Hello Gunn's Hill Wind Farm Stakeholders,

A Notice of Proposed Change has been issued for the Gunn's Hill Wind Farm.

The purpose of this Notice is to inform the public and Project stakeholders of a technical change to the Gunn’s Hill Wind Farm Renewable Energy Approval (REA) Reports.  This Notice is published in the Woodstock Sentinel-Review and the Turtle Island News, mailed to all landowners adjacent to and within 550 m of the Project location, mailed/emailed to all Project stakeholders and posted on Prowind’s website.

The Notice summarizes the option for an alternative access road construction method. The option to use cement stabilized roads has now been added to the Project scope. This option does not change any of the locations of the access roads and only allows for the construction method to change, if it is decided to be the best option at this site.  There are no new environmental impacts as a result of this change.

The original access road construction method was the traditional gravel road option, which involved a geotextile membrane covered with a base of “Grade B” gravel and finished with a layer of “Grade A” gravel. The cement stabilization option includes use of a highly compacted mixture of soil, cement, and water for access road construction, and finished with a thin layer of gravel.

 

A Modification Document outlining all the details of the new access road construction option is available on the Gunn’s Hill Wind Farm project webpage. This document outlines the construction details and notes the locations of any changes to the REA documents as a result of this change.  This Modification Document was sent to MTCS and MNRF for their review and to seek additional comments to their original approval letter. Neither agency had additional comments to add to their original approval letter. Their comments are included in the Modification Document.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Prowind Canada at info@prowind.ca or 905 528 1747.

Sincerely,

the OCEC team

Holly Powell's grade 3 social studies class from Laurie Hawkins Public School in Ingersoll. You can view their vision of a sustainable Oxford in 2030 here in this wonderful video the kids produced:

Oxford 2030 video

The contest was initiated by FutureOxford a nominated steering committee with the mandate to help develop Oxford County's Community Sustainability Plan by coordinating and collecting the input from the County's residents.

The full article can be found here:

Wind Turbines and Health: A Critical Review of the Scientific Literature

Please follow the link to read recent coverage of Renewable Energy Co-ops in the Brantford Expositor

http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/2014/12/18/renewable-energy-co-ops-springing-up-everywhere

Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas!

Christine

A study conducted in Melancthon Township, ON, including the analysis of more than 7,000 home and farm sales that occurred between 2002 and 2010 came to the conclusion that the 130 wind turbines installed in the vicinity of those properties had no effect on the value and sales prices achieved.

While this may come as a surprise to some, for those that have followed the research on property values near wind farms it is only confirmation of what studies in other jurisdictions have found over and over again.

You can read the full article on this topic published in the Toronto Star on December 7th here:

Wind turbines have little impact on property values, study concludes

A great analysis and wake-up call by Kris Stevens, Executive Director of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association, recently published in the Corporate Knights magazine. Follow the link below:

http://www.corporateknights.com/channels/utilities-energy/ontario-power-authority/

What has been shown elsewhere many times has finally been reproduced at taxpayers costs of $ 2.1 million by a Health Canada study. The long awaited study was launched in 2012 and once more confirms that there are no effects on human health caused by wind turbines.

What the study also (again) shows is that there is an annoyance effect and that Ontarians seem to be about 3-times more annoyed by wind turbines than people living in other jurisdictions. Interestingly this annoyance effect is correlated with the activity level of anti-wind activists, meaning it is the activity of the anti-wind activists that makes us prone to be more annoyed by wind turbines.

Interesting, eh?

To get the full study follow the link here:

Health Canada Wind Study

CTV London interviewed OCEC's President Helmut Schneider on October 4th.

You can view the short documentary they made and which aired on the news the same day here:

http://london.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=460125

Read here what OCEC member and investor Glen Estill recently had to say about us in his wind blog:

http://wind-blog.com/?p=590#more-590

Our members are our best advocates! We appreciate every word of mouth and social network activity unfolded by them to spread the word about OCEC and our goals and projects.

Thank you!

On October 4th we will have a members' BBQ in Oxford Centre to mark the end of our successful fundraising campaign, the OCEC's first anniversary, and the Ontario wide Green Energy Doors Open celebration of clean and renewable energy in the province.

Please stay tuned to receive more details on the event!