What began last year as a request from Transport Canada to move eight wind turbines near the Chatham-Kent Airport turned into an order on the weekend.
The turbines must be gone by the end of the year. And that has municipal politicians irate.
“There is no safety issue, so we need to change the regulation rather than force the removal of the turbines,” Mayor Randy Hope said in a media release. “Only the lawyers will win if this ends up in litigation.”
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Chatham Coun. Derek Robertson backed Hope in his assertion. He said Toronto Island Airport has bigger and closer structures and there appears to be no problem there, so he wonders why Transport Canada wants the turbines moved.
“If you overlap the mapping of our airport over the Toronto Island Airport, you’d find condos that are 53-storeys high – twice the size of a turbine – inside the area the turbines are within in Chatham-Kent,” he said. “The CN tower is closer to the Toronto Island Airport than the turbines are to the Chatham Airport. Any comments by any representative from a political perspective about safety, frankly, they are just not founded.”
Robertson said he isn’t suggesting the island airport in Toronto is unsafe, but rather our municipal airport is “exceptionally” safe.
“Transport Canada can talk about grandfathering in the condos, but the fact is more condos continue to go up without any concerns for safety at the Toronto Island Airport,” he said.
Robertson also thinks Chatham-Kent Essex MPP Rick Nicholls, who has been lobbying for these turbines to be removed, is off base.
“I find it somewhat comical that our local representative from provincial parliament finds it such a safety concern.
Nicholls said in late June that the removal of the turbines was one of his top priorities as the area’s MPP. He could not be reached for comment by press time.
The order to rip down the turbines caught the municipality off guard. Two months ago, John Norton, Chatham-Kent’s chief legal officer, met with Transport Canada officials and proposed the turbines be recognized as exceptions.
Instead of delivering a reply to Norton’s proposal, Transport Canada issued the removal order.
GDF Suez, the owner of the turbines in question, is expected to object to the order and seek a hearing.
In the meantime, Norton and others, including Robertson, are speculating as to the reasoning behind the removal order.
“I think Transport Canada just doesn’t want to manage airports in rural Ontario that are on the periphery. They want us to decertify the airport,” the councillor said. “This has nothing to do with turbines.”
Certification of an airport allows for an airport to attract commercial flights, among other benefits.
“Decertification of the airport would solve this current legal problem, but we won’t agree to decertify our municipal airport because the airport is important to the economic vitality of our community,” Norton said in a media release.
The eight turbines are in a no-fly zone south of the Chatham-Kent Airport. The zone was approved by NAV Canada prior to construction. The not-for-profit corporation owns and operates Canada’s civil air navigation system.
The turbines went up in 2012 and Hope said Transport Canada knew about their locations for some time prior to construction.
“Transport Canada specifically approved the lighting on each of these eight turbines prior to construction,” he said in a release.
Efforts to speak to Transport Canada officials in regards to the decision were unsuccessful by press time.
It is impossible to read this without drawing the conclusion that this is pure politics, and Chatham's MPP is not working in the best interests of his constituency.