You would think if the government of Ontario owned a tract of land that was home to species protected by it's own Endangered Species Act, it would be off limits for development, right? Wrong. In Dalton McGuinty's Ontario, his government is making Ministry of Natural Resources land at Ostrander Point available to a private developer who is now seeking an exception to the Endangered Species Act. The permit seeks permission specifically to "kill, harm and harass" threatened species, and to "disrupt and destroy" their habitat.
Since when is it acceptable to destroy the environment to save the environment? How strange it is that the laws created to protect wildlife, endangered species, migratory bird paths, rare biodiversity, and pristine shorelines are the very laws that are now deemed inconvenient for government environment ministers. These are the people who want to "streamline" (read repeal) environmental protections to make it easier to get projects like this approved.
For example, a magnificent 28 kilometres of undeveloped shoreline in eastern Lake Ontario lies in wait for the onslaught of the construction of massive wind turbines in an area that is virtually a migratory bird super highway. Ostrander Point in Prince Edward County is home to hundreds of species of birds, wildlife rare vegetation, and is a globally recognized Important Bird Area (IBA).
The government of Ontario may grant a permit for Gilead Power Corporation to kill, harm, and harass endangered species such as the Blanding's Turtle and the Whip-poor-will bird. The permit also includes destroying their habitat which is not very green, is it?
Environmental NGOs around the world have specifically identified IBAs as "no-go" zones for industrial wind turbines because of their Globally Threatened Species, Range Restricted Species, Biome Restricted Species. They are areas for the conservation of globally threatened, range restricted, and congregatory birds.
The second permit applied for by Gilead Power is for construction of 5.4 km of roads in a habitat that has been described by their own consultants as having "special features make this site unique in the Site District."
In just over a week, more than 500 individual requests to deny these permits have been sent to the Premier and Ministry of Environment through savetheblandingsturtle.com, a website developed to allow concerned citizens to send a message of opposition to the government in 30 seconds or less.
Ostrander Point is one of those situtions where environmental ethics gets complicated for some. While many believe that wind energy is some form of saviour that will allow us to avoid the real issues of climate change, even some of wind energy's most ardent supporters can't in good conscience support the killing of threatened species. Ontarians have until February 19th to write the government of Ontario with your thoughts on this important environmental issue.
Whether you're for "killing, harming and harassing" birds and turtles (like Gilead Power is) or against this practice, we all enjoy the right to at least express our views to the government, and on a decision like this, the more discussion the better.
Follow John Laforet on Twitter: www.twitter.com/laforet
I am pro-wind power, it's still too expensive and there's far too much room for improvement, but I do want to see wind power developed so that future costs go down and efficiency goes up, but there are two places that windmills shouldn't go:
- Close to residential areas (we have oodles of unused space, why cram them next to homes ?)
- Much more importantly, they MUST be out of the path of migratory patterns. We've tracked migration patterns long enough that we KNOW which areas are sensitive, so why build there when we have so much land available ?
But Ontario is broke, and McGuinty knows he's responsible for it, so he'll do anything to raise money so he can turn around and say "see, I didn't leave Ontario all that broke..." ... sad.
Just because it's 'green', doesn't mean we can destroy precious habitats and threaten migratory routes, especially when we have all of the space in the world to build them.
It's not okay to destroy endangered species habitat for industrial expansion, green or not..
On a side note though, more birds die from flying into buildings and skyscrapers than do for windmills, so let’s not build skyscrapers in those areas either.
If this was Japan, I might feel differently, but we’re in Canada, we have plenty of space.
It will take only 17 million of these turbines to supply the world's current energy needs. Oil, coal, and natural gas WILL eventually run out - if we don't cook ourselves from their greenhouse gas output first. But wind isn't the answer. For the same reason, cost, neither is solar.
Our best bet is molten salt thorium breeder reactors and deployment of those, if we had a viable design, will take decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
Its a beautiful place.
I'd hate to see it covered in wind turbines and solar instaltions.
It seems like most of this green power initiative in Ontario is a scam