SooToday.com has received the following letter from loyal reader Klaas Oswald who is rebutting a letter we published earlier.
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I’m writing in rebuttal to the recent letter to the editor that was printed by SooToday, in which the writer expressed an opposition to wind towers.
First, I should state that I have no connection of any kind with any of the wind power companies or any other form of electrical generation or distribution.
First, I should state that I have no connection of any kind with any of the wind power companies or any other form of electrical generation or distribution.
Second, I don’t consider myself an apologist or spokesman for any companies that are involved with the generation of electrical power.
They are quite capable of speaking for themselves.
I want to address some issues raised in the most recent letter and some other writings that have appeared in the media, which express the anti-wind tower viewpoint.
Many of these arguments hinge on the damage that wind towers and wind farms will do to the Algoma wilderness.
I want to address some issues raised in the most recent letter and some other writings that have appeared in the media, which express the anti-wind tower viewpoint.
Many of these arguments hinge on the damage that wind towers and wind farms will do to the Algoma wilderness.
The problem is with the word “wilderness”, which is used to evoke emotional feelings about the area in question.
In fact, that stretch of Algoma from Sault Ste. Marie north to Montreal River along the Trans-Canada Highway has not been a wilderness for a very long time.
Even before Confederation there were mines in the area, and it was not too many years ago that the head frame of the Coppercorp Mine was still visible.
There are currently active mining claims and mineral exploration in a number of places.
Most if not all of the land along the highway up to Lake Superior Provincial Park is in private hands.
For at least a century the whole of the area has been logged, sometimes repeatedly, at first using the larger rivers and then a widespread road network to transport logs.
As patches of forest grow to maturity, logging will occur again, presumably for more centuries or at least as long as there is a demand for wood and wood products.
One could consider the land from the Sault to the Park as an industrial landscape, just waiting for an opportunity to produce more metals and more forest products.
In addition to logging roads there is also the railway, the Trans-Canada Highway, and lesser highways and residential roads, all of them heavily used.
In addition to logging roads there is also the railway, the Trans-Canada Highway, and lesser highways and residential roads, all of them heavily used.
Some of the folks who object to wind towers regularly use these means of transportation to access their homes, cottages, and hiking and ski trails, but the existence of this access changes the land from a wilderness to human-altered landscape.
Even the Group of Seven, who painted Algoma a century ago, used the train to access the forests and lakes that we revere in their artwork.
Yet one could consider the rail line and highways as scars on an otherwise pristine landscape.
The wind towers are considered by the anti-tower group as a blight on the landscape, visible from the highway or from their cottages or recreation spots.
The wind towers are considered by the anti-tower group as a blight on the landscape, visible from the highway or from their cottages or recreation spots.
But there are already many towers in the area.
Whole lines of towers running down cleared rights-of-ways run across the land, visible from hilltops far away, and carrying electricity from hydro-electric facilities further north.
More and more hilltops feature microwave relay towers, radio towers, and cell phone towers, with more of the latter to come.
Each of them has its own set of blinking red lights that are visible from far in the distance.
From out in Lake Superior, at night, the darkness is also lit up by headlights on the highway and the lights of cottages clustered where there used to be darkness; some might consider those as blights on the nightscape, ironically some of the lights originating from those who object to wind towers.
And, I suppose that there are those who think of the stark white wind towers as an art form in themselves, and not an eyesore.
Beauty is after all, in the eyes of the beholder.
In my view, wind towers are just one more addition to an existing landscape designated to human use.
Wind farms are no more out of place than power lines, microwave towers, roads, and cottages.
The places where wind farms exist or are proposed are not parks set aside for preservation.
And they are not wilderness.
The next issue is that of necessity.
The next issue is that of necessity.
The anti-wind argument is that we don’t need the power, and that if southern Ontario wants more power they should generate it for themselves.
This is essentially the Not-In-My-Back-Yard view, often shortened to NIMBY.
The problem is, NIMBY doesn’t work in our modern society.
The vehicles we use are manufactured in southern Ontario or in the USA, our gasoline, diesel, and fuel oil comes from Alberta or overseas.
Almost all of our food comes from some faraway place.
(And each of those products comes complete with toxic by-products, pollution, or pesticides, that we are happy to ignore because it is out of our sight.)
The wood cut here becomes products that are sold all over North America and overseas.
Steel made here can be sent away, made into a product, and then shipped back here for us to use.
We live within an integrated system of supply, demand, and distribution.
A lot of that system, indeed our whole way of life, runs on electricity.
A lot of that system, indeed our whole way of life, runs on electricity.
The population of Ontario, Canada, and the USA are still growing, and are likely to do so for a long time.
That means there will always be a demand for electricity, and very likely increased demand.
You can’t create electricity out of nothing; it’s got to come from somewhere.
Little of Algoma is suited to agriculture or food production.
Little of Algoma is suited to agriculture or food production.
The reality of northern Ontario, on the thin soils of the Canadian Shield, is that we supply forest products and metals.
We also have plenty of water, land, sun, and wind.
In my view, it makes good sense to use the existing industrial landscape to produce something that the land is capable of producing, and electricity is one of those.
We have already harnessed many of the larger rivers to produce hydro-electricity at Sault Ste. Marie, Montreal River, and Wawa.
Solar farms already exist on flat land in the Sault.
The existing Prince Wind Farm is situated to catch the prevailing westerly wind off Lake Superior.
There is no reason that some additional wind farms cannot be built in suitable locations.
Some of the anti-wind argument is based on health concerns, particularly, the noise levels from the tower blades.
Some of the anti-wind argument is based on health concerns, particularly, the noise levels from the tower blades.
I find it difficult to believe that this is an issue in Algoma.
The existing Prince Wind Farm is far from any homes.
No one lives anywhere near the proposed Bow Lake project.
And my study of the maps suggests that it is a full mile from the nearest habitation to the closest wind tower in the proposed Goulais project.
Perhaps anyone who is adversely affected by wind tower hum or vibration at that distance, should also not be able to be in the same house as a furnace fan, refrigerator, or clothes washer and dryer, and not able to stand the road hum and motor vibration of riding in a vehicle.
The real issue here is that I just don’t see any series of replicated and peer-reviewed studies with clear conclusions about the adverse health effects of wind tower noise that relates to the distances between any of the Algoma wind towers, existing and proposed, and the nearest residences.
Are there downsides to wind towers and wind farms?
Are there downsides to wind towers and wind farms?
Of course there are.
There is no question that they, and other sources of renewable electricity, have been subsidized to get the industry started.
But subsidizing an industry for valid economic purposes is not, and has not, been limited to renewable electricity projects; all of us here in Sault Ste. Marie remember the tax dollars that went to Algoma Steel and St. Marys Paper to keep those industries alive during tough times.
There is also no question that many people do not like the way wind towers can overpower the visual landscape.
But other means of power generation have their own problems.
But other means of power generation have their own problems.
What were once free running rivers are dammed up, the rivers below the dams almost drying up between surges of water and creating all kinds of havoc with fish populations.
A visit to Wawa will reveal dry waterfalls at night and out of the tourist season.
Hydroelectric impoundments release mercury from the soil that is concentrated in the top predators in the food chain, the ones we like to catch and eat like walleye and pike.
Ontario is phasing out coal-fired electricity, but coal was one of the worst air polluters in industry and virtually every other way of generating power is less damaging to human health.
The citizens of Toronto didn’t want gas-fired power plants in their neighbourhoods, so they were cancelled at great cost.
We derive much of our power from nuclear facilities, with its attendant dangers and now the problem of where to put that spent radioactive fuel.
Even the benign solar arrays take away land that could be used for agriculture or other purposes.
No means of generating electric power is without its issues, but no one is going back to heating mainly with wood, lighting with kerosene lanterns, or turning off the computer.
Wind generation is by comparison one of the least troubling and least health damaging means of generating electricity.
Could the existing and proposed wind farms harm tourism, another argument used to combat wind farms?
Could the existing and proposed wind farms harm tourism, another argument used to combat wind farms?
Many of Algoma’s tourists come from the USA.
They have to cross the International Bridge across the St. Marys River to get here.
Until the economic downturn, they did cross in droves, despite the unattractive industrial façade of the steel mill and the paper plant, and I’m not aware of any evidence that the sight of those stopped them from coming back.
Drive down I75, wind towers are springing up in view of it; I doubt that anyone driving that Interstate says to themselves that they will never use it again because of the sight of the towers.
Denmark has had wind farms for many years; I’ve seen no evidence from the local wind farm opponents that show that their existence harmed Danish tourism in any way.
In fact, I’ve see photographs of people happily fishing with the towers in the background.
In closing, I offer the opinion that many if not all of the arguments against winds farms in Algoma are spurious, made up to support an opposition to wind towers that is based strictly on aesthetic grounds, that is, the towers will spoil the view.
In closing, I offer the opinion that many if not all of the arguments against winds farms in Algoma are spurious, made up to support an opposition to wind towers that is based strictly on aesthetic grounds, that is, the towers will spoil the view.
I just don’t believe that is enough of an argument to oppose wind projects.
Klaas Oswald
Sault Ste. Marie
Klaas Oswald
Sault Ste. Marie
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