Wind farm opponents put province on formal notice

A group opposed to the province’s plan to place seven windmills in a wetland area of Eastern Kings are putting the government on notice.

Three members of the Eastern Kings Community Association, Mary Hogan, Alan MacPhee and Fred Cheverie made a presentation last week to the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability.

The members laid out several points of contention.

The wind farm proposal which is an extension of the existing 30 MW wind farm already in operation in Elmira has been in the works since PEI Energy Corporation (PEIEC) submitted a development permit application to the Rural Municipality of Eastern Kings (RMEK) in November 2019.

A year later RMEK council voted 3-1 to reject the application. In an appeal to IRAC by the energy corporation council’s decision was quashed.

This summer Energy Minister Steven Myers made changes to the regulations in the Renewable Energy Act essentially overriding the municipality’s decision to reject the development.

That was one of the main issues presented by the association during the presentation.

“(The regulation change) gives the minister absolute authority to do 100 MW projects anywhere within any municipality without any consideration or consultation and that is anti-democratic,” Mr MacPhee said.

Ms Hogan, a former Ontario judge and Deputy Attorney General, is a seasonal resident in Eastern Kings. Coming from an urban setting she said the community engagement in rural communities is important.

She said RMEK council’s thoroughness in their decision to reject the wind farm proposal caught her attention.

“I was just so impressed by the professionalism, by the amount of time that was taken, by the concern for the community. I would hate to see this become a precedent where communities and representatives of communities are bypassed,” she said.

In addition to the area being less than 200 metres from the border of a nationally recognized migratory bird flyway known as the Red Triangle, there are other environment considerations that can’t be ignored, Mr Cheverie explained.

“This is one of the largest untouched sections of woods on PEI. It’s untouched because it was too wet to do anything with it,” Mr Cheverie said.

Mr Cheverie questions how wind turbines weighing in the neighbourhood of 12 million pounds each could be put in a wetland with no effects on flora and fauna.  

“People have been living there for 300 years,” Mr MacPhee said. “It’s not farmed, there are no houses and nobody cuts wood there.” 

He pointed out that a land owner who wanted to build a bunkhouse on his property was refused on the grounds there were wetlands, yet the wind farm development doesn’t make the wetlands an issue in its proposal.

“Unequal application of the law is not hypocrisy, it is corruption and we have a duty to apply the law equally to all people all the time,” Mr MacPhee said.

The association made four recommendations to the standing committee.

These include: requesting the new regulations be rescinded, the committee look into whether having energy and climate change under the same department is a conflict of interest, an investigation be done on what went wrong with the Hermanville Wind Farm that is now operating at less than capacity with only four of the 10 turbines in operation and to implement a guideline requiring wind park developments to include local community development corporations.

Standing committee member MLA Gord McNeilly said those recommendations will be considered when they make their report to the legislature, However he added, it isn’t the committee’s place to address all of them.

Mr MacPhee said the association will continue to protest by reaching out to various municipalities to find out their concerns about the regulation changes.

In addition the group will continue to look into the legalities of the change.

“We will be requesting a meeting with various municipalities saying, ‘Are you prepared to hand over your municipal powers?’” Mr MacPhee said.

“We will continue to call on the premier to come to (Eastern Kings) and give the people an explanation as to what he is doing and why,” he said.

According to tender documents seven turbines were purchased in December 2018 at the cost of $27,665,000 from Enercon Canada Inc, a Montreal company.

A spokesperson from the Department of Energy said the turbines have been purchased but they aren’t shipped until needed. 

Wood Environmental & Infrastructure Solutions, was paid $231,860 for the environmental assessment and Frontier Power Systems was contracted for $755,082 as project manager.