Executive committee sidelines motion opposing offshore turbines

Opponents of a proposed wind farm off the Scarborough Bluffs huffed and puffed at city councillors Monday but failed to get even a symbolic call for a halt to the politically charged project.

The executive committee of council heard more than three hours of deputations, mostly from Guildwood residents vehemently opposed to a Toronto Hydro proposal to install about 60 turbines in an offshore ribbon from roughly the Leslie Street Spit east to Ajax.

One after another, they beseeched the 12-member committee to pass along to full council a motion by Scarborough councillors Paul Ainslie and Brian Ashton to ask the Ontario government for a moratorium on wind-power development in Ontario.

Energy Minister Brad Duguid has said such a motion would have no impact on the province’s drive to boost green energy production. But the wind farm opponents, thwarted so far at every turn, gave it everything they had.

John Laforet, president of Wind Concerns Ontario and a challenger in the city election for Ainslie’s council seat in Ward 43, Scarborough East, said that nowhere in the world are there so many turbines so close (2 to 3 kilometres offshore) to a populated shoreline.

Nobody really knows the turbines’ effect on human health, on fish habitat or on shore erosion, he said.

“We need this council to act. You own this problem. You can stop Toronto Hydro,” which is owned by the city, he said.

Anthony Haines, Toronto Hydro’s chief executive, said the utility won’t decide whether to install the 140-metre-high turbines until it gets at least two years of data from a wind gauge and tries to address the residents’ concerns.

“You have our commitment that that process will be full and complete and open and transparent,” he said, noting Hydro has pledged to find 500 megawatts of renewable energy from sources including wind, solar and biomass.

“I think it is important, however, to understand that this (wind farm proposal) is a very important piece of achieving our target,” he said.

Another Scarborough councillor, Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38, Scarborough Centre), made a successful motion to refer the matter to the Toronto Environmental Office, which is to report back to committee after Hydro has the results of its wind tests.

De Baeremaeker said he understands only the aesthetic argument against the turbines. “I think they’re grand. I think they’ll be a tourist attraction, and boats are going to weave in and out of them.”