"The Green Energy Act, 2009 and its regulations clearly do not appear to meet the requirements of law in the province of Ontario," said lawyer Eric Gillespie today in a news conference at Queen's Park. On behalf of his client Ian Hanna, Gillespie explained that a court application was filed earlier today for judicial review of the Green Energy Act, 2009 based on the Precautionary Principle as it applies to industrial wind turbine installations.

It's too late to stop the surge of wind-farm development in Ontario, even by arguing the turbines cause illness, says Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Murdoch. "As far as what they can do about it, there really isn't a heck of a lot," he said yesterday. ...Emotions ran high at Thursday's public meeting, which the health unit organized to provide wind turbine information to residents.

This week, Concerned Citizens to Save Roxbury appealed the Maine Department of Environmental Protection's approval of the Record Hill Wind Project. The group wants the DEP's board to hold a public hearing to explore conflicting medical and technical information regarding the licensing of large wind turbine projects. The appeal comes while Gov. John Baldacci is on a trade mission in Europe to promote Maine as an attractive place to develop wind power.

Tom Lewis, planning and environment manager with IPC Energy, said his company takes the results of a Wind Concerns Ontario survey seriously, but pointed to an earlier survey that found an overwhelming number of Ontarians are in favour of wind energy. "I think there is a small number of people susceptible to health problems and I certainly empathize with them," Lewis said.

The Cohocton Wind Farm Controversy continues -- this time, over print reports the turbines were not producing power. ...Local print reports quoted an official from the New York Independent Service Operator saying even though the turbines are spinning, the energy wasn't actually going into the power grid.

Supervisor Frank Duserick said the town of Naples is investigating what legal standing it may have to protest the placement of wind turbines planned for neighboring Prattsburgh. "We're not against wind towers," Duserick said. "But we are for appropriate placement of towers. Our concern is they should have put them a minimum of 1,500 feet from the town line." Ecogen of West Seneca, near Buffalo, has proposed building up to 53 turbines - though the number could fall to 31 if it switches from a 1.5 to 2.5-megawatt model - in Prattsburgh in 2009.

Opponents of a controversial wind farm planned near Wellington are going back to court, claiming new evidence could limit the hours the project is allowed to run. Makara Guardians have asked both the High Court and the Environment Court to consider hearing submissions about the noise expected to come from Meridian Energy's West Wind project near Makara. ... Makara Guardians lawyer Graham Taylor said the group was not appealing against the project in full, but wanted to bring new evidence before the court about conditions relating to wind noise.

A recent report published by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has said large wind farms such as proposed here are not the way forward for New Zealand, the significant adverse impacts are avoidable by harnessing wind power using smaller clusters of small turbines servicing remote towns, and this will be better for the country. Unfortunately this report was published just after our hearing was completed.

A DRAMATIC stop has been put on an application to erect 10 of the largest wind turbines in Wales on a site near Pencader.

The streamlined rules establish new procedures for demonstrating wind energy facility compliance with existing noise control standards. These standards are used by the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council to evaluate the location of new energy facilities.

They introduced the world to "environmentally friendly" energy, but now some of Europe's "greenest" countries are under pressure to backtrack on wind farms as public anger grows over their impact on the countryside.