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Blanding’s Turtle. Photo: Benimoto  Flickr.com

Green Neighbours Collide over Wind Power Project

In the battle over threatened species and renewable energy, who will win?

It’s dispiriting when newly rival factions of the environmental movement clash over what has become a touchy subject in green circles. Worse when disagreements end up in the justice system.

Yet that’s exactly what played out this week in a Toronto appeals court.

It’s dispiriting when newly rival factions of the environmental movement clash over what has become a touchy subject in green circles. Worse when disagreements end up in the justice system.

Yet that’s exactly what played out this week in a Toronto appeals court.

In an issue the media have dubbed “turtles versus turbines,” the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists (PECFN), a group often led publicly by outspoken grandmother and wildlife advocate Myrna Wood, found themselves in court this week defending a landmark decision from the Environmental Review Tribunal in July, 2013 which halted a renewable energy project at Ostrander Point near Kingston. The tribunal pointed to the unacceptable impact the development of a 22.5 megawatt wind farm would have on the provincially and federally threatened Blanding’s turtle as justification.

The fact that Wood and PECFN are still in court is a victory in its own right, mind you. Few imagined the tribunal, the members of whom are appointed by the provincial government, would overturn a wind project from developer Gilead Power because of concerns over wildlife impacts. Never mind the proposed wind farm was situated on a globally recognized Important Bird Area – it already had Ministry of Environment approval. It was a done deal. And besides – the tribunal had never rejected a renewable energy approval (REA) for environmental or human health reasons before. Ever.

Read the rest of the controversial story at The Reeves Report

Andrew Reeves is the Editor-in-Chief of Alternatives Journal. Overrun, his book about Asian carp in North America, will be published in Spring 2019 by ECW Press. His work has also appeared in the Globe & MailSpacing and Corporate Knights. Follow him on Twitter.