Subject: DEADLINE FRIDAY: Eight Reasons the Digby Wind Power Project is a bad fit for Digby Neck tomhaynespaton
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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.
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.
-------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------
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
