A few hundred protestors from rural communities voiced their dissatisfaction with the Ontario’s Liberal Government in Toronto Tuesday amid the announced construction of wind turbines in the Lake Erie communities of Leamington, Union and Kingsville, the Canadian Press informs.
The dissatisfaction has been caused by the harmful effects of the wind turbines on the health of the population, along with the financial impacts the planned development of wind energy might cause. The protestors called for the removal of Premier Dalton McGuinty, urging all the stakeholders to join forces against erecting of the wind turbines.
“I’m hoping we can bring it to the people of Toronto to realize that it’s not an economical way to produce electricity, and they should help us stop them. Hopefully the people in Toronto will realize that, and maybe we can have a change of government and we can solve some of our problems,” said dairy farmer Ralph Coneybeare.
Even though the Government plans to reduce the level of premiums paid for future wind and solar energy projects, this is still insufficient to cover for the financial consequences on local households.
“We have driven those costs down, we intend to drive them down further and further every year,” McGuinty said.
Nevertheless, Sherri Lange, member of the group North American Platform Against Windpower disagrees.
“People are being chased out of their homes, they can’t live beside them. It’s internationally known, recognized by very world-class doctors, that these people have wind-turbine syndrome, a collection of medical symptoms that are very serious. There have been suicides around the world,” she said.
Several lawsuits have also been launched against the wind farms, attributing health issues such as sleep disturbances, headaches and memory problems. At the moment the Ontario Government is facing a new lawsuit filed by SouthPoint Wind for $1-billion worth damages.
In February 2011 the Government of Ontario imposed a moratorium on offshore wind farms and confiscated the company’s property.
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Offshore WIND staff, April 05, 2012