Township opts out of wpd remedy hearing
A remedy hearing for wpd’s Fairview Wind Project took place this week in Collingwood.
Clearview Township opted not to participate.
“We decided not to push forward with the remedy hearing,” said CAO Stephen Sage. “We feel as though we won, not only on the environmental issue with respect to bats but we also won with the threat to human health issue because of the flight path of the airplanes, and we still expect the province to uphold that decision and regardless of the bat decision we feel the windmills shouldn’t be there because of the threat to human health.”
He said the decision to bow out of the remedy hearing was a decision of council.
The municipality has spent about $104,000 in legal fees, fighting the wind turbines, said Sage. The municipality is consulting with those involved in this week’s hearing but he doesn’t expect the taxpayers will incur any more cost.
The township was one of the appellants fighting to reverse the approval of eight wind turbines near Collingwood Regional Airport and an aerodrome owned by Clearview Township council member Kevin Elwood, both located in Clearview Township.
One year ago, wpd Fairview Wind received approval from the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change to erect eight 500-foot wind turbines in Clearview Township. An appeal filed by John Wiggins, Gail Elwood and Kevin Elwood, Preserve Clearview, Clearview Township, the Town of Collingwood and the County of Simcoe triggered a tribunal. Appeals were allowed on the grounds that the project would cause serious harm to human health and serious and irreversible harm to plant life, animal life and the natural environment.
The tribunal found that appellants and their expert witnesses were able to show that based on flight patterns for take-offs and landings, the wind turbines pose a threat to the safety of aircraft operators.
In January, the tribunal ruled that wpd be allowed to make submissions on appropriate remedies to address the serious and irreversible harm to animal life, plant life or the natural environment but none of the parties requested an opportunity to produce evidence or make submissions on the tribunal’s finding of serious harm to human health.
Appellants opposed the remedy hearing, saying allowing remedial proposals on one test and not the other is a waste of time and money.
However, the tribunal ruled, “it is not a foregone conclusion that a finding of serious harm under the health test or serious and irreversible harm under the environment test will always result in the revocation of an approval, even if no additional evidence or submissions are made in a remedy hearing.”
