Local wind farm opponents vowed yesterday to keep pushing for independent studies into the effects wind turbines have on people. Ontario legislators rejected Bruce- Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Murdoch's call to halt industrial wind farm development until the province's top doctor can assure the government turbines don't harm people living nearby.

A Prince Edward County man is going to court over Ontario's new setback rules for industrial wind farms. Lawyer Eric Gillespie, acting on behalf of client Ian Hanna, a resident of Big Island, has launched the first legal challenge to the Ontario government's Green Energy Act which requires wind turbines be located a minimum 550 metres from homes.

Ian Hanna said his application for judicial review, being called the first of its kind, is his latest appeal to the government after petitions failed to stop plans for five turbines about 900 metres away from his property on Big Island in the Bay of Quinte. The community of about 100 homes will be overwhelmed by the turbines, he charged. "My parents taught us when we were growing up that we should stand up for what we thought is good and right and whether that's for my family or for my neighbours, I intend to do that," he said.

John Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister, will today launch a ferocious attack on the "landowners and nimbys" who he says are holding up the installation of wind farms across Britain and thus hindering the fight against climate change. In unashamed class-warrior style, Mr Prescott lashes out at opponents of windpower who successfully block planning applications for wind turbines because they may spoil their "chocolate box view".

"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.

Green energy is the only option for ending Ontario's reliance on coal plants, a spokeswoman for Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman said yesterday. While there may be unanswered health questions related to industrial wind turbines, there's no doubt about health risks associated with coal burning power plants, Smitherman's press secretary Amy Tang said. "We have to remember why we entered into renewable energy in the first place, which was our commitment to get off coal," she said.

Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Murdoch announced yesterday he will call for a provincewide moratorium on wind turbine projects later this month. Murdoch said in a news release yesterday he will introduce a resolution, which he expects to be debated on Oct. 29, that calls on the province and its chief medical doctor to state whether or not wind turbines cause health problems for people who live near them. Murdoch said the government has a responsibility as well as a mandate to investigate such claims.

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.

Question: This week and next, the Bureau des audiences publiques sur l'environnement is holding hearings on two proposed wind projects in central Quebec. Last week, it heard from citizens affected by a 78-turbine wind farm near Thetford Mines. On Wednesday, it will hold hearings in St. Ferdinand on a proposed 50-turbine wind farm. Residents are deeply divided and some have reported acts of vandalism and threats. How concerned are you over how these projects have torn apart communities?

It was the strangest sensation Lynda Barry ever felt: a near-constant vibration within her body. ...Barry was standing in a house in Fond du Lac County, near a wind farm. The vibration she felt was created by wind-power turbines, one just 1,100 feet away. These were part of the Blue Sky Green Fields wind project, 88 wind towers owned and operated by We Energies. The owners of the house complained of ringing in their ears anytime the wind turbines and their 100-foot blades were spinning.

Even as Americans tell pollsters they are eager for alternatives to fossil fuel, some are fighting proposals for solar and wind projects and for the thousands of miles of transmission lines that would be needed to carry the cleaner energy to market. The protests echo grass-roots opposition that has blocked nuclear plants and energy-producing trash incinerators for decades. The new backlash is fueled by worries that renewable-energy projects would occupy vast amounts of land to produce significant amounts of power.

A group of Manitoulin Island residents is taking on a Toronto-based energy company, accusing Northland Power Inc. of fast-tracking a wind farm project without proper consultation. The dispute is the latest sign of a groundswell of unease over wind power projects in the province, fuelled by groups such as Wind Concerns Ontario, which have been highly critical of the effects of such development on local communities. ...one of the project's most vocal opponents, says Northland has essentially "bulldozed" its plan over the community with little opportunity for a meaningful public response.

If the vast creosote-covered plain that is California's Mojave Desert represents to some the grand potential of America's renewable-energy future, Jim Harvey sees something else. "Their model is 'You must kill land to save land,' " said Harvey, a Web- page designer and homegrown activist who sees the Obama administration's push for green energy here as a destructive force poised to swallow his beloved desert. "How does that make any sense?"

Either way, the sound of wind turbines is making more ears perk up as a bill moves forward in the Legislature that would empower the Public Service Commission to create statewide rules governing wind power and pre-empt local government control over their placement. The rules would govern the distance between turbines and homes along with their noise and the flicker effects of shadows from their turbine blades.

Ministers are considering whether to establish a "conservation bank" to help overcome planning objections to wind farms and other renewable-energy projects. Planning problems have held back British onshore wind farms. Vestas blamed nimby (not in my back yard) objections for its recent decision to shut Britain's only wind-turbine plant, on the Isle of Wight (see panel below). Vestas and other energy groups say planning delays and uncertainties make it riskier to invest in Britain than in other countries.

Will wind-generated power save the environment or sacrifice it? The answer depends on who you ask ..."Your senators are very brave in what they're doing," said Lisa Linowes of New Hampshire-based Wind Action. "The legislature already concluded when it adopted the Ridge ordinance that your mountains have cultural significance to the state. When asked now to consider whether that value is worth more - or less - than wind generated electrons on the grid, your mountain senators are doing what most politicians in the U.S. have not done. They're putting a cold eye to the options and deciding wind is not worth the sacrifice, at least for now."

The 29th Congressional District is ground zero for wind farm development with more than 1,200 turbines ultimately planned for the region, according to U.S. Rep. Eric Massa, D-Corning. Massa was in town Monday night to discuss his opposition to the federal health reform act, during a 1.5-hour long town hall meeting, saying the act would impose a higher surcharge on New Yorkers and undermine Medicare.

Bryne Purchase, a former deputy minister of finance and energy in Ontario, now executive director of the Queen's University Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy, says Dalton McGuinty's government seems to be flying by the seat of its pants when it comes to energy. "This has all been driven by relatively simple political thinking: coal bad, wind good," he says. A carbon tax, whatever the form, would have had the advantage of pricing the pollutants out of the market, rather than making wind the default winning technology.

Reminding a state panel Shay's Rebellion was fought in the Berkshires, numerous area residents expressed their displeasure on Wednesday night with a bill working its way through the Legislature they say would put too much control over wind-turbine permitting in the hands of a "politically appointed" state board. "This is about giving away your freedom, this is about giving away your power," said self-proclaimed mountain man Rene Wendell.