Wind farm caution urged

Advocacy group has ‘serious concerns’ about financial effect of Annapolis County draft bylaw
By GORDON DELANEY Valley Bureau
Wed, Aug 31 - 7:11 AM

A newly formed taxpayer group is urging caution in developing a policy governing wind farm development in Annapolis County.

There are serious deficiencies in the county’s draft wind turbine bylaw that could adversely affect the county’s finances and taxpayers, says Steve Lewis, spokesman for the Friends for Responsibility for the Economy and Energy.

"This issue is very important. . . . It could impact us financially," he said in an interview Tuesday.

"The major obligation of councillors is to protect their citizens. So we’re just saying slow down, it’s too important to push this through."

The county has been working on a wind turbine bylaw for more than a year and recently approved a draft bylaw as companies seek to develop wind farms in the region, including a large one on North Mountain, near Bridgetown.

The new group is not against wind farm development, said Lewis.

"We just want to work with council through research that we do . . . so they can make better choices."

He said municipalities around the province are struggling with the issue because the Nova Scotia government has not set any firm guidelines and councils don’t have sufficient expertise.

"The province has the money and the experts; they should have given guidance to all of the municipalities so they can make better decisions on this issue.

"We have some very serious concerns, but they all focus on protection for the taxpayers of Annapolis County. We’re not picking on any particular developer or project."

A developer can come to the municipality for a wind farm and not put down any financial security bond, Lewis said.

In 15 to 20 years, the average lifespan of a turbine, he said, the county’s taxpayers could get stuck with the bill for its decommissioning.

Lewis said it could cost $100,000 to remove a turbine.

"This doesn’t include costs for removal of the electrical generating station, on-site transmission lines, roads, bridges, culverts, other buildings and possibly the 1,000-tonne concrete pads for each turbine."

The group wants the bond issue addressed in the draft bylaw before it’s approved.

The possible impact on tourism and land values is also a concern.

"In Annapolis County, where the scenic beauty is so important to the economy, they should consider this when they place these wind farms," Lewis said.

"If tourism and property values are adversely impacted, it would be extremely bad for our already fragile economy for many years to come."

The group is urging county residents to express concerns to their councillors to have the bylaw delayed until protections are included like no tax exemptions for developers, submission of plans for site cleanup and restoration, and prior consultation with landowners.

The planning and advisory committee is scheduled to meet Sept. 6. If the draft bylaw is not held for revisions, the next step is a public meeting, tentatively scheduled for late September. Following that, council will meet to consider changes and vote on the bylaw.

Proposed areas for wind resource zones include Parker Mountain Road and Hampton Hills, on North Mountain, near Bridgetown. Also included are Victoria Beach on North Mountain and Spectacle Lake on South Mountain.

A $60-million 12-turbine wind farm is proposed for Hampton Hills, about four kilometres north of Bridgetown, by Toronto-based Sprott Power Corp.

Sprott is still in the process of receiving renewals for building permits it held for properties in Arlington, Arlington West and Hampton. In April, the company asked Nova Scotia Supreme Court to overrule a municipal decision denying the renewal.

Annapolis County announced recently it was changing its planning strategy to allow Sprott to proceed with most of the turbines.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1260935.html

Bylaw proposal a positive first step

Darrell Cole
Amherst Daily News
17 August, 2011

AMHERST – While not the end of the debate, a member of the Gulf Shore Association believes the county’s latest effort to create rules around wind turbines is a positive step.

Lisa Betts, who helped lead the effort against a proposed wind farm on the Gulf Shore near Pugwash several years ago, attended a public meeting Tuesday in Wallace on the county’s proposed new wind rules.

“It’s certainly an improvement and the language of the new bylaw has been clarified,” Betts said. “I haven’t had an opportunity to talk to Penny (Henneberry, Cumberland County’s director of planning) or to take a close look at it, but at first glance it looks better than it did.”

Betts said the existing bylaw, developed during the fight against the Gulf Shore project, has some shortcomings, including a cookie-cutter approach to the placement of turbines.

Under the existing bylaw, the separation between a turbine and homes has to be at least 500 metres. She said the present bylaw doesn’t have zones for residential and industrial uses.

The second of three public meetings took place Wednesday with the final meeting set for Thursday at the E.D. Fullerton Municipal Building in Upper Nappan beginning at 7 p.m.

http://www.cumberlandnewsnow.com/News/Local/2011-08-17/article-2711248/Bylaw-proposal-a-positive-first-step/1

HRM says turbines must keep distance

Setback from homes to be 1,000 metres
By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE City Hall Reporter
Wed, Aug 17 - 4:54 AM

Halifax regional council moved Tuesday to allay the fears of rural residents concerned about the future development of large wind turbines and wind farms.

Council approved a 1,000-metre setback from habitable buildings for large, industrial-style turbines. Municipal officials had been considering a shorter separation distance.

Alastair Saunders, co-chairman of the Friends of Jeddore, said his group would have preferred an even greater setback, but he is satisfied with council’s decision.

Saunders said 1,000 metres is consistent with other jurisdictions.

Council was debating turbine rules after receiving a staff report with revisions that were made after comments received during a public hearing last month.

"We’re happy with where we are," Saunders told reporters outside the council chamber. "What we’re really pleased with, also, is the fact that council has listened to the concerns of the people."

Councillors also agreed to a community consultation process prior to the installation of large-scale wind turbines proposed for Halifax Regional Municipality.

During Tuesday’s council session, Coun. Steve Streatch (Eastern Shore-Musquodoboit Valley) argued on behalf of Jeddore-area residents, saying new wind energy rules are for the entire municipality.

"We put another set of checks and balances in place, that the communities affected and the residents of HRM will have a say in how industrial projects such as this will take place in their areas," Streatch said after the turbine debate.

Coun. Bob Harvey (Lower Sackville) criticized the province for lacking a uniform set of regulations for the installation and operation of wind turbines.

In other business, council gave the green light to letters of intent linked to the municipality’s bid to become a host city for an international soccer tournament in 2015.

The letters are related to the FIFA Women’s World Cup and a companion event in 2014. There are seven candidate cities in Canada hoping to land soccer matches.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1258646.html

Wind energy threatens bats

Flying near turbines makes their lungs explode
By SELENA ROSS
Wed, Aug 10 - 4:54 AM

Companies trying to get ahead in the wind power race can write brilliant business plans and hunt down the best technology but they haven’t gotten anywhere until they’ve learned about bat lungs.

Bats are the newest environmental factor that wind energy producers need to consider when they plan and propose a new project. They have taken over from birds as the animal most threatened by turbines.

But wind power companies, like they did a decade ago with birds, are adjusting by reshaping their project proposals around a changing body of environmental research. It’s costly to stay ahead of environmental assessment demands, they say, but disruptions to wind power projects elsewhere in Canada show how expensive it can be to ignore new research.

Bats are mammals, and that means their lungs are less rigid than those of birds.

They don’t need to be hit by the blades of a wind turbine to die. Simply flying near a turbine can make bats’ lungs collapse as the sudden drop in air pressure creates internal hemorrhaging, and their bodies are sometimes found with no external damage but full of burst blood vessels.

This "barotrauma" was present in 90 per cent of dead bats collected near wind turbines and autopsied by a University of Calgary team led by researcher Erin Baerwald, according to a 2008 study. Only about half the bats were found to have been killed by contact with the turbines.

The news created waves in the wind industry, and Nova Scotia was no exception.

"They were kind of ignored early on, and now I believe bats are more of an issue than birds," said Andy MacCallum, development manager for Fairmont Wind Farm, a project planned near Antigonish by global company Wind Prospect Inc.

MacCallum and his colleagues stay on top of the location of bat caves, as well as bird migration patterns and other ecological facts of Nova Scotia, with the help of consulting firms that have built up local environmental expertise specific to the needs of the wind power industry.

Planning around nature happens from the earliest stages, said MacCallum.

A company will stay away from a bat cave, and if it discovers new environmental problems in the course of its research, it will scrap the planned location or make other changes, he said.

"Early on in the process, we make sure that the sites are away from the environmentally sensitive areas," said MacCallum.

"Before we even go public, there’s a lot of work behind the scenes."

None of this is cheap, and it has changed some of the operating principles of wind power companies. Environmental assessment studies, which the province requires for each proposed wind farm, often cost upward of $100,000, with followup studies costing $10,000 to $20,000 every year for several years, said MacCallum.

The numbers stay roughly the same no matter how much revenue a farm is expected to bring in, making bigger wind farms more cost-effective.

Some companies manage to get around the entire cost of environmental assessment by installing a turbine that produces less than two megawatts of power. Once a farm hits two megawatts of production, it is legally required to do an assessment, which has made 1.9-megawatt turbines more popular, MacCallum said.

Then there’s the need to tweak technology — and revenues — mid-production, according to the latest scientific research on animals like bats.

The same University of Calgary team found that programming wind turbines to stop turning during times of low wind dramatically cut down on bat deaths, an idea that the Fairmont farm is looking at.

Sprott Power works regularly with Saint Mary’s University biologist Hugh Broders, who advised the company to put up bat-tracking devices when it first installs its turbines, said chief operating officer Don Bartlett.

He said the company benefits by "just kind of getting ahead of the curve and getting as much data as one can in order to determine if there are any potential issues."

Failing to take steps like this can lead to problems down the road. Environmental organization Nature Canada is campaigning for a major wind farm near Kingston, Ont., to stop production a couple of weeks a year during top migration season for local birds.

No Nova Scotia wind power companies have faced similar demands, according to Wayne Groszko, renewable energy co-ordinator at the Ecology Action Centre. But if Nova Scotia takes a closer look at the wind industry, it could ask companies to make such major changes, he said.

"Would it be best to shut them off for a few times each year? Would it be best to reduce their cutting speed? I don’t think that kind of research has been done yet in Nova Scotia."

People tend to ask wind power producers to live up to their reputation for green energy, Groszko said.

"Wind turbines are extremely visible to a lot of people."

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Business/1257482.html