Multi-Municipal Wind Turbine Working Group

Thursday, August 13th, 2015 at 7:00 p.m.

Chesley Fire Hall

211 1st Ave N, Chesley

Chesley, Ontario

MINUTES

A meeting of the Multi Municipal Wind Turbine Working Group was held on Thursday, August 13th, 2015 at the Chesley Fire Hall.

Participating Municipalities Present:

Municipality / Name of Members in attendance
Arran-Elderslie / Mark Davis (Chair), Doug Bell, Keith Stelling
Bluewater / Dave Roy
Brockton / Steve Adams, Philip Englishman
Chatsworth / Scott Mackey, Elizabeth Thompson, Tony Clark
Georgian Bluffs / Dwight Burley, Carol Barfoot
GreyHighlands / Stewart Halliday (Vice-Chair), Paul McQueen,
Huron-Kinloss / Wilf Gamble
Kincardine / Randy Roppel
Meaford / Harley Greenfield, Andre den Tandt
Northern BrucePeninsula / Patricia Greig, Tom Boyle, Linda Weatherhead
SouthBrucePeninsula / Ana Vukovic
Southgate / John Woodbury, Christine Gordon
West Grey / Carol Lawrence, Bev Cutting

Participating Municipalities Absent:

Central Huron

The following members of Staff were present:

Teresa GowanArran-ElderslieSecretary

Bill PalmerSaugeenShoresTechnical Advisor

Others in attendance were:

Bonnie RoyBluewater

Warren HowardNorth Perth

Joseph LeungMeaford

Dave HemingwayCentral Huron

Sean DrennanACW

  1. ADOPTION OF THE REVISED AGENDA

The Chair stated that the Revised Agenda circulated has been revised further by adding item 7.1 update from Warren Howard

Moved by: Keith Stelling

Seconded by: Dwight Burley

That the Revised Agenda for the Multi-Municipal Wind Turbines Working Group meeting of August 13, 2015 be received and adopted as distributed by the Recording Secretary. Carried

The Chair, Mark Davis, introduced to the Committee the new members from the Municipality of Meaford, being Harley Greenfield, Deputy Mayor, Andre den Tandt, Appointed Citizen who are in attendance and Jaden Calvert, Councillor who attended the July meeting. The Committee welcomed the addition of the Municipality of Meaford to its membership.

2.DECLARATION OF PECUNIARY INTERESTS:

No disclosures of pecuniary interests were made by the Committee.

3.APPROVAL OF REVISED MINUTES

Moved by:Scott Mackey

Seconded by:Keith Stelling

That the Multi-Municipal Wind Turbines Working Group adopt the revised minutes of the last Committee Meeting held July 9th, 2015, as circulated.

Carried

  1. DELEGATIONS

4.1There were no delegates appearing before the Committee.

  1. BUSINESS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

5.1 Discussion of June's meeting's presentation by Elizabeth Marshall and review of by-law and review by Dave Hemingway concerning meetings regarding debenture issue. The Chair asked for update from member municipalities as to the proposals submitted by Elizabeth Marshall.

The members from Chatsworth stated that no action has been taken.

The Chair, Mark Davis, stated that the solicitor for Arran-Elderslie sat in on the meeting in June and the solicitor's response was that was no harm in having the by-law but was unsure as to whether it would stand the test of court proceeding. Mark Davis said that the current Road Use Agreement that Arran-Elderslie currently has, deals with the right to transfer and the weight/overweight load limits.

Stewart Halliday stated that GreyHighlands had their solicitor look at the proposed by-law and their solicitor also said there's no harm to it, but our municipality has already covered the issue in our Road Use Agreement. Stewart stated that they would share their Road Use Agreement with other municipalities. It includes the use of roadways for cabling and lines, which can be a difficult phase. The County of Grey is still dealing with the Capstone development in GreyHighlands.

Randy Roppel from Kincardine stated that their municipality has a Road Use Agreement which states that if they were going to proceed with a project we demanded that cables be buried. We felt that having cables buried may avoid stray electrical voltage.

Dave Roy from Bluewater stated that they asked for $1.6 Million for asphalt and to bury the cables one meter down in the shoulder but then the issue of where to place the stop signs and mailboxes.

Stewart Halliday suggest that they put the cables 1 meter from the fenceline.

Steve Adams from Brockton stated that GreyHighlands has agreed to work with Brockton on developing a Road Use Agreement for their municipality. Steve Adams asked the Committee if other municipalities would share their by-laws and resolutions concerning Road Use Agreements and other by-laws that could be implemented.

The Chair asked the Committee members if you have a Road Use Agreement in place in your municipality if you would send to the Recording Secretary and she will distribute among the members for review. A suggestion from the Committee was that interested members could contact the Clerks to obtain copies of by-laws and usually they are posted on the municipal websites.

The Chair suggested a Road Use Agreement and a separate Power Corridor Agreement.

Dave Hemingway stated that you may want to consider legislation, Elizabeth Marshall remarked that municipalities cannot give away easements under the Municipal Act.

The Chair stated that we will put this on the Agenda for the September meeting for a 30 minute discussion of Road Use Agreements.

5.2List of "unwilling host" municipalities and how to correspond with them? The Chair stated that Lorrie Gillis asked for a long distance associate membership with "unwilling host" municipalities and that at our May 14th, 2015meeting, we passed a motion that we would not allow associate membership to this Committee, so he was unsure why this is on the Agenda. The Recording Secretary stated that there was a question regarding includingunwilling host municipalities in an email list.

Warren Howard stated that there are currently 91 municipalities who have declared themselves an "unwilling host" municipality and this list is available on the Wind Concerns Ontario website. This is a political statement by the municipality to wind power developers. As for communicating with these various municipalities, different areas of Ontario have different concerns. The issues discussed in this area are not the same concerns relating to Eastern Ontario.

5.3Dave Hemingway to update on Assessment Board Hearings and MPAC Assessments. Dave Hemingway has been dealing with the Review Board to have them acknowledge the fact that properties that have wind turbines near them have a lower property value than those that do not have wind turbines near them. Dave has been dealing with this issue since 2011 when he looked at assessments. He asked for a comparative analysis in 2011 and he finally got a response in March 2015. Dave received a letter saying there's a reassessment in order to conduct an effective review that they consider no property devaluation relating to industrial wind turbines (IWTs)

At Dave Hemingway's first motion the Chair said it would cost too much to do a free independent public audit. The Assessor in 2015 said they were concerned about IWT's near properties. Dave has had seven hearings with seven Chairs during this time. MPAC had a study done in 2012 and at subsequent Review Assessment Hearings the Chair kept asking MPAC to release the study. Dave said that MPAC's original assessment confirmed a 25% property devaluation in the study but MPAC won't release this study. Dave said the study was done in 2013. When Dave questioned the assessor, he said that he was told by his boss not to consider IWTs an issue. Dave remarked that if property values are devalued by 25% because of IWT's that will affect the tax base of municipalities who host wind developers.

Sean Drennan stated that he will be having an MPAC hearing on September 16, 17 and 18 which will be at the (ACW) Ashfield-Colborne- Wawanash Township Council Chambers if people wanted to attend to se the proceeding. Sean said that they are bringing a court reporter to my hearing.

The Committee members discussed issues and difficulties in dealing with both MPAC and Association of Municipalities in Ontario (AMO) as it relates to industrial wind turbines.

  1. NEW BUSINESS
  2. Bill Palmer to speak on various papers that were presented to the Acoustical Society of America. Bill Palmer presented a Powerpoint presentation called "Assembling the Evidence" which was a summary of:
  • 41 scientific international papers are listed on the Pub Med website relating to wind turbines and human health,
  • points noted in the Health Canada Study on wind turbines
  • points noted in the Council of Canadian Academics study on wind turbines
  • papers presented at the 5th and 6th international wind turbine noise conferences
  • papers presented at the Acoustical Society of America conference in May 2015

The "PubMed" listing of publications on wind turbines and human health shows only 2 include a control study, and they show problems with health impact. The other publications are review of literature data. The prime issue noted at conferences was Amplitude Modulation form IWTs, which the MOE propose to drop completely from Ontario noise guidelines and regulations.

Bill stated there were various issues raised and these were just a few of

them. He routed a copy of his presentation to meeting attendees.

6.2Review open letter dated June 3, 2015 from Bev Teeter to Goshen Wind. This was a letter that was circulated by email to the Clerks of the participating municipalities and other municipalities. Dave Hemingway provided some insight on this letter. The letter is from Bev Teeter who is an older woman who states in her letter that in 2004 a lease agent attended at their residence and had them sign a paper and which this signature page is now added to another document. They signed a paper that wasn't attached to any document and they were then told that they had signed an option to renew. Dave said this is an older couple in their 80's and don't want to spend money in court. This letter is being circulated to be aware of what wind turbine companies are doing to leaseholders.

Dave Roy said that lady came to our Council meeting and she said that they never signed leases from the very start. That the lease agent brought out a signature agreement but didn't bring the entire document.

6.3Terms of Reference of the Committee. The Chair reviewed the list of municipalities who have approved the Draft Terms of Reference revised January 28, 2015. It appears that we have not yet received resolutions approving this version of the Terms of Reference from Bluewater and Central Huron. This may have been an oversight, but if those municipalities could review this document and respond to the Recording Secretary, we could complete this document which has dragged on for some time. Perhaps the Recording Secretary could send another email to Bluewater and Central Huron to follow up with them on this issue.

6.4Update on meeting with Patrick Brown Leader of the Provincial Progressive Conservative Party. Steve Adams provided an overview of the meeting with Patrick Brown that was held on July 6, 2015 at the Armow Community Centre. Lisa Thompson, Bill Walker, John Yakabuski and Todd Smith were also there. Patrick Brown spoke in support of our efforts. At the end he had to go to the Lucknow Legion for the 2015 Huron-Bruce Provincial PC Association meeting. We had about 40 minutes with Patrick Brown and we explained how some people are affected by industrial wind turbines and that this area has a spike of industrial wind farms. At the end of the meeting Patrick Brown said that it's a political issue and that the votes are in the GTA so he asked how are we going to affect the vote, the challenge is to educate people in the GTA. Steve said I have to give him credit for listening to us and realizing there is an issue here regarding wind turbines. Lisa Thompson was able to set this up. Mark Davis said that he wished there were more people from Kincardine at the meeting. Patrick Brown may be our next Premier and we need to keep that relationship and these issues fresh with him. There were a few people from this Committee in the meeting with Patrick Brown, Tony Clark, Randy Ropple, Linda McKee, Steve Adams, Mark Davis, Philip Englishman, Bill Palmer, Jacqueline Faubert, Lisa Thompson, and some local people.

7. FOR INFORMATION

7.1Tony Clark received a copy of a letter from Larry Miller addressed to Health Canada, copied to Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health regarding the Radiation Emitting Devices Act (REDA) and that wind energy manufacturers should be included in the Act. There was also a News Release issued from Larry Miller's office regarding the same issue. These items were circulated by email to the Committee members.

7.2Warren Howard provided an update of proposals for RFPs in Ontario. Warren said that there is another project in Chatham-Kent. Sudbury got a project. The deadline for submissions for RFPs is September 1st, 2015. In Eastern Ontario along the St. Lawrence River there are some proposed projects. This area is an old lake bed which has unstable soil and that is where the developer wants to put IWTs. Two years ago a particular municipality had supported an RFP and since then over 500 people showed up at a public meeting and now this municipality retracted their 2 year old agreement and they are now an "unwilling host" municipality. South Dundas supported a project in the last round of RFPs and has now declined to support the next project. Essex refused to support the next project. The "unwilling host" municipalities now number 91.

Wind Concerns Ontario has developed a new pamphlet and Warren distributed them to the Committee.

7.3 Randy Roppel said last night Kincardine Council passed a motion to prepare an RFP for a qualified acoustician report on a baseline report on the Armow project and extend this to all projects in the area. We are hoping to have the Terms of Reference approved by August 12, 2015 and RFP issued by August 31, 2015. We will use the tax money from ArmowWind to pay for the study.

7.4 Steve Adams passed on some information to the Committee that recently he and his son and his son's girlfriend went for a drive in the Grand Bend and Exeter area and they saw some wind turbines and stopped at them. Steve's son's girlfriend felt the effects immediately. She said she felt uneasy and her ears were ringing just by being near it. Steve said that the first person he has come in contact with that had an immediate reaction to the wind turbines.

  1. DATE AND LOCATION OF NEXT COMMITTEE MEETING

The next meeting date is scheduled for Thursday, September 10, 2015, at 7:00 p.m. at the Chesley Fire Hall, 211 1st Ave. N., Chesley.

  1. RESOLUTION TO MOVE INTO CLOSED SESSION AND GENERAL NATURE THEREOF (includes appointed Councillor(s) and citizen appointee)

Not Required

  1. RESOLUTION TO RECONVENE IN OPEN SESSION

Not Required

  1. ADOPTION OF RECOMMENDATIONS ARISING FROM CLOSED SESSION (if any)

None

  1. ADJOURNMENT

Moved by:Carol Barfoot

Seconded by:Keith Stelling

That the meeting be adjourned to the call of the Chair.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:10 p.m.

Carried

Original Signed byOriginal Signed by

______

Mark Davis, ChairTeresa Gowan, Recording Secretary

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Multi-Municipal Wind Turbines

Working Group Meeting Minutes

August 13, 2015