The Whig-Standard, June 7, 2016
By Elliot Ferguson

The public waits for the Amherst Island hearing to begin June 7th. Photo: Elliot Ferguson/Whig-Standard

STELLA — The two sides in the legal battle over the Amherst Island wind energy project laid out their final submissions Tuesday.
The Association to Protect Amherst Island (APAI) is seeking the revocation of a conditional approval of Windlectric’s wind power project.
The hearing comes after the association appealed an August decision by the Ontario government that gave the project conditional approval. The Amherst Island Island Environmental Review Tribunal is expected to be the largest such hearing since the process was established.
Island resident Amy Caughey led off the final submissions by arguing that the negative effects on children’s health have not been studied collectively.
Caughey said the proximity of a proposed concrete batch plant near Amherst Island Public School would hurt pupils’ health.
But Caughey said such effects can’t properly be studied unless the children are first exposed to the dust and noise from the plant and the changes in their health documented.
“In Canada, in 2016, we do not permit such trials on children,” she said. “The burden of proof cannot fall on a parent.”
APAI’s lawyer, Eric Gillespie, said the evidence has met the burden of proof needed to show wind turbines are detrimental to human health.
“This case advances the health claims further than any other case this tribunal has heard,” he said, before outlining the key evidence his witnesses presented about the potential negative impacts of the wind turbines.
Gillespie said expert testimony showed Amherst Island is home to many species — birds, bats and turtles — that could be negatively affected by the project.
“This island is a stronghold for species that is under pressure,” he said of the local bobolink population.
Gillespie saved his final submission for the Blanding’s turtle, which has taken a special place in ERTs in this area.
The closing of the Amherst Island ERT came the day after a similar process rejected a wind energy plan for Prince Edward County.
On Monday, an ERT upheld an appeal of a nine-turbine project by the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists (PECFN), saying the installation of gates on access roads won’t adequately protect the population or habitat of Blanding’s turtles.
Gillespie said island residents called as witnesses have testified to have seen the turtle on the island. …
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