to us.



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We urge you to submit a short comment to the Department of Environment on or before the Saturday, August 8, 2009 deadline.



Please email your comments to EA@gov.ns.ca, phone the Review Manager at 902-424-7630, or mail them to Environmental Assessment Branch, Nova Scotia Environment, PO Box 442, Halifax, NS B3J 2P8 postmarked on or before August 8.



Thank you!



A Growing Number of Concerned Residents of Digby Municipality