Sir: On Feb. 5, local media indicated that the North Kent Wind project, owned by Samsung and Pattern Energy as major partners and the Municipality of Chatham-Kent and Walpole Island as minor partners, was not responsible for the troubles with the water wells in the former Chatham Township, according to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.
Can anybody really say that they expected a different result? It is the MOECC that issued the permit to allow the wind farm to be built using suspect information suppled by the project owners.
Did they base their conclusion on “scientific fact” or the theory that it is just a coincidence?
How did another scientific study come up with a 14,000-times increase in black shale particles and the MOECC didn’t?
Did the MOECC even do any water-detailed analysis? If they did, they should make them public.
The MOECC was supposed to have monitored the construction to make sure there was no environmental impact. They were supposed to have monitored any reported impact to the aquifer that was reported to them. Did they?
They had the typical government and government agency answer to the complaints. “We take all reports very seriously.” Yes, they do, but DO nothing.
As a matter of fact, Premier Wynne gave that very same answer when she was in Chatham and was given a bottle of the “problem water” and was told of the difficulties being experienced by those families with contaminated wells – and she DID nothing. Perhaps she does not realize that there is a small chunk of Ontario that sticks outside of the Greater Toronto Area because that large area was wise enough to not vote in any Liberal MPPs. She has basically only urban support.
Some of the residents in the former Dover Township, depending on the aquifer, have been experiencing these difficulties for years with no support or help from any government agency, municipal or provincial.
It seems that, according to preliminary work being done at the Otter Creek Wind Farm site, that they plan to move forward with that project. Will the provincial government or perhaps the MOECC get off their asses and do something to stop this aquifer destruction? Will they let all of Ontario’s aquifers be destroyed?
The first five turbines built in Dover affected water wells, the next fifty-five affected more water wells, the next in Chatham township affected water wells. If you keep doing the same thing, can you expect different results? How many will be affected by the Otter Creek Project? Are our leaders slow learners?
Another strange occurrence this past week is that, although the mayor bragged about the increase in building permits and the taxes derived from the wind turbines, our individual property taxes continue to spiral upward. Our population continues to decline, but it seems to take more municipal employees to service this declining population.
Have the mayor and council made other bad investments with our tax dollars? Have we been financing an investment club with our tax dollars? Are dollars that could be spent on infrastructure being invested in poor investments?
One resident seems to question a lot of the municipal expenditures and is given information only through the Freedom of Information Act. Perhaps many more residents should be questioning the prudence of the Chatham-Kent expenses and staffing.
I also found it strange that the police chief needed more finances to patrol the large area of Chatham-Kent. Has it really increased in size since amalgamation?
There are many more examples of where the average citizen either cannot personally finance or obtain the necessary information to call out the perpetrators of poor judgment. What can be done about continuous poor decisions?
Is our system of government broken or is it that we have elected people that do not properly look after the needs of the residents? Do we have too many diplomats calling the shots who are untouchable because they are not elected, draw high salaries and have nobody who is elected with the gumption to remove them from their positions?
I believe that we have foxes guarding the hen house and we will have to continue buying hens to replace what they devour.
Peter Hensel
Dover Centre
