Father Robert McNeil drew chuckles at a Pictou County funeral last week when he recited a Depression-era verse: “Life is mysterious/Don’t take it too serious/You work, you save/You worry so/But you can’t take it with you/When you go, go, go.”
The Roman Catholic priest was speaking during a funeral mass for June MacDonald, 65, a retired teacher who spent the last few years fighting an industrial wind project looming over her family’s farm. MacDonald lost her battle with the wind company before she lost her battle with cancer. She died two days after the first wind turbines started turning. Her husband, Rod—whose family had farmed the fields below Brown’s Mountain since 1792—died the night before her funeral.
Their story is both inspiring and sad. And in the background is news of regulatory changes that should concern all activists who—like June MacDonald—try to challenge big developers.
“The most important thing about June,” neighbour Faye Kinney remembers, “was she absolutely had no fear. It didn’t matter who they were or how important they were, it didn’t matter how important they thought they were, June stood her ground.” Kinney was referring to MacDonald’s work as a member of the Eco Awareness Society, a small citizens’ group that fought unsuccessfully against the installation of industrial-sized wind turbines near their homes. Shear Wind Inc., which is building Nova Scotia’s biggest wind farm, had appointed June MacDonald to its Community Liaison Committee in 2008. But MacDonald peppered Shear Wind officials with so many questions that after a few meetings, the company disbanded the committee and set up a new one without her. “She wanted answers, they didn’t give her answers, and she was like a dog with a bone,” Kinney recalls. “They had to get rid of her.”
Several of MacDonald’s questions were about noise levels, a main concern of EAS members—especially those who live less than two kilometres from the turbines. Shear Wind said it was satisfied noise levels would be at or below minimal acceptable levels, but wouldn’t guarantee it in writing or commit to moving any turbines that generated excessive noise. The company commissioned another noise study—but didn’t make the results public. It did, however, submit its new study to an Antigonish municipal official who issued a development permit last June.
And this is where the story takes a turn that is bound to have negative implications for anyone seeking to challenge government development approvals. The EAS considered appealing the municipal decision to the NS Supreme Court, but before spending up to $2,500 to file its appeal, the group needed to see if the new noise study answered its concerns. Citizens have 25 business days to file such appeals. Public officials, however, have 30 days to respond to requests for information, allowing them to run out the clock. And that’s what happened to the EAS. It received Shear Wind’s new study one day after the 25-day limit expired. Peter McInroy, the EAS’s lawyer, points out that citizens’ groups used to have six months to file appeals, but in 2009 the courts cut the time drastically.
“What they did to the time limit is shocking; I found it incredible what they did,” McInroy says. “I could see them moving it from six months to three, but 25 days is a terribly short time span.”
Meantime, uncertainty over the Supreme Court appeal divided the EAS. In September, June MacDonald, stressed out over her husband’s terminal cancer and worried about launching a court case that could easily cost $25,000, resigned from the EAS board. The group did launch its appeal in mid-September, but an unsympathetic judge ruled last month that the 25-day time limit had expired.
Tired and ill, both June and Rod MacDonald died early this month. As Father McNeil pointed out, June MacDonald won’t be taking her Shear Wind worries with her. But the situation looks grim for living activists seeking to challenge bureaucrats who approve controversial developments.
This article appears in Jan 13-19, 2011.
Talk to your buddy Dexter. With his majority he can change the law. Don’t hold your breath, he likes windmills because it is a visible symbol showing how much he cares.
To say June MacDonald fought against Shear Wind is misrepresenting the facts. She and Rod wanted the best for the community, the best for the environment, and the best for the country. They fought for the developers to prove their case, that this was infact a safe and efficient form of energy. The battle has not been lost, Shear Wind knew going in that every move was going to be watched and that accountability is a priority. I am sure that the work June and Rod did helped insure that the environmenal issues were given a higher priority than if no one was watching.; It is yet to be determined weather or not there are going to be any long term negative effects, hopefully only cheap, clean energy and the only drawback being the unsightly windmills themselves ,that like power lines, we will get use to.
‘Weather or not’? Try ‘whether’ (no ‘or not’). Who taught you?
Perhaps you could have made yourself available for an interview, as you seem so knowledgeable. Isn’t it really the greed of the community that resulted in individuals selling their land at the risk of potential environmental outcomes? And are you going to take the place of the activists no longer living? Your use of the word cheap speaks volumes.
Apparently the press saw fit to interview others (Faye Kinney and Peter McInroy). And how could a newspaper quote from the funeral service unless the press was permitted in the church or the service was taped?
Thanks Marg MacDonald for your comment. I assume you are the person who delivered the eulogy at June MacDonald’s funeral mass in LIsmore last week.
As the journalist who conducted a lengthy telephone interview with June in January 2010 and who talked to her again at her home in Baileys Brook, Pictou County in February 2010, I can say that June was very much fighting against Shear Wind because she found, as I did, that the company was unwilling to deal directly with critical questioning. In my case, Ian Tillard of Shear Wind kept stringing me along for three months or more before finally denying my request for an interview.
June said Shear Wind asked her to be on the Community Liaison Committee. “I guess they didn’t know me well enough to know I believe in speaking my mind,” she told me. She added that the company consistently dodged her questions. “I didn’t want to be unreasonable,” she said. “”I’m learning it’s sometimes better to be unreasonable.”
During my visit to their home last February, Rod was clearly worried about the potential loss in property values because of the wind turbines towering above the farm.
“If worldwide research comes out to be true, the value goes down, nobody wants to come. It’s what? Thirty, 40 percent worldwide where there’s in sight of the windmills. In easy figures, 40 percent of $200,000 would be $80,000 that I would lose.”
Marg, your assertion that wind power is cheap and clean is open to question. For one thing, wind power must be backed up by other sources because it is intermittent. For the next several years, that back up will mean the burning of fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal. Secondly, wind power would not be economical without hefty subsidies from electrical consumers and taxpayers.
My Coast cover story that opens in June and Rod’s home was based on more than seven months of research. http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/blow-job/Co…
First off, the title to this article is misspelled. Unless, “imelines” is a word that I am not familiar with. For someone writing an article, you’ve already lost the reader when you can’t even spell.
Secondly, a windmill looks like this : http://www.toursramp.com/wp-content/upload…
A wind turbine looks like this: http://apps.carleton.edu/reason_package/re…
If you approaching anyone in the professional environment, chances are they will take you more seriously if you are educated. That’s my first point of advice.
As a reader of this article, my sympathies go out to the other readers and to the families of the since lost.
As for setbacks in distances, a few kilometers is quite large. If someone has an issue with setbacks to neighbouring properties, they need to attend by-law and community meetings where these distances are determined. To approach a development company during the development stage, after they have already been approved with a development permit (issued by the local county), it is a little too late and it is not the responsibility of the developer to provide noise emission studies for local residences. Furthermore, if anyone is actually interested in scientific research and peer reviewed articles about noise emissions from wind turbines (utility and small scale) then the information is available from http://www.canwea.ca or http://www.awea.org. You can also view CSA regulations on wind turbines online (some documents require a small fee).
CSA, MCS, IEEE are examples of certification organizations in the world which regulate the sales and safety of machinery, industrial equipment, electrical equipment and countless other technologies nationally/internationally. The standards of these organizations are a collaboration of engineering principles, professional feedback, scientific studies which specifically focus on the public’s safety and health. As part of the CSA certification process, a wind turbine’s noise emission level (in full spectrum) must be considered in direct relation to health. Without qualifying under CSA regulations, a wind turbine is not eligible to legally operate in Canada. A strong understanding and definition of “noise” is governed by CSA, MCS, etc and health effects are the drive for these regulations. Most reasonable setback distances are roughly 300m from any place of residence. Even at 300m, the noise of a wind turbine is very low and I highly recommend every person who is concerned with the noise levels to actually take some time to visit a site and listen for yourself.
Most people would agree wind is a great source of power, and having sat in hundreds of community meetings throughout the maritimes with votes of <95% positive feedback on the choice of wind development, it's not hard to believe that a few people here and there, with generally very little education on the machines themselves, will object to them going in their "backyard". It really comes down to: NIMBY, which is a reasonable concern, but holding development companies responsible for previously determined by-laws and asking them to produce documentation on noise levels is somewhat redundant. Perhaps asking them for their CSA approval certification would be more ideal. Also to self educate, understand the millions and millions of dollars of scientific research that has already been done in conjunction with wind, and read the CSA regulations with full regard. Perhaps that would be a better time spent and more effective for the people who are land owners within a certain distance of the site.