ELK POINT – Although he and his family only made the Northern Valley area their home a year ago, former CTV journalist Mark Mallett told last Tuesday’s near-capacity crowd at the Elk Point Seniors Recreation Centre on April 4 that when he heard that the installation of 15 massive wind turbines in that area was in the plans, “My heart broke… why would they do that?”
Chris Habiak, who lives north of Elk Point and who was part of PAT, or People Against Turbines, the group lobbying against the recently cancelled Northland Power wind project in that area, said he “decided to help Mark” in this new fight.
“We’re here to talk about turbines,” said Mallett, who had recently launched the Wind Concerns website, windconcerns.com, and showed the crowd the maps and studies it contains, as well as a documentary from Ontario with interviews of those impacted by turbines operating near their homes.
“The Liberals’ green dream turned into a nightmare,” with health problems and a rural backlash against the green-obsessed government, he added.
“I’m here for my family and my neighbours. Some of them have generational farms,” the future of which could be in jeopardy if the project goes ahead and then expands, Mallett said, showing the maps on the website and pointing out the areas of the Counties of St. Paul and Two Hills, with one site in the County of Vermilion River and expressing fear that Elemental Energy, creators of the Northern Valley Wind Project, could be “launching things at (area landowners) left and right.”
The now-cancelled Northland Power project was in the works for six years before it was announced, and was not required to publicize its plans in earlier stages, he noted.
With Elemental Energy indicating that they would be submitting their project to Alberta Environment and Parks for review in early 2023, “It’s not too bad a time to get some answers,” Mallett said. With 15 turbines to start with, located on privately owned farmland, “contracts may have been signed. The process is lacking in transparency.”
The six-megawatt generators are the largest onshore turbines, stretching 200 meters in height, and “nobody cares about the human aspect. I’m disgusted by it. There are 480 studies that have indicated wind turbine syndrome, and it’s starting to get in the courts,” he said, with both inaudible and audible frequencies producing a long line of symptoms in those living two to three miles away for smaller versions, according to one study, another study more than doubling that distance, “and it tunnels through valleys,” Mallett said the studies had indicated.
Significant impacts on animals and wildlife have been listed in the studies, according to Mallett and with Northern Valley listed as a wildlife sensitivity zone because of the wildlife and the North Saskatchewan River, he is hopeful that Alberta Environment and Protected Areas are aware of the plans for the development. An environmental corridor used by migrating whooping cranes and other species also crosses the planned area, he said.
The impact on property and property values was brought forth, Mallett asking, “Are we going to start losing people? We’ve got to save this town, Elk Point is on the edge of losing stuff.” He quoted a CBC story in 2011 that showed wind power installations bringing down property values in one area by 20 to 40 per cent.
The sites where turbines are located are huge, with massive cement bases put in place and reports from Minburn County indicating that power lines had to be moved and temporary roads built during the installation process, with up to 200 trucks per day and more than 1,500 truck loads of materials required to build a turbine site.
At such time as the turbines and towers reach the end of life, it was noted that in the case of orphan wells, landowners could be responsible for reclamation.
Referring back to the Northland project, Habiak said he had difficulty getting in to talk to the County, and “after the project is passed on a provincial level, the County has to issue a building permit. The Town of Elk Point has it on their April 11 agenda in closed session – where’s the transparency?”
“We can stand by and do nothing or we can fight back,” Mallett said, listing public awareness, as with the windconcerns.com website, media contacts, political contacts and legal counsel as ways to proceed.
The PAT group raised the retainer fees to hire a prestigious environmental law firm with experience with energy projects, and this group plans to hire the same firm, planning another meeting on April 20 at the same location “for those who want to join in raising the retainer.”
Two political contacts were on hand at the meeting, with UCP candidate Scott Cyr claiming that the previous NDP government “gave the green light to green energy, with a lot of holes in the legislation. We need to address the human concerns. The world doesn’t care, and the middle of Calgary and Edmonton are who’s pushing (green energy). There’s no reclamation plan in place and oil and gas are no longer considered assets.” End of life turbines would “leave oceans of cement and the blades would have to be buried. It was all brought in by the NDP and if the UCP does get in, I hope Premier Smith will address it. I want to work along side her to fix it. It’s just not there yet, and the rural area has to deal with the fallout.”
He added that the NDP turned government departments into independent agencies “and if something goes wrong with the Alberta Utilities Commission nobody is held to account. We need to roll them back into ministries, it all needs to be corrected.”
“We did defeat a project up here, “ MLA David Hanson said, “and this has already been brought forward to Minister of Affordability and Utilities Matt Jones. A lot of appointments were made by the NDP that were not on the rural side, but we are standing up for the rural areas.”
Hanson called the existence of the environmental corridor through the planned project area “a big thing. Let’s focus on things that can change the direction.”