A 5,400-kilogram blade on a wind turbine exploded and shredded near Pontypool in the City of Kawartha Lakes on Saturday morning. Officials are investigating after a wind turbine in the City of Kawartha Lakes was heavily damaged on the weekend.

Safety Structural Failure Ontario

The employee received a severe injury, which resulted in a permanent injury, according to the Ministry of Labour. The investigation revealed that CS Wind didn't provide workers with "information, instruction and or instruction with respect to a safe procedure for cutting wind tower sections."

Safety Injury Ontario

The Ontario Ministry of Labour has confirmed that the plant is in a “state of shutdown”, but there is still no word on whether the shutdown is temporary or permanent. The City of Windsor, which offered the company millions of dollars in incentives to set up shop in the city, is among those trying to get answers.  However, city officials have not made much headway.

General Ontario

Water Wells First members were once optimistic after a promise made by Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Doug Ford during last year’s provincial election campaign that a health-hazard investigation would be initiated if he was elected premier. However, since the citizens’ group received that promise in writing from Ford last May, its members continue to wait for this investigation to start.

Pollution Impact on People Ontario

Hundreds of people are out of work after CS Wind, which moved to Windsor with great fanfare and $10 million in incentives, shut down its local factory. ...MacPherson said the explanation he heard for the shutdown was a lack of work after the province cancelled hundreds of renewable energy contracts.

General Ontario

Local water activists are up in arms over plans for Chatham-Kent’s Chief Medical Officer of Health to speak about groundwater at an upcoming conference. ...Water Wells First officials say without a proper Health Hazard Investigation into the issue locally, Dr Colby’s presentation may be somewhat premature.

Pollution Impact on People Ontario

A Melancthon family is taking Dufferin Wind Power Inc. to court over allegations that the hydro transmission lines have affected their quality of life. The case is set to go before the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal in the spring, after expert reports have been filed for both sides.

Impact on People Property Values Transmission Ontario

Cancelling 758 renewable energy contracts—including Otter Creek– was one of the first moves of the newly elected Progressive Conservative party after they were elected in the spring of 2018. The project was expected to be built and commissioned by the end of 2019.  

General Ontario

Residents realized their worst fears as the project began the construction phase last summer. Nineteen wells began to experience sediment problems, Jakubec says — nearly a third of the 64 wells that the group members had tested at their own expense. Bill Clarke, a hydrogeologist for Water Wells First who gathered and analyzed the samples, says follow-up testing showed the affected wells experienced changes in water turbidity, amount of particles, colour, and rate of flow.

Pollution Impact on People Ontario

In a decision dated late last week, the Ontario's Environmental Review Tribunal said the group's evidence was not strong enough. "We were not surprised by the tribunal's ruling, but we were disappointed by the outcome," said Margaret Benke, who lives near the wind farm site and was involved in organizing the appeal. ...Benke said the group is considering a lawsuit, though it may be too costly.

Impact on People Legal Ontario

This study also addresses underlying reasons for the lack of consensus across related studies in other jurisdictions. There are a number of potential contributing factors, including the possibility that differences in attitudes toward wind energy may influence the likelihood of property value impacts. Areas with greater opposition to wind energy development may be more likely to experience negative impacts on property values. I examined the degree to which differences in attitudes influenced property values in Ontario.

Property Values Ontario

"The Green Energy Repeal Act eliminates a piece of legislation that introduced disastrous changes to Ontario's energy system that led to rising electricity rates for families and businesses," said Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines, Greg Rickford. "By repealing this act, we're restoring planning decisions to municipalities that were stripped by previous government and ensuring local voices have the final say on energy projects in their communities."

Energy Policy Ontario

The Parry Sound 33 forest fire began at a massive wind farm construction site on the northeastern shore of Georgian Bay on July 18. The blaze burned out of control until late August. The forest was tinder dry. With no rain in weeks, the parched grass in the undergrowth had turned to straw, prompting fire bans across northeastern Ontario.

Safety Ontario

McNaughton said the health ministry has ordered Ontario’s chief medical officer to review all of the data on past collections and information gathered over the past few years to get answers for impacted families. “(This) begins the process of getting to the bottom of this,” the MPP said.

Impact on People Ontario

Napper said the assessed value of wind turbines is out of whack when compared to other industrial properties, such as natural gas and oil pipelines, or agricultural grain elevators. “Most of that money is going out of the country, and I just think it would be a win-win situation for every municipality to have those tax dollars,” Napper said.

Taxes & Subsidies Ontario

Infrastructure minister Monte McNaughton said: "Well-connected energy insiders made fortunes putting up wind farms and solar panels that gouge hydro consumers in order to generate electricity that Ontario doesn’t need. "Today, we are proud to say that the party with taxpayers’ money is over."

Energy Policy Ontario

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act, which the Ford government announced Thursday it would officially cancel, was one of the most monumental government follies of our time. It was a hydra-headed monster of regulations and fiat that bludgeoned Ontario’s rural communities, stripped Ontario’s municipalities of every right to the slightest participation in their own planning, placed a darkling pall over the manufacturing industry, and imposed the highest electricity costs in all North America on some of Ontario’s lowest-income citizens.

Energy Policy Ontario

Water Wells First, a grassroots group, began raising concerns two years ago about the potential impact the construction of the North Kent Wind farm would have on water wells due to Kettle Point black shale geology and the shallow aquifer in the area. Since then, more than 20 water wells have reported significant amounts of sediments that have clogged up the flow of water during construction and after operation of the wind farm began.

Pollution Impact on People Ontario

Hall says the turbines were "pretty successful," though they never supplied more than a small fraction of Yukon's power — about one megawatt. That's about one per cent of Yukon's typical power usage in winter, according to Hall.

General Ontario

“It is a clear example of sovereign risk. It is certainly not unique, but it is a reminder of how the government can pass legislation that deprives a party of contractual rights or remedies,” says O’Neill. “You are not dealing with a private counter-party. You are dealing with an entity that has statute-making power.” 

Legal Ontario