Mr. Schneider, a retired biologist from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and a 38-year resident of Cape Vincent, provided these compelling comments in response to Canadian Hydro Developers' environmental review report on the Wolfe Island wind project. The first page of his letter is provided below. The full text can be accessed by clicking on the link(s) at the bottom of this page.

Mr. Robert Miller
c/o Canadian Hydro Developers Inc.
190 Collingwood Street
Kingston, Ontario K7L 3X8

RE: Wolfe Island Wind Project -Environmental Review Report

Dear Mr. Miller:

I am a retired biologist from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and a 38-year resident of Cape Vincent. During the time I have lived and worked in Cape Vincent, I have developed an affection and attachment to Wolfe Island and its people. For that reason, I am very interested in how your proposed wind power project will ultimately affect the island and the community. I reviewed the Wolfe Island Wind Project Environmental Review Report prepared by Stantec, Inc., and hope that you consider some of my comments and suggestions. I assumed you would welcome my comments, since copies of the ERR report were made available at the Cape Vincent Village office.

My focus is on the section of the report that deals with waterfowl resources of Wolfe Island. The report provides an adequate description of the various avian resources that are common to Wolfe Island and it rightly concludes they are extremely valuable and sensitive. My chief concern, however, is that the analysis of the impacts of the windfarm project are inadequate. Furthermore, without some form of quantified analysis of your proposed project's impacts, it is impossible to understand how your windfarm will eventually affect Wolfe Island's waterfowl.

Let me first outline important points the report substantiated. In the conclusion of the Bird Report (Appendix C5), it states:

"Wolfe Island has been identified as an IBA (Important Bird Area) due to the presence of globally and continentally significant congregatory species (i.e., wintering hawks and owls) and for continentally significant migratory waterfowl concentrations," and "As a result, Wolfe Island is a Category 4 Level of Concern project from the perspective of bird use, based on Environment Canada (2007a) criteria." [more...]

Editor's note: The full text of these comments can be accessed by clicking on the link(s) below.

Web link: http://www.wolfeislandresidents.ca/pdfs/CSchneider...

Download File(s):
CSchneiderCommentsWolfeIslandERR.pdf (190.83 kB)