July 5, 2023
Dear Editor,
Wind energy developer ABO Wind notified the Route 19 Community Association of their plans to proceed with building 15 massive wind turbines on the Creignish Mountain ridge. As we all know, the Rhodena Wind Project was not selected for the short list of the Nova Scotia Rate Based Procurement and ABO Wind / Community Wind Farms Inc. should have actually understood the message that this project is not wanted in our community. Rankin MacDonald wrote in his editorial in The Inverness Oran at the time (quote): “There are places for wind farms. We see them on TV all the time, but are the rolling hills of Creignish a suitable location? No! No matter how you sell it, it is going to do more harm than good to our county.”
Endless letters to the editor from concerned community members were written, a petition on paper with almost 200 signatures against the wind farm was signed, and currently 510 people signed an online petition against the proposed project. Long-time local businessman Joe Shannon personally voiced his opposition before the Inverness County Council. The deputy warden was worried the project would undermine attempts to promote Inverness County as the Musical Coast. “Our municipality is the lab rat,” said Councillor Gillis. Currently, the Municipality of Inverness is reviewing its bylaw for wind turbine developments.
According to the Saltwire article (August 25th, 2022) Nova Scotia Deputy Premier and Inverness MLA Allan MacMaster stated: “I did not hear from one of those many property owners along that part of Route 19 who were in favour of the wind farm in that location.” “With the ocean on one side and the hills on the other, it’s a very scenic area that residents didn’t want touched.”
MacMaster said that despite his constituents’ opposition to the proposed wind farm site, he still feels there is support for wind-generated power. Just not there. “There are many locations in Nova Scotia where we can generate renewable energy,” he said.
Sadly, it seems ABO Wind didn’t get the message. In their current brochure that they have submitted to the Route 19 Community Association, they claim that they have revised the turbine layout in May 2023, which is misleading, because they had already promoted this layout in their brochure in May 2022 as a project update. Now they have just compared this “update” with the initial layout they had in the beginning. Very misleading!
They also state that they have reduced the number of turbines from 18 to 15, but on the other side they increased the capacity of the project to 105 megawatts, which in the initial phase was an 80 megawatts project with 18 turbines. Do the math! This means they have to switch to way more powerful and bigger turbines as they planed before. With the new calculation they have to use 15 x 7 megawatts wind turbines, which are one of the most massive turbines in the world. They claim “after hearing feedback from the community” this is their response to the concerns of our community. How in the world are they going to sell this to us?
We have recently witnessed huge wildfires in Nova Scotia forests. A wind farm in an old grown forest like we have in the Creignish Mountains could be a fire danger of unpredictable dimensions. One spark alone could cause a catastrophe of terrible proportions in a wooded area like this. We already know that from current incidents. The number one cause of wind turbine fires is lightning strikes. Other causes are electrical or mechanical malfunctions and human error. Fire suppression systems only minimize the risk of fire and the potential loss of life, but they are not 100 per cent reliable. Who wants to live with that risk in their backyard?
ABO Wind have advised us of their intentions to hold open houses and we strongly encourage everyone to attend such meetings when publicized dates are made public.
Sincerely,
Route 19 Community Association
Long Point, Judique
.
