LEEDCo Wind Project’s Mega-Opposition (Junking Lake Erie at Taxpayers’ Expense)

[Editor note: The Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) has proposed to erect between six and nine industrial wind turbines just off the shore of Cleveland. The so-called INCUBATOR project is currently before the Ohio Power Siting Board.]

“We are thrilled to have the strong support of the environmental community in Ohio,” said LEEDCo President Lorry Wagner, citing letters from the Ohio Environmental Council, Nature Conservancy, Environment Ohio, Sierra Club, Mom’s Clean Air Force, Ohio Interfaith Power & Light, and Earth Day Coalition.

Barely were those words spoken, when a damning letter arrived (Part 2 tomorrow) from a much broader, bigger, and sophisticated group of environmentalists and consumerists.

The letter provided brutally clear information and frank talk about one of the wind industry’s leading carnival barkers, Dr. Paul Kerlinger and Associates, whose environmental testimony is universally controversial and corrupted by industry money.

Groups who signed onto the anti-LEEDCo letter are:

Great Lakes Wind Truth; North American Platform Against Wind Power; Save the Eagles International; Save Our Skyline, Ohio; Great Lakes Sports Fishing Council (Tom Marks); Charter Boats Association of Lake Erie (Rick Unger); Jim Wiegand, Wildlife Biologist; Partnership for the Preservation of the Downeast Lakes Watershed; Protect Our Lakes; Officers of Erie County Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs and Western New York Environmental Federation; Whitley County Concerned Citizens; Laurel Mountain Preservation Association; Port Crescent Hawk Watch Ontario Regional Wind Turbine Working Group;

Preserve the Wellfleet; Members of the Presque Isle Audubon Chapter in Erie, PA; Green Acres Sportsman’s Club; Save Our Allegheny Ridges; Deputy Mayor Cavan Monaghan, Ontario; Deputy Mayor of Leamington, Ontario; IICCUSA (Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition USA); NO WIND ALABAMA MEMBERS; Huntington County Concerned Citizens; Manvers Wind Concerns City of Kawartha Lakes, Ontario; Auglaize Neighbors United; Members of Concerned Citizens of DeKalb County IN; Synergy Energy Inc.; Ohioans for Affordable Electricity;

Approximately 100 individuals; HMANA (Hawk Migration Association of North America) sent its own letter asking refusal of the permit).

The fight is on between Big Wind/Big Environmentalism and grassroots environmentalists and anti-crony, pro-consumer advocates who know all about the sour economics, government dependency, and environmental insults of windpower.

Background

For nearly five years, a collection of people around the Great Lakes have worked to preserve 20% of the world’s remaining fresh water reserves from industrial wind. The first meeting of the Great Lakes Wind Truth group, U.S. and Canada, met in a small community hall in Newfane, New York.

But prior to that, the Ontario groups under Toronto Wind Action had been busy getting five moratoria votes, each one adding to resolve to protect the Lakes. (MORATORIA VOTES: Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, Scarborough Council, Town of Ajax, City of Pickering, and the offshore Moratorium, none of which to date has been overturned due to “new information” about the viability, or the environmental safety, of windpower in the Lakes.

The next challenge for the now binational group (Great Lakes Wind Truth) was the GLOW (Great Lakes Offshore Wind) project, NY. Nine shoreline “to be affected communities” said NO, and eventually it was determined that NYPA would find the project too expensive. Also cited in the cancellation of the project was: public discontent.

Not taking historical cues well, Cleveland’s LEEDCo has stuck to its guns, and proposes to be the first North American fresh water “incubator” project, about 4-7 miles off shore. Behind this baby project, it is projected that thousands more turbines will enter the scene.

As Charlie Wright, Deputy Mayor of Leamington told us: “What do they want? Environmental bankruptcy as well as fiscal failure? And sailors playing bumper cars in the Lake?”

Partners in Crime

LEEDCO’s environmental perspective is provided by none other than Curry and Kerlinger. When asked if he has given testimony before on behalf of wind power, Kerlinger replied:

Yes. With respect to development of windpower facilities, I have provided testimony in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maine, and Illinois. I have also provided information for the permitting of windpower facilities in several other states, as well as in Canada and Europe.

Permitting agencies should carefully scrutinize the ornithological positions of Dr. Kerlinger. (See the rebuttal in tomorrow’s letter from Great Lakes Wind Truth/NA-PAW by wind industry expert and wildlife biologist, Jim Wiegand.) A high standard of proof should be applied to this and any other project that is taxpayer-enabled and economically under water.