As best as I can, I'll try to put down here a brief history and current status of the project. I'm sure it will be incomplete and be filled with errors. Please help me out with any additions or corrections. Just as a start, here's a map of the original Vector project, 11kb. Six years later I came across a Beacon article about a presentation the Vector salesman made to AIMS, the local mens society, about the project. It is interesting how naive everyone was back then.

If the project would have stayed this small, there probably wouldn't have been the furor we now see. But just like Wolfe Island, the project grew, in secret, until the locals were faced with essentially an industrialization of the entire Island.

Vector became CREC which became part of CHD - Canada Hydro Developers. I came upon the original Vector contract, 4.1mb, which seems to be for just the wind metering tower. In it there's provisions for the subsequent turbines for 30 years, but it's unclear to me if that required further negotiation or if there was a separate agreement that is specific for each lessee. In any event, all these contracts were apparently released by CHD when they abandoned the project.

July 2008. Amherst Island is part of Loyalist Township, and the township is in the midst of re-doing its 5-year plan. A major part of that plan now concerns wind turbines. The Township staff updated the plan (creating the first draft) and during June held a series of meetings to get public comment. Out of those discussions came the second draft, 34kb., with the changes noted in red. This second draft will be discussed and voted on by the Council in September. I see a fair number of good (in my case, good = more protection for residents) things in this draft, and as always there's a few things that could be improved. It looks like they have reinstated NPC-104, from which Ontario had arbitrarily exempted wind turbines. But even this does not get the setbacks to where most health organizations think they ought to be. My noise section contains a fuller explanation of all of this. UPDATE - as of early December 2008 the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing deleted the Township's reinstatement of NPC-104. It is presently being appealed, with little hope of a reversal. John Harrison wrote this letter to the MMAH, which contains a nice description of the issue.

August 2008. Canada Hydro Developers (CHD) are developing Wolfe Island, and held many of the turbine options on Amherst Island as well. Several months ago they sent a letter to all the option sellers and other landowners saying they were bowing out of the Amherst Island development. They didn't give any firm reasons why, but in retrospect I think they wanted to free themselves of their commitment to not develop Amherst "in the foreseeable future", which was made to Environment Canada so they could avoid a Cumulative Environmental Assessment. That left Gaia, the holder of the rest of the options and which seems to be a one-man shop (a Mr. Samit Sharma), without a developer. I figured Mr. Sharma wouldn't just walk away from his investments in options and a wind-metering tower, so he'd have to go looking for another developer. Soon enough, he found Algonquin Power, a publicly-traded UIT that seems to mostly be in the financial end of things, but can develop projects also. Together they have stated they will be submitting a proposal to the OPA (Ontario Power Authority) to provide some number of megawatts. Given Amherst Island's proximity to transmission lines, the OPA will probably look favorably upon the proposal. As I understand it, then the real work for them begins, as they have to come up with a design that meets all the federal, provincial and township rules and their supporting studies. The new partnership has its own name, Windlectric, and sent this letter, 1.2mb to most Island residents, inviting them to become part of the project.

September 2, 2008. Loyalist Council conducted a special meeting to pass the new 5-year plan. The council did so, but before doing so it inserted the following language to section 5.11.3.3. Commercial-Scale Wind-Energy Generating Systems shall be separated from urban land uses (except Industrial), the Hamlet and Shoreline Residential designations on Schedule A and residential land use designations on Schedule C, D and E in order to reduce the potential impact to public health and safety, noise and visual intrusion on these areas. The important addition was the reference to public health.

I got an email from one John Litcharson in Wilton, on behalf of a group named the Loyalist Colloquium on Public Policy. He attended this meeting (which I did not) and his commentary is here.

September 20, 2008. The new Gaia-Algonquin partnership, named Windlectric Inc., made a presentation, 0.3mb to the Council and to a large number of attendees. This part of the meeting lasted a total of maybe 30 minutes. April Meyer of Algonquin was the only proponent presenting; unfortunately her PC wasn't working so she had to borrow a printed copy of the above linked presentation so she could give it. I was there; some of my notes:

• They have 55 options signed.
• They won't have any details, like turbine sites, until after the open house on Oct 5.
• The OPA has a gag order in place on all responses to their recent bid openings, so nobody can talk about just how big the project will be. UPDATE - I read through the OPA RFP and there's no mention of a gag order in it (at least not on the responders - the OPA does have restrictions), except for prices. I'm betting that they just don't want to talk specifics right now, and don't want to admit it, so they put the blame on the OPA.
• They will be using turbines in the 1.5 - 2.5mw range.

John Harrison representing CPAI addressed the council. His main points were that CPAI will vigorously oppose the project, by:

• Raising health issues for anyone within 1.5 km of a turbine.
• Raise any issues relating to damaging nature - especially birds and bats.
• Use Provincial, Federal and International rules, regulations and treaties to block the project.
• He provided 3 reasons why he thought CHD pulled out:
1. Environmental issues
2. The strong opposition from Amherst Islanders.
3. The marginal wind resource.

October 5, 2008. Windlectric had an open house on the Island today, which I did not attend. I figured all they would have is a series of displays saying how wonderful they were, and I expected that they would/could not answer the questions I would have. As it turned out, my low expectations were appropriate. Here's an account of the evening.

October 15, 2008. Loyalist Township council passed the following resolution to be sent to Ontario. It was based upon the Ramakrishnan report and perhaps the Harrison response. I thank the Council for making every effort to get all the facts before making what could be a disastrous decision. In other action, the council deleted the inclusion of "the associated transformers and power transmission lines" in the definition of the system and replaced it with "Wind Energy Generating System Accessory Facility", along with some temporary construction facilities. I would hope the new definition continues to include the transformers and lines, so I don't know if this is more or less restrictive. We'll see.

November 7, 2008. We assume Windlectric has submitted their bid to the OPA, but of course nothing is public yet, and won't be until December or so. In the meantime, John Harrison sent this letter, 0.4mb to the OPA. It outlines some reasons they should carefully evaluate (and in John's opinion, reject) the bid response from Windlectric. Unfortunately, it seems that the OPA does not have a mandate to be responsive to public comments, per this letter, 8kb. UPDATE - The OPA put out bids for 500mw of renewable power in this RFP, with 1500mw to follow later. There are 38 responses to this RFP and if I guess the average capacity is 100mw only a few of the proposals will be accepted. I've been checking the OPA web site for any new news and when I hear I'll post it here.

December 11, 2008. Over on Wolfe Island the Federal final screening report, 0.5mb. has been issued and there were some additions to it that concern Amherst Island (section 8.4, page 59). I have extracted that section here and added my commentary. You might also visit the Wolfe Island Bird Page just to see what is in store for Amherst. I hope the raptors on both islands will adjust to the turbines; but if they can't, there will be no effort to save them.

January 23, 2009. The OPA has announced the six winners of this RFP, and Amherst Island was NOT among them. So the Island gets a reprieve until the next RFP is issued. I assume the next RFP will have to pretty much start the process from scratch, as new proponents will be entering the bidding process. Hopefully this will take a year or so; the OPA hasn't announced its schedule yet.

February 24, 2009. As mentioned above on October 15, 2008, the Loyalist Township Council passed a resolution that tightened the noise limits. The Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing rejected this resolution and reinstated the original Ontario limits, which have been shown to be inadequate. CPAI is now appealing that ruling. On a different track, the Ontario Green Energy Act was introduced this week which may make all this moot, as the Province seems determined to roll over any and all objections.

March 15, 2009. There was some intense discussion of the Green Energy Act in the Loyalist Township Council meeting, along with some criticisms of the presumed developer, Gaia. Given that Ontario plans to remove most of the obstacles to developing wind turbine projects, why would anyone expect the developers to even talk to the locals at all? They may no longer have to, and you can bet they won't.

June 18, 2009. Loyalist Township planner Murray Beckel wrote a long fairly nasty letter, 3.0mb (for a government official) to the Green Act standing committee. Apparently the council isn't happy about being cut out of the loop.

July 5, 2009. CPAI (the Coalition to Protect Amherst Island) placed an advertisement in the Kingston Whig-Standard yesterday, calling for the resignation of John Gerretsen, who heads the MOE. I think it's nicely written.

August 11, 2009. As mentioned above (August 2008), the Federal government (in addition to the Province) has an Environmental Assessment process that gets triggered by a variety of circumstances. In my WI screening page I opined that Windlectric would do everything in their power to avoid these triggers, as: In the event that a wind plant is developed on Amherst Island, or any other new wind energy facilities are proposed within the Project's CEA study area, it is expected that the new project(s) will conduct a cumulative effects assessment if a federal EA is triggered. This should include the WIWP and any other reasonably foreseeable and certain projects at that time. A Cumulative Effects Assessment would be a big deal, covering the entire eastern end of Lake Ontario. One of the triggers is if the Federal government: Exercises a regulatory duty in relation to a project, such as issuing a permit or license that is included in the Law List Regulations. Amherst is an island and is separated from the mainland by a navigable body of water. The necessary underwater power cables thus require a permit (as they did on Wolfe), which would trigger the EA, which in turn would trigger the CEA. There have been rumors - which they will not comment on - that Algonquin has abandoned the project. There are also reports that Gaia/Windlectric has started releasing some option grantees from their obligations, and reducing payments to others. If this is significant remains to be seen.

December 19, 2009. I am aware of two projects in North American on smaller populated islands: Wolfe Island in Ontario, and Vinalhaven in Maine. Manitoulin and Prince Edward Island are larger and may not have the same issues, but we'll see. Both smaller islands are having significant problems. Wolfe's are noted here, and there's this instructive letter from Vinalhaven. To be fair, the developers on Vinalhaven did respond. I'll be trying to follow this story as it unfolds, given that Vinalhaven isn't too disimilar from Amherst, and the comparisons might be useful. At least Vinalhaven's project was community-based, so there's a better chance the developers will be responsive compared with a commercial developer. Update - the local Bangor radio station interviewed some of the Vinalhaven residents for almost an hour (60+ mb!) and this interview is perhaps the truest indication of what the locals are faced with that I've ever found. If you have the bandwidth and the time, it is really worth a listen.

Putting wind turbines on "smallish" populated islands also represents special risks for the developers. The risks to the residents are similar to the risks of neighbors everywhere and need no further mention here. The risks to developers, however, are heightened on islands. Specifically, there's no way to hide the noise, property value, health and environmental effects the turbines have. If birds and wildlife disappear from an island, there's no way to fudge the study area to minimize the damage. If property values decrease, there's no way to include properties further away to minimize the decreases.

John's letters make reference to the Helimax reports. Helimax is an energy consultant who was given the task of coming up with the 60 best sites for wind projects in Ontario, based on a variety of criteria. Amherst Island did not make the list. Here are 3 reports, two of which are similar.

• Helimax 2006 Onshore Report, 2.5mb, without many of the maps.
• Helimax 2006 Onshore Report, 21.7mb, more and better maps, but HUGE.
• Helimax 2008 Offshore Report, 1.4mb.

I came across a sample contract, 0.2mb that is probably pretty close to what has been signed on the Island. It is structured differently from Vector's, and seems to be the complete agreement. Although I'd bet that a new agreement, containing some additional items, would be presented when (and if) the actual Land Lease agreement is started. The OFA (Ontario Farmers Assoc.) has developed a list of 30 suggestions for lease agreements, and in a comparison of their list to the sample contract the landowners on Amherst didn't do so well.

Loyalist Township posts meeting agendas and minutes and they can be searched here. For example, searching for "wind" produces, at present, 6 pages of hits. The results are arranged in chronological order, with the most recent documents at the end of the listing.

Below are references giving more details on all of this. Comments, corrections and additions are welcome.

• David Lee Presentation, 0.2mb, criticism of the Green Bill.
• Michael Trebilcock, a professor and his criticism of the Green Bill.