BLUE MOUNTAIN, N.S. — There was standing room only as residents from across Pictou County and as far as Guysborough, Colchester, Cumberland counties, and the Annapolis Valley showed up to express their displeasure with a proposed renewable energy project during a meeting with Premier Tim Houston.
Houston hosted a town hall at Blue Mountain and District Volunteer Fire Department on April 18 to allow his constituents to ask questions about Bear Head Energy's proposed 100-turbine wind project for Websters Corner.
The response he received was less asking questions and more a resounding opposition to this project. Some residents even called for a referendum on the project to take place.
Cathy Hay, a resident of Glencoe, a community not far from the proposed site, was the first to speak out about the project. She expressed her concerns about the placement of the turbines and what that would mean for recreational land use, proximity to homes, and fire safety.
“I'm very, very concerned about what kind of limitations this is going to result in, and that's just me personally. I'm also an executive of the fire department in my area, and I'm concerned about the implications of fires in the forest. We need also to understand the implications of having 97 wind turbines in our catchment area or some portion of them in our catchment area,” Hay said.
Houston reassured residents that there would be no chainlink fence around the wind farm and that an emphasis would be placed on ensuring the quiet enjoyment of the land, although the question of services needs to be considered further.
“The impact on services in a community, like the fire service, for sure, is a concern,” Houston said during the meeting.
What is proposed?
Bear Head Energy's project proposes 100 wind turbines producing approximately five megawatts, each situated within a 22,000-acre site between Sherbrooke Road and East River East Side Road in eastern Pictou County.
The project is not about installing wind turbines for the local power grid; it will support a green hydrogen and ammonia production facility in Point Tupper, which Bear Head Energy intends to export to Canadian allies, such as Germany.
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Paul MacLean, the managing director of Bear Head Energy, wrote a letter to the premier on April 15 that Houston shared with those in attendance on Thursday night.
“The Websters Corner Wind Farm and the potential opportunity for Bear Head Energy to produce green hydrogen and ammonia at costs among the lowest in the world will be positive economic and sustainable contributors to the region and our province. Pictou County and Nova Scotia can be world leaders in green, clean energy,” the letter said.
MacLean added that Pictou County residents would ideally fill the proposed 250 construction jobs and 25 full-time operations jobs. The letter went on to state that the tax revenue from this project would provide the county with roughly $4.5 million annually.
Setback limits
One participant expressed concern over the turbines' setback limits, explaining that one turbine is proposed to be built two kilometres from her home.
Houston explained that the province doesn’t currently have setback regulations, leaving it to the municipalities to decide what is best for their area. He acknowledged that setback limits would be part of the project assessment.
According to the land-use bylaw by the Municipality of Pictou County (MOPC), wind turbines need to be at least one kilometre away from a dwelling, said Coun. Randy Palmer, who was in attendance at the meeting.
Palmer added that the county had originally had a setback of 600 metres until Fitzpatrick Mountain and Mount Thom got their own wind farms. There were concerns about turbines' impacts on health and well-being. The one-kilometre setback limit is consistent with other municipalities in the province and came in place in 2007, said Palmer.
“So for council, we wanted to have a good balance between the residents and business, right,” Palmer said.
Coun. Andy Thompson added that since it is a land-use bylaw, developers don’t need to come to the council to ask to build within the setback area. The issue would only come to the council to be voted on if the development encroached on the setback limit.
The one-kilometre limit didn’t sit well with residents in attendance.
Hugo Medeiros, a new resident of the area with a PhD in environmental sciences, said that a one-kilometre setback is not enough to reduce light flicker and noise produced by the turbines. A two-kilometre setback is ideal to reduce the noise and flicker, but four kilometres is ideal to avoid all problems associated with wind turbines, such as infrasound.
“It will be a big change to the community. So, it ends up happening, okay, we have benefits, but what is the price we’re going to pay to get those benefits? You have to think about that,” Medeiros said to cheers from attendees.
Houston acknowledged that a larger discussion around setback limits would have to be held when considering the project.
Green hydrogen not green enough
Margaret MacDonald, a resident of the area, attended the meeting and questioned how exporting energy for green hydrogen and ammonia production to be used overseas in Germany is more environmentally friendly than greening Nova Scotia’s grid with the same turbines.
Houston said that green energy would be another export from Nova Scotia, similar to lobster, which is exported worldwide.
“I do think there's an opportunity for Nova Scotia via an exporter of energy, whether that be from land title's green, ammonia, hydrogen, whatever the case may be,” Houston said. “We don’t only catch just enough lobsters that we can eat, we export it. So we could export energy. That's an opportunity.”
Al Muir, a businessman from Plymouth, echoed MacDonald, calling the whole project ‘greenwashing.’
“If we're going to be green, and any environmentalists will tell you that you have to keep it close to the community what you do, so exporting this stuff across the sea continuously is a bad idea as this whole project is, and I don't know why we're even considering it,” Muir said.
Gregor Wilson, the owner of Ski Wentworth and organizer of Protect Wentworth Valley, also attended Thursday night’s meeting. Having fought against the proposed EverWind project in Colchester County, he was vocal in his opposition to Bear Head Energy’s project, calling it greenwashing and unsustainable.
“If all of that wind energy went to our grid, it'd be a lot less competition for any of any other plan. I don't want 100 turbines in my backyard. No one does. But maybe I could live with 30 or 40 if it was going into the Nova Scotia grid. But right now, this export is just a scheme to get rich for EverWind and Bear Head Energy folks and their shareholders, and the people, the rural communities in Nova Scotia, are the ones that are going to have to pay for it,” Wilson said.
He added that crown lands need to be assessed for biodiversity before projects such as these can be proposed so that limits can be placed. He continued, saying that while the ecological footprint of individual turbines is small, the overlaying projects have a detrimental environmental impact.
“Don’t forget it’s a scam,” he said to cheers and claps from attendees.
Looking ahead
SaltWire met with the premier after the information session about the project.
Houston said the next steps are ultimately with the company but that his office will aggregate what was expressed during the meeting and bring these concerns to Bear Head Energy.
“We will aggregate what we've heard from the community here, and we'll be raising some of those concerns with them on behalf of the community,” Houston said, “but really, the next step would be from the company.”
In response to a question posed by The Halifax Examiner about what happens if Bear Head Energy’s project isn’t viable and the county is left with these turbines, he added that there will be a discussion about remediation.
Currently, MOPC's wind energy by-law doesn't include a remediation plan.
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