Destruction of Maple Forest for Green Energy
THUNDER BAY – Editorial – Ontario has an electricity surplus. That is the word coming out from Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli. The Ontario Government is set to pay wind farm producers not to produce energy.
In Thunder Bay, an old growth Maple Forest is in the process of being destroyed to put in a wind farm.
The irony is incredible.
Northwestern Ontario, and the Thunder Bay District was able to supply electrical power to run all the grain elevators at full capacity, along with the several paper mills in our area. There isn’t a shortage, well, at least not a shortage of electricity.
Common sense however?
Maybe the shortfall is there?
At issue appears that no one locally is willing to stand up for the future of the hardwood maple forest. The process forward is in the hands of the Ontario Government.
The real issue is one of silence. Virtually no one is effectively standing up for the trees. Part of that is that city councillors who are opposed to the proposed project are effectively gagged. If they speak out, the city will not cover their legal fees.
Is it ‘Green’ to Destroy a Forest?
There are many who would say that to knock down a hardwood forest taking out about an acre for the base of each turbine, and kilometres of roadways, isn’t really green.
Having been to the work site, it is easy to see that what is happening is wrong. Trees are being knocked down in what is said to be for testing – what is really happening is pre-construction preparation work.
Likely there will be a day off in the distant future, twenty or thirty years from now when these turbines are going to be de-commissioned, that some future Thunder Bay taxpayers are going to look at the cost, and wonder, what kind of thought process put the community into the position they will inherit.
Thunder Bay has entered into a bad deal, and it sadly seems nothing can be done to stop the destruction.
There likely are real solutions, but with no one ‘allowed’ or willing to talk, those solutions are not likely to happen.
Ontario taxpayers will be left holding the bag once again.
That of course is just my opinion, as always, your mileage may vary.
James Murray
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