Council throws shade on two large solar farm projects
At their September regular meeting, Kawartha Lakes council voted eight to one not to proceed with two large solar farm projects.
One was in Ward One close to Uphill and one was proposed in Ward 3, not far from Sturgeon Lake. Council cited environmental and agrarian concerns, plus significant public opposition at both locations, as their primary reasons for voting against these potentially expansive projects.
The first project discussed, debated and eventually shelved was the combined Kirkfield North Solar and Kirkfield South Solar sites, which are located on the west side of Victoria Road, approximately 10 kilometres northeast of Kirkfield and five kilometres south of Uphill. The proposal from multinational Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. called for the creation of two 150-megawatt solar facilities on the Uphill-area properties, covering a combined 1850 acres, with 700 acres fenced and close to 300 acres covered with panels.
Dozens of deputants, letter writers and petition creators were out in force at council to remind their elected representatives that they believed there was little support for this project amongst the general public, and that if approved the project threatened the Carvan Alvar north of Kirkfield, a rare ecosystem and key biodiversity area and significant habitat for many at-risk species.
Councillors Pat Warren and Mark Doble spoke strongly against the Innergex project being allowed to move forward.
“This is a special ecological area,” Warren said. “It is very important that this area be preserved as it also supports economic growth and encourages tourism.”
Doble agreed and added, “The Carden Alvar (located at the proposed Uphill site) is a crucial ecosystem. I have heard from the public on this issue – hundreds in fact – and have not seen a single email supporting the approval of this project. Preservation of this site is important for area tourism. We want people to come here. New development must be sensibly located.”
Councillor Emmett Yeo, in whose ward the proposed solar farm would have been constructed, was eventually the only vote against shelving the Uphill area development.
“I am torn on this,” he said. “We have two environmental issues competing with each other. The site is already zoned for extraction. If not here, then where? I would struggle with a project like this being placed on wetlands or agricultural land. I would oppose cutting down trees for a solar farm. But on the rocks, it is a perfect place. I have had many emails for and against the project and I have listened to them all.”
The second project discussed, debated and eventually shelved by council was the Compass Greenfield Development located at 299 Sturgeon Lake Road, approximately three kilometres southeast of Fenelon Falls. The proposal was for a 13-megawatt solar farm on a 110-acre site with the ability to raise sheep and crops below the solar panels.
Councillor Mike Perry, in whose ward the Sturgeon Lake project would have been built, voted against the solar farm citing agricultural concerns and the wishes of his constituents.
“There were competing interests in the decision (council took) today,” Perry wrote in an email to Kawartha Lakes Weekly hours after he cast his vote against the solar farm development moving forward.
“Renewable energy is needed here and is best for the environment. I have solar panels on my home. Agriculture is vital to food production and is the backbone of our rural community. Much of this proposed project in Ward 3 was to be built on productive Class 1 farmland that is currently being actively farmed so I had to vote no. I also listened to local residents. I look forward to helping find suitable spots for renewable energy here in our area.”
Innergex Renewable Energy Inc buys farms and sticks solar panels up in all the fields so they can collect government subsidies and grants, AKA TAX PAYER DOLLARS , for ‘renewable energy’ projects. These ‘projects’ do nothing to help anyone except the people who own Innergex Renewable Energy Inc by paying them a fortune . It’s nothing more than a way to acquire tax payers money that our governments are dumb enough to hand over. Nice to see the city council rejected this nonsense. I hope it’s a trend that continues.
In this general area within ward 1 several contentious land use matters have arisen of late.
“No quarry” signs aplenty were posted from a few years back, and the proposed quarry seems to have far less probability now. This I think was NIMBY, as many quarries exist in the broader region, and if certain conditions were met re noise and other pollution, maybe this area could have fairly harmlessly hosted another one, in a space besides that is fully barren and all but rock-bare.
Then there’s this one council votes against 8-1. Will there be an appeal to the OMB successor or something similar? Was it due to the mass of opposition expressed? With the original forest met by euro types who descended on the area, stripped away, the “Carvan” [sic] alvar has attained “IBA” status and is home to wonderful floral and other area-unusual things. But barrenness – quite emphasized through this year’s drought, so much so cattle broke free from enclosure to munch on roadside tree foliage we and police met with at one point; general barrenness is the order of the place, and where better to station such a system if not in such like?
As with quarries, and re the other solar array nixed by council, there are other solar arrays in the region, incl. on decent farmland – how’d they get through application processes? Inconsistency can be glaring. The rejected applicant here should appeal – but as with my suggestion re a local quarry proposed, conditions should be put to attenuate the apprehended harm. However, if that impinges on the project’s scale such as to undermine the profitability for the applicant, well then, scale is a core issue, is it not, as it is for so much in our time.
Finally and the most impinging proposal around here, huge DND radar, very much active and with the mayor begging off involvement publicly – and wrongly, as there is indeed what a council can speak to on this matter from an apprehended health impact (eg some municipalities in Ontario overruled even their chief medical officer’s plugging for fluoridating the water supplies); and it was noticed the print version of this very magazine a few issues or so back, included a basically contentless article cheerleading for the massive radar installation also on the same precious alvar; where is all the up-in-arms about this dangerous proposition in our midst, dwarfing in seriousness the quarry and solar things? See all the comments at this mag’s smallish online piece on the controversy – websearch on ‘radar’ and this mag’s name and it should easily come up.
Near where the solar array was to be, it seems yet another telecom tower is being erected – where’s the opposition? Wake up to this: THERE IS MORE SCI LIT ON THE DANGERS OF E-POLLUTION THAN ANY OTHER TOXICANT BY FAR! – yet on and up towers go, nary a peep. I have not researched the e-polluting effects of solar arrays – i know they accompany scaled up wind turbine installations (scale again, and design. at the core) and I expect would do so the solar. As mentioned in comments at that radar article, a major tower is already on that alvar and should not be there , and a much newer one is now at the S end of Head Lake which has no business being anywhere given the sci and much other lit. And now another? Where are the anti-solar-on-the-alvar opponents?
Get with it against the radar – perhaps a mass of disgruntled submissions can reverse the complacency at council, even prod upper level reps to address the matter of pushing this far greater risk of endangerment away from where people, let alone IBA &c, are!
What is being constructed near 6 Patrick St Kawartha Lakes
I am sick to death of “nimby”s putting the kaibosh on environmentally important projects. How much tourism do you think there will be when the environment is burnt to the ground or flooded out? Please, please wake up and smell the smoke!
The naysaying councillor himself had it that there were competing enviro interests. The alvar, whatever it means for people, can’t be moved; but solar arrays need not be there. Further, as mentioned in an earlier comment, the hugest enviro issue of all has escaped almost all enviros, viz e-pollution. From our library we’re looking at McKibben’s recent book touting solar as akin to panacea, in context. He as a clear example resolutely ignores some hugest of issues. How much of the extended e-generation capacity, toward which this for now cancelled array was intended for example, is meant for electric vehicles? The latter have recently had some major magnetic field testing on them, and never mind that exposure standards are completely untrustworthy, the results found even that these were exceeded. More: regeneration of soil, if carbon capture is the focus, could be at the heart of mitigating the effects of profligate carbon fuel uses. How much do you see in the mainstream about that? There is much, much more to consider on these matters. (My own reference to NIMBY above had not to do with what council voted down.)
And btw, I say what I say being off grid ourselves for many years, with a modest solar set up of our own, for our scaled-down e-usages. (Main thing driving us to go off grid at the time was the harmful “smart” meter deployments. See e.g. my remark after the radar article re effect on trees.) As mentioned, scale should be at the heart of such considerations. What is offensive or dangerous at gargantuan scale may not perturb at much lesser. Our world has slipped from the modern not to the postmodern, but the hypermodern, where dangers to health and environment are accelerated further, and it does NOT all or preeminently have to do with atmospheric and related changes, however major these may be.
I have stock in Innergex and also opposed building on the Alvar. The Alvar ecosystem is quite rare, and unfortunately undervalued in the same way prairie and desert ecosystems are. It looks pretty barren, harsh, so why not put up a Costco? I’m less clear on why the other solar project was lumped in. I do think there’s a rush to build solar as quickly and cheaply as possible and that’s obviously a big part of the appeal. But Carden and other sites demonstrate a lack of care in general for the land solar is being sighted on. I think farmland can actually be quite suitable but currently the farming side of it is a glorified afterthought. But to be fair most prime farm land is wasted growing corn anyway where solar would arguably be an improvement if care was given to installation. Not implementing solar in more urban/suburban areas and in a distributed way is also a missed opportunity. How many acres of parking lots and box stores could be covered with panels before bulldozing more land that wasn’t yet built on? But of course the urban sprawl Ponzi scheme discourages that. Care and long term thinking are in short supply, except in choosing not to build on the Alvar.