From The Farmers Forum Survey: Wind Farms On Wolfe Island

I don't think the survey is on-line yet--at least I couldn't find it here--but WCO has
posted some of the highlights:

Farmers Forum surveyed a big chunk of Wolfe Island residents and found that 75 per cent approve of or are indifferent toward the 86 wind turbines they’ve been living with for five years.

There are also some hard numbers on what hosting a turbine on your property means $-wise:

We found that money makes a difference. Those landowners (many of them farmers) hosting one or more turbines, are delighted with the $10,000 to $14,000 they earn each year per turbine just to look at them. The wind turbine company hands over another $100,000 to the island annually. Improvements to the local outdoor rink are one of the many benefits. It’s like getting paid twice for having the good luck of living at the right place on the right island at the right 

$10,000 to $14,000 is actually on the low end of the figures I've heard (the largest been $50,000 per turbine).

The folks at Wind Concerns note some issues with the methodology: it appears to have been conducted entirely at the island's ferry dock and in a nearby coffee-shop.  But the result nevertheless backs up what more rigorous studies have shown, which is that most people in the neighborhood of wind farms are not particularly upset by their presence.

Anti-Wind Battle Moves To Municipalities

Wind Concerns Ontario has a statement on the election  here.  They blame "urban voters" for the loss, although oddly enough their contact address is still  a ritzy address down in The Guild.  The next step is to run, or at least support, candidates in this October's municipal elections.  So, basically, stick a fork in 'em; they're done.  As for the wind industry's reaction, to Friday's result, it's basically a big sigh of relief.  Best story I've read on it so far is here.

MPAC Turbines And Property Values Study Update

I almost wasn't going to write about Wind Concerns Ontario's "refutation" of MPAC's study re the effects of wind turbines on property values.  However, the most interesting bit of it got rehashed in John Speer's story on the study this morning:

[Jane Wilson, of Wind Concerns Ontario]... pointed to an appendix in the MPAC report containing bar charts showing the relationship between property values and proximity to wind turbines.  She said the charts show that properties five kilometres or more from wind turbines generally have higher sale prices and assessments than those within five kilometres of turbines.

Here's the chart in question:

Now, this doesn't tell us very There maybe a zillion possible reasons, geographic or otherwise, besides the presence of wind turbines (IWTs in the parlance of the study) that may be causing sale prices in areas 5 km or up from those turbines to be higher than those properties located within 1 km.  One thing to consider: the vast majority of properties used MPAC employed in its studies were in fact located more than 5 km from an IWT.  Look at this table from the study:

About 90% of the sample of properties were located further than 5 KM from one of the IWTs at issue. Now take a look a this map of the study area (red are sales within 1 KM; green beyond 5 KM):

And compare that with a map of the same part of Ontario:

I would submit that greater than 5 km from a IWT is likely to mean closer to an urban area of one size or another, and that much of the difference in median value could be due to this fact alone.   (In other words, properties closer to an IWT--which are usually set up, according to MPAC, on farms or vacant lots--are typically further out of town than properties further away from the IWT).

Or at least: I would suggest my explanation is as likely as the one given by WCO.

Anti-Wind Forces Vandalizing Property?

The OPP seems to think so.

And its worth noting this statement from Ontario Wind Resistance:

[Editors note: Before everyone jumps to the conclusion that it MUST have been an anti- wind protestor who did this, take a moment to remember other 'incidents' that may or may not have happened: fire in Haldimand, gun in Grey, threatening letters about stakes and farm machinery - all of these looked terrible in the media, pointed the finger squarely at us, and yet nobody was charged...? Really? It could very well be the PRO-wind who did this to make our resistance look bad in the media. Pardon my skepticism, but I'm tired of SLAPP suits and crap like this that are facades that the media falls for every time, to distract from the real destruction happening in our communities by the wind companies.]

So there you have it.  It would nice to get a straight up renunciation of violence from The Resistance, rather than a conspiracy theory. We shall see if they are willing to offer one.

PS.  I wrote about the incident in Gray here.

Update: Tom Adams, a generally speaking honorable man, comes through:

@Bigcitylib2 I'm uncomfortable with your equating vandalism with terrorism but agree that property should be respected by all.
— Tom Adams (@tomadamsenergy) April 19, 2014

How Many Anti-Wind Activists In Ontario?

They can usually bring numbers in the low hundreds to their big protests, but the hard core appears to be much smaller.  From a recent Environmental Review Tribunal hearing:

 When asked, Palmer said he was a party to the appeal against the Enbridge Wind development in Kincardine in 2007.

"I was an appellant," said Palmer. "I was one of 37, three of which maintained full party status, while the rest were represented by one person."

"Many of those people became members of Wind Concerns Ontario?" asked Meuleman.

So the WCO core was about three dozen people.  This is interesting in light of the public response to the Grand Valley Wind Farms Inc. project in East Luther Grand Valley, back in 2012:

A total of 89 comments were received in response to this Environmental Registry notice. Forty-eight responses were form letters which objected to allowing a private developer to harm species at risk and questioned how such authorizations can be justified under the ESA.

As I noted at the time, it looks like the WCO provided that form-letter.  Looks like pretty much their entire membership recopied that letter.

So: several dozen of the committed who can rally a couple of hundred to their big events.  That's the extent of it, it seems.

Elections Ontario VS. WCO

From Parker Gallant; the last couple of sentences (which I have bolded) are the coolest bit:

A letter dated August 8, 2013, which Wind Concerns Ontario (WCO) received from Elections Ontario, finally exonerated us from allegedly spending money in support of a political party during the provincial general election in 2011. 

A complaint was officially lodged with Elections Ontario January 13, 2012 by lawyer Clayton Ruby on behalf of Jude MacDonald. In an article in the Toronto Star January 17, 2012, MacDonald claimed WCO allegedly spent in excess of the “$500 threshold on political advertising during the provincial campaign without registering as a third party.”  MacDonald was quoted in the article: “I believe in democracy,” MacDonald said. “How much money they (WCO) are spending, I don’t know. All I do know is they did have billboards, lawn signs, they had a number of events where they had what looks like professionally printed signs and that adds up.”

 WCO did not contract for the sign(s) but that didn't stop Elections Ontario from investigating despite the denial of then President of WCO, John Laforet. Laforet was quoted in the same article:  “WCO had no budget for advertising. It’d be interesting to see what their concern is,” he said, while also denying WCO put up a billboard.

 In the almost two years it has taken WCO to prove the response from Mr. Laforet we also learned that Elections Ontario reviewed posts in a blog going by the name of “Big City Lib.”  The individual(s) behind this blog even went as far as to try to connect WCO to the Power Workers Union. 

Boy did I ever!  Including in this post where I discussed how the group seemed to fall apart in the wake of the last provincial election over money issues, just after it was discovered that the PWU has folded its social media campaign against the Green Energy Act.  But, as I have always been careful to note, the PWU/WCO link has never been firmly established.

In any case, I have heard a slightly different account of the Elections Ontario decision, but we will leave Mr. Gallant's story as is for the time-being.  It seems basically correct.

Saved By The Shell! Ostrander Point Wind Project Cancelled Due To Presence Of Endangered Turtle!!!!

The  Ostander Point Wind Project has been revoked because:

... the roads systems and construction [necessary for the project] would cause serious and irreversible harm to the Blanding’s Turtle and that the proposed mitigation plans were insufficient to protect the endangered species.

The full ruling is below.  Its worth a read-through (which I've done!).  Project opponents brought six arguments to the tribunal: 1) the project would cause human health issues, 2) the project would endanger migratory birds passing through the Ostrander Point IBA (Important bird Area), 3) the project would endanger bats living near or migrating through through the area,  4) the project would encroach on the breeding grounds of the local Monarch Butterfly population, 5) the project would endanger plant life in the local alvar , and 6) the project would endanger the local population of Blanding's Turtle.

Below the document are excerpts in regards to each of these issues:

Human Health

And:

Effect On Migratory Birds

I think the appellants felt that this was their strongest card.   After all Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller had argued against allowing wind-farms in important bird areas.  However, after much testimony and counter-testimony, the tribunal saw things differently:

And:

I'm not particularly surprised by this aspect of the ruling.  Most ornithologists, when asked to rank causes behind the decline in NA bird populations over the past several decades, wouldn't even put wind farms on their top ten list.  In fact, if people really wanted to make a difference re saving endangered bird species they'd kill their pet cat (in particular if its an outdoor cat); each of these vicious little bastards kill about as many birds per year as an average turbine, and they can't heat your house.  

Bats

This was the most interesting aspect of the decision for me.  As noted, "there is very little scientific research available on the impact of wind turbines on bats, partly because bats are extremely difficult to study." Some highlights of the testimony included:

And this, with respect to mitigating the effect of turbines:

In the end, the Tribunal concluded:

Monarch Butterflies

The project was to be located near Prince Edward Point National Wildlife Area, which is a International Monarch Butterfly Reserves.  Concerns were raised that it would negatively impact Monarch populations.  The Tribunal didn't buy it:

Similarly with the local plant life: the project would not cause “serious and irreversible harm”.  I'm not going to excerpt that bit, because lets face it plants are boring.

And I'll don't think I'll excerpt the bits about Blanding's Turtle either, even though these considerations finally put a stop to the project.  Its important to note, however, that the presence of turbines was not itself an issue.   Rather, the problem lay with a road network that would have been built in order to construct and maintain them.  This network would have been smack dab in the middle of the turtle's habitat; the beasts would have been forced to cross these roads on multiple occasions and at multiple points during their life cycle.  Since the network would have been publicly accessible, more ATV and other traffic would have been drawn to the area.  Furthermore, available mitigation measures were judged ineffective.  Nobody obeys road signs, for example.  And culverts where the turtles might safely cross under the road depend on the species having crossing "hot spots"--preferred road crossing points--where these devices might be installed.  Unfortunately, Blanding's Turtles do not use their habitat in the appropriate manner.

So there you have it.  A win for the anti-windfarm faction, but really more bad than good news in the ruling.  Claims re the negative health effects of turbines continue to gain no traction.  The recent study by Nissenbaum, which garnered so much media attention, is referenced a whole one time in the ruling.  In practical terms it has clearly had no effect on the debate.  Furthermore, the judgement's position re IBA's suggests that turbines can probably operate safely within protected areas.  That's a pretty important point going forward.

Who Funds Ontario Anti-Wind Groups?

An interesting ad from the Scarborough Mirror:

I've sent them the stuff I did a couple years ago about possible connections between the group  Wind Concerns Ontario and the Power Workers Union (PWU).  In chronological order, this one, this one, and this one.  There's the email if anyone has more.

h/t

An Award For NIMBYISM

From Pierre Poilievre:

Ms. Jane Wilson’s [diamond jubilee] medal recognized her work, both locally and across Ontario, in raising awareness of health and safety concerns for those living near industrial wind turbines. She has been a powerful advocate for rural residents and is currently the President of Wind Concerns Ontario.

I've written about Jane on occasion.  She took over from John LaForet when he moved on after the last provincial election.  My opinion of her and WCO is that they are engaged in the worst sort of NIMBYISM; therefore my opinion of this award is that it is the worst kind of pandering.

h/t

John LaForet Strikes Back

...launches a "strategy group", pays for a poll that shows the Ontario Libs in rough shape.  Once President of Wind Concerns Ontario, even further back LaForet was active in the Ontario Liberal Party, with whom he had a spectacular (and, frankly, rather bizarre) falling out.

Whither Wind Concerns?

The day after I noted that Wind Concerns Ontario had shut down their blog, citing a threat of legal action, John Spears did a short piece on the same topic in the T.O. Star.  The most interesting bit:

But Jane Wilson, the president of Wind Concerns, says there are no imminent legal threats hanging over the organization.

Wilson said in an interview that the website is run by a volunteer, who may have misunderstood some discussion at the recent Wind Concerns annual meeting.

Wind Concerns had been considering a more professional approach for its website in any case, she said.

“We’ll be going off air for a brief, brief time while we get a new platform going,” she said.

Wilson said she hasn’t spoken to the volunteer who runs the website: “I don’t even have her phone number.”

“I don’t know why she put on ‘the threat of legal action,’ because no one’s suing us,” Wilson said. “We’re not having any problems that way.”

The website volunteer had not attended the annual meeting, and had some questions about financial matters, Wilson said.

“It was suggested to her that questions about what had gone on at the annual general meeting was not something that should be on the website,” Wilson said.

“It was suggested that rather than making these questions more dramatic than they needed to be, she could discuss it with someone else.”

Wilson said the questions involved the cost of certain items, but wouldn’t elaborate.

Now, according to netinfo, the Wind Concerns website is registered to Moe Anderson from Amherst, Ontario.  In this posting to the WCO Facebook Page, Moe says the name change is a result of her leaving the group:

To speculate on what's happened, I would suggest that Moe was the volunteer who raised issues re spending and, not getting a response to her satisfaction, parted with the group, taking the rights to the website with her.  She may also have suggested that the WCO website disappear, or else, and the domain-name change is a result.  I am trying to confirm this via email.  Interestingly enough, this comment on Wind Resistance Ontario suggests that there still exists a WCO rump group that is working apart from the Wind Resistance folks:

This is no longer the “Wind Concerns Ontario” website. Please don’t discuss their business or board members here.

Perhaps Moe Anderson is still involved with these folk.  In any case, we all know where its all going to end.

Wind Concerns Ontario Shuts Down Blog

Due to a threat of legal action, this site will no longer be updated...

...is about all it says.  No response yet from the "For more info" email given, the comments section has been closed, and no info on either the twitter feed or Facebook page.

For those wondering, Wind Concerns was the grassroots, or perhaps astroturf, group that so fiercely opposed McGuinty's Green Energy Act, and more generally the installation of wind turbines in rural Ontario.  I've written about them before, in particular their shady funding arrangements.

Since the provincial election, however, and not long after Mike De Souza discovered that the PWU (Power Worker's Union) was funding an secret astroturf  campaign against the Act, WCO has experienced a series of reversals.  Firstly, their President John LaForet quit the group.  Now they are knuckling under to a legal threat from who knows who? 

Has somebody lost their funding?  Seems like these guys had plenty of legal help up until the election.

Enviralment is a Flog For PWU (Power Workers Union)

That is, a fake Blog used as a sales tool, in this case  by the Ontario Power Workers Union to trash Dalton McGuinty's Green Energy Act:

A bold labour union offensive targeting the environmental policies of the Ontario government is being driven largely by a sophisticated marketing campaign that has planted comments to "create online conversations" promoting coal, nuclear and other power options.

The marketing has involved professional bloggers working for M THIRTY, a Toronto-based communications firm, who actively use social media websites such as Facebook or Twitter to simulate or kick-start online conversations with a consistent message promoting the views of their clients.

In this case, the Ontario Power Workers' Union bankrolled the campaign...

A little further down the article mentions the blog Enviralment as being part of the campaign:

She also posted a link to a blog called "Enviralment" — also produced by M THIRTY — that cast
doubts about the actions of the McGuinty government in Ontario. "What's the deal with this?" she asked, posting a link to the blog post: "McGuinty Scraps Offshore Wind Projects in Ontario."

And then a little later down:

[The messages] were spread on social media and shared on M THIRTY blogs with green-sounding names such as "Enviralment" and "Envirogy."

Enviralment can be found here.  Unfortunately, it can also be found here, on the Progressive Bloggers blogroll.  I would humbly suggest that ProgBlog owners have it removed: the folks behind it are shills for the PWU.

Secondly, I've written a couple of  times about my suspicions re John LaForet's Wind Concerns Ontario group and its possible ties to the power workers.  Well, there are numerous connections between WCO and the astroturf campaign described above: a quick look at the Enviralment page, for example,  shows how heavily it has promoted WCO over the past couple of years, for example here and here.  And Envirogy, another flog associated with the PWU effort, is on the WCO blogroll.  Also, the marketing group behind the PWU campaign, M Thirty, employs a gentleman/woman employing the pseud "Vic De Zen" who occasionally posts to the Wind Concerns Facebook page.

In any case, a real scuzzy effort by the PWU.  It would be nice to know if Andrea Horwath supports it.

More Dirty Business: Who Funds Wind Concerns Ontario, Part II

According to Elections Ontario, if you want to spend over $500 getting word out on your issues during a provincial election, you have to register as a third party advertiser.  We know that Wind Concerns Ontario, the anti-wind-energy group with connections to Climate Change Denialists, has bought billboards:

But they have not, as yet, registered as third party players.

Now, when you register, you have to give certain information that eventually becomes public, including the sources of your funding.  So, if WCO plays the game according to Hoyle, in six months we find out how "grass roots"  they really are. 

So far, though, they don't appear to be living up to their obligations.  Who knows why not?

Dirty Business: Who Funds Wind Concerns Ontario?

Dunno, really.  There have been rumours that the PWU (Power Workers Union) is behind them, but nothing really solid, and its clear that however it raises funds, WCO's core membership are local NIMBY's.

However,  their new book, Dirty Business, shows multiple links to Energy Probe, Lawrence Solomon's faux enviro group.  From the EP website:

(September 9, 2011) Dirty Business, a new book that focuses on wind power’s impacts on Ontario’s power systems and rural communities, features three Energy Probe directors (retired banker Parker Gallant, economist Michael Trebilcock and Globe columnist Margaret Wente), and a past executive director (Tom Adams).

Given the obsessions of Wente and Co., it isn't surprising that they might have allowed some of their columns to be reproduced for the volume.  More intriguing is Parker's Gallant's role as the book's "Contributing Editor", which suggests some kind of consultative role in its creation.  He is also, as it turns out, on WCO's BOD.

As background, Energy Probe seems to have begun life as a kind of quirky, right-wing group devoted to promoting free market solutions to environmental problems.  As you can see from the Star article at the bottom of the link, back in the 1990s Solomon managed to convince the right-wing Donner Foundation Canada to kick in several $100,000s (perhaps as much as $1.6 million) for various projects, and their name still appears on the Energy Probe Research Foundation's donors page.  So these guys are pretty well-heeled

In any case, whatever EP might have started out as, it has in recent years degenerated into your standard-issue AGW denialist group, or at least serves as an outlet for Mr. Solomon's curious notions on the topic.

I'm not sure this gets us much closer to answering who funds Wind Concerns.  But perhaps it will cause a few people--journos, maybe who are in a position to get answers--to at least ask a few questions.

PS.  As of this mornin, WCO had not filed for third-party status here, which limits the manner in which they can spend money to promote their cause..