Many municipalities that have declared themselves to be an Unwilling Host to new or extended industrial wind power sites know what they are talking about: they already have noisy wind turbines, or are neighbours to them. Their answer to new proposals? NO.

November 27, 2024

Wind Concerns Ontario, the coalition of community groups, families and individuals concerned about the negative impacts of industrial-scale or grid-scale wind power sites, has developed a map of the 157 municipalities that have passed formal resolutions declaring themselves to be Unwilling Hosts to new industrial wind power sites.

It tells a story.

An important story, given that we are now weeks away from the Independent Electricity System Operator or IESO launch of a new Request For Proposals, the LT2-RFP, which will likely include proposals for wind power projects.

“It’s one thing to read the list of the 157 communities,” says Wind Concerns Ontario president Jane Wilson, “but it’s even better to look at the map and see exactly where these municipalities are located. Most of them already have wind turbines operating, or they are adjacent or nearby jurisdictions with operation wind power sites. They know what the problems are. They don’t want them.”

In 2009, when the McGuinty government in Ontario passed the Green Energy or Green Economy Act, the legislation superseded 21 pieces of legislation including the Planning Act, and removed local land use planning for wind power sites from municipalities.

The current government under Doug Ford, repealed the Green Energy Act, and returned the ability of municipalities to say no to such projects.

Today, municipal approval is mandatory for any new power project to receive a contract from the IESO, the contracting authority.

Municipalities began lining up to state they were Unwilling Hosts in 2013 when Wainfleet Mayor April Jeffs wrote a letter to the government under Premier Kathleen Wynne, demanding that municipal planning powers be returned.

Lessons learned

A look at the map shows that most Unwilling Host municipalities are in Western Ontario, where Huron, Bruce and Grey counties, for example already have significant wind power projects. And in mid-Ontario near Peterborough, Unwilling Host municipalities have passed resolutions likely due to unpopular and unwanted power projects there. The same is true in Eastern Ontario, where the legal battles to stop Nation Rise in Crysler, Ontario were enough to encourage the declaration.

Prince Edward County, where residents spent more than $1.5 million to fight off at least three wind power projects via appeals and court action, took a stand and is now an Unwilling Host. One power project, “White Pines,” built by German wind power developer WPD, was partially constructed but ultimately cancelled. The community fought the project for ten years, and then MPP Todd Smith spoke numerous times in the Legislature about the developer’s behaviour.

Noise and safety: Still not satisfied

While municipalities now have the right to say No to new power projects they are still deeply dissatisfied with the way the government has managed wind power throughout rural Ontario. The Multi-Municipal Energy Working Group has filed several papers with the government, citing noise complaints and safety concerns as important issues.

To this date, however, no changes have been made to noise limits for wind turbines, or setbacks between the industrial power sites and residential areas.

Wind Concerns Ontario says there are more than 7,000 formal complaints that have been filed with the Ontario environment ministry, Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks or MECP, which is the regulator for wind power operators. Many of the complaints filed and logged as Incident Reports feature mentions of adverse health effects. The Ministry of Health still has no jurisdiction or effect with regard to these complaints.

“The number of complaints is probably far higher than that number,” says Jane Wilson. “We know that not everyone’s complaint was properly logged or even accepted at all, and the MECP has now changed its recording process so individual complaints are logged under a single ‘master’ file number, which disguises the true number of reports. Worse, the ministry decided that it is not possible to perceive wind turbine noise emissions beyond 1500 metres, so refused to accept reports from anyone at that distance. That is a whole lot of lost data.”

Wilson says that as far as WCO is aware, there is no process in the MECP to review, evaluate and act on complaints—they are simply logged in District Offices.

With the new Request For Proposals coming, it remains to be seen whether wind power developers take a run at Unwilling Host Councils anyway, or whether they will focus efforts on neutral jurisdictions. That approach has already backfired as proposals in East Zorra spurred that township to become an Unwilling Host, and Zorra Township took the step of telling the IESO it was deeply unhappy with the RFP process that seemed to require municipal support well before any impact assessments could be completed.

Just last week during an IESO web event, a planner from Oxford County told the IESO that the whole process would be “challenging” for municipalities and that parts of it were “not aligned with reality.”

The IESO is predicting release of its RFP in January. That’s when small-town, rural Ontario will see how it fares against IESO bureaucracy and the Big Wind corporations.

A map of operating wind power projects is here:

Wind Concerns Ontario

contact@windconcernsontario.ca

List of Unwilling Host municipalities: