By allowing these wind factories to take over Essex County, they will damage and destroy the plants, animals and birds that rely on these already fragile wetlands for there existent. ...Despite what some people may think and feel, we live in a very special and beautiful place and it deserves to be protected. I challenge all who love Holiday Beach, Point Pelee, Jack Miner's, Hillman Marsh and so on, to let your voices be heard.

Had the research been peer reviewed, published in a scientific journal of repute and conducted completely independently by Ryerson University, with funding for the project not emanating from any level of government, credence could legitimately be given to its findings. ...The lengths and depths to which governments at all levels will go in order to foist their projects onto an unwilling electorate no longer surprises me, but I am bitterly disappointed. We deserve better.

Gengrowth wind turbines are to be situated in a great monotonous line along the historic Talbot Trail, through Palmyra, Morpeth, and stretching out along the shores of Lake Erie. It is hard to imagine that in 2008, precious land bordering beautiful natural beaches and cliffs of Lake Erie will be dotted with giant wind turbines sweeping the countryside. This is only one of many lines and grids that will weave through, connect, and wind around heritage and cultural landmarks while fencing in small towns and fencing out the natural beauty of rural Chatham-Kent. ...Like Quixote, one cannot help but feel an unsettling and disturbing ill wind brewing. ...Hopefully, there are a few Don Quixotes left. It is important and necessary to fight against the smiling giants of profit and opportunity whose false promises of economic benefits are, in this opinion, full of hot air and come at a great expense. It is time to demand that both the provincial and municipal governments preserve the heritage, and unique cultural and natural assets of Chatham-Kent. It is time to "tilt at windmills."

So the wind power industry and consultants hired by the government tell us Ontario's noise rules for wind farms are 'very good' and 'strike a balance'. ...While the MOE studies the problem, Ontario's lax noise rules allow the government to let contracts worth $15 billion for another 3,000 wind turbines to be squeezed into populated southern Ontario. As the wind farm developers follow the yellow brick road to Oz, families caught up in the developments will be exposed to noise pollution levels two times higher than what the World Health Organization says are safe.

With the current threat of some 725 industrial-scale wind turbines proposed for the Municipality of Chatham-Kent many local residents have begun to alter their plans for the future. These altered plans will have a serious economic spin-off for our municipality. The following is a list of some economic opportunities that are being lost due to the threat of industrializing the countryside with wind turbines: ...Wind farms will reduce any infill housing in rural Chatham-Kent and preclude many lifestyle developments and economic opportunities. Existing housing located next to wind farms will deteriorate and become abandoned. Is this the vision we have for our municipality?

Members of Chatham-Kent council who have expressed some hesitation about the proliferation of wind turbines within the municipality are right to be worried. According to the municipality's planning consultant, Chatham-Kent could receive proposals to build as many as "650 to 700 additional turbines," although just 200 to 250 turbines in Chatham-Kent AND nearby Essex County can be supported right now by the electricity grid. Yet a land rush mentality appears to be sweeping through those companies ...But wind energy won't solve all of our energy challenges. Interest in their development was only launched by the McGuinty government four years ago, after the Liberals had won the election and had promised to close Ontario's coal-fired plants by 2007. It was a decision made entirely because of political idealism. It was a rash promise, but part of the public's imagination was piqued by the idea of harnessing the wind.

To zone four more plots of land for this use without first seeing a wind turbine in production in Chatham-Kent is a gross error, in my humble opinion. An area close to Wheatley has already been zoned for wind energy. Based on my technical background, I think it is of vital importance to first see this up and running over a period of time before we move forward with these new proposals. ...Only by pressing pause on the present proposal can you find out what is best for your customers - the citizens of Chatham-Kent. Should the turbines be 500 meters or 750 meters from the nearest house based on their noise levels? Should they be one kilometre from shorelines like Essex County is discussing?

One reason for continuing anxiety over the process is that the federal government has yet to say what role it will have in evaluating the project. The terms of reference say only that federal environmental requirements "are being determined." Rightly or wrongly, the public tends to find comfort with a federal presence in such reviews, the bigger the better. This is due partly to lingering suspicion that provincial environmental scrutiny isn't up to snuff, but it's also just the notion that the more expert eyeballs that are studying a project the better. As attractive as this project is conceptually, it must be shown convincingly that it can be done at an acceptable, which is to say minimal, ecological impact and risk.

Recently there has been a lot of he said/ she said concerning the wind energy and its attempted foothold in our community. But the most blatant report of ignorance came in the form of a story about council members visiting a working wind farm in Port Burwell. ...unlike the council members that decided to visit Port Burwell, we have made multiple trips there. The day the story was printed in the Chatham Daily News, Greg Foster and I had just returned from a visit to Goderich to talk to various farmers that are living through the hell that we are trying to avoid. We have spoken to them at great length on the phone as well.

Editor's note: This letter is addressed to the members of Chatham-Kent council and Mayor Randy Hope. ...I am incredibly shocked and disappointed that people who wish to do business in this community could care so little for the people who live in it. It is appalling to me that a representative of this company could show such disdain and contempt for people that could be potential neighbours. So, I am left with the following questions: Should we find that our quality of life is disturbed, the noise level is greater than expected, our property becomes unsellable and/or devalued or our health is adversely affected, who is liable? Where do we seek recourse?

In 1996, Denmark went on to hit industrial producers with a $15 per tonne carbon tax, initially neutralized by cuts in payroll taxes. What happened? By 1998, manufacturers started shutting their doors due to high energy prices, and overall Danish carbon tax revenues started to fall along with manufacturing jobs. At the same time, the cost of government programs rose significantly. The government's solution incredibly was to - wait for it - subsidize electricity to select manufacturers and raise income taxes by lowering the income threshold on the country's top marginal rate. By 2001, with economic growth hovering at one- seventh-of-one-percent, Danes making over CAD$50,000 paid 59 per cent of their income in taxes and had to cope with record electricity prices. The entire debacle led to a change of government that year, with the incoming government promising a tax freeze, followed by a tax reduction - including those taxes on energy.

Chatham-Kent is proud to be known for its farmland, outstanding fishing and hunting and most importantly our quality of life. Now threatening all of this is AIM PowerGen Corp. proposing a possible 100 wind turbine generators and Gengrowth proposing nine wind farms with five wind turbines on each. With government grants and incentives, there will be more. Before we make it easier for them to destroy our quality of life with our tax dollars and by changing existing development bylaws, please stop and consider.

Over the past several months there have been three notices in The Citizen regarding use of provincial lands for installation of monitoring towers to investigate the potential of wind energy. There have been similar notices in Vanderhoof for additional lands in that area. Taken individually, these seem not too intrusive, but cumulatively, looking at the big picture, the possibility of having one big wind farm, stretching from the south side of Cluculz Lake over to the area between Bednesti and Dahl Lakes, then across Highway 16 from Cobb Lake to Eskers Provincial Park - alarm bells start going off. I would like to embrace the concept of wind energy but I am really concerned with regards to the impact these possible installations may have on both resident and migratory birds.

The setback from an industrial wind turbine to a home is smaller than the setback to an industrial zone. Since the wind turbines themselves are industrial, this would seem to be an absurd policy. The setback from property lines and roadways is 50 metres. Since the turbines are 120 m. tall, if one should fall, throw ice, or parts, etc. it would damage neighbouring and/or municipal property. This will also affect what citizens can do in the future with their property (i.e.: not being able to build a barn, or house, or any number of future opportunities that will be curtailed) and so, will be infringing on their rights. The setback from an off-site residential dwelling (a house on a non-leased farm for example) is 300 m., while the setback is 600 m. from a rural residential home (i.e. a house on a severed rural lot). Isn't a home - a home?

A report commissioned by the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities is going to do very little to settle the debate over just how close wind turbines should be located to homes and it's not likely to be welcomed by those fighting proposed wind farms in their backyards - such as those opposing the plan to erect turbines in the Gulf Shore region of Cumberland County. In the report, consultants Jacques Whitford suggest it should be left up to individual municipalities ...The 117-page report concludes there are no internationally accepted standards for dealing with controversial issues surrounding wind farms, especially when it comes to things like setbacks, the impact on real estate values and noise.

Ask yourself if you would purchase a home surrounded by these industrial wind sites. I asked 100 people. Ninety-nine immediately answered no. The one who said yes, quickly changed his mind when I mentioned the high-power lines. Wake up, Harrow and Essex County. These huge giants are on the horizon. They will be in your backyard if you don't speak up now.

Nova Scotia has the potential to become a world leader in tidal power. But to be successful, we have to make sure we get it right economically, socially and environmentally. That's why it's disappointing and even a little alarming that Premier Rodney MacDonald's government rushed out an announcement last Tuesday on a multimillion-dollar test centre on the shores of the Minas Basin - four months before an extensive environmental report is due that is supposed to establish the ground rules for tidal development in the Bay of Fundy. ...In its haste to claim progress on green energy, the government failed to establish a regime of best practices [on siting wind farms]. No standards were put in place, for example, for minimum setbacks from residential properties, protecting sightlines, or trying to engage community ownership. This resulted in acrimony in many rural villages that suddenly found themselves hosting towering industrial turbines owned by people living far away. It wasn't until this past fall that MacDonald's government agreed to cost-share a $45,000 study with the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities on best practices for bylaws regulating wind turbine siting.

Contrary to what you may have heard, the Great Bear Rainforest is not under attack. Neither is Premier Gordon Campbell backing down from his promise to protect environmentally significant portions of the central coast because the province is considering applications for electrical-power generation in the region. As The Sun's Larry Pynn discovered this week, the province is looking at proposals for a large wind farm and four commercial run-of-the-river power generation projects that have the potential to infringe on either existing or planned conservancies. ...The 2006 legislation defining the conservancies on the central coast specifically forbids "large hydro-electric" developments, but permits run-of-the river projects designed to provide power to local communities not serviced by the provincial power grid. ...But the legislation is silent on wind power and does not specifically forbid transmission lines.

To become carbon neutral, a company would either reduce its own emissions or offset the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) it creates by buying credits from a project that has lower emissions. At least one aspect of this proposal could translate into taxpayer savings. Starting in 2008, government organizations are supposed to reduce emissions on government business travel. ...Not only will carbon neutrality probably cost an arm and a leg, it provides no guarantee that man-made CO2 emissions will fall. Although CO2 reductions may result in welcome savings in a day and age when in- person meetings are seldom a technological necessity, offsets could have significant unintended consequences. Hospitals already have enough challenges, and now their bureaucrats are going to spend time and money trading CO2? Just a thought, but maybe reducing surgical wait times should be a higher priority. B.C. taxpayers will be paying big time for feel good messages that may have little or no benefit. This is very costly hot air.

... before we rush off to embrace wind energy we must make darn sure it's not going to ruin people's lives. While it would be easy to study this to death, there has to be definitive answers to lingering questions and they must be settled before the first turbine is put in place next door to communities and homes. It's too late to try and answer questions after they're already erected. Let's get it right while we still have a chance with solid fact-based evidence so we're not looking back at what could have been done.