The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

2 - Orono Weekly Times Subscriptions $38.09 + $1.91 GST = $40.00 per year. No Refunds. Publishing 48 issues annually at the office of publication. "We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Aid to Publishers - Canada Periodical Fund toward our mailing costs." Wednesday, August 11, 2010 ORONO WEEKLY TIMES - 5310 Main St., P.O. Box 209, Orono, ON L0B 1M0 E-mail: oronotimes@rogers.com or Phone/Fax: 905-983-5301 Publisher/Editor Margaret Zwart Production and Display Advertising - Roxanne Johnston Classified Advertising - Sue Weigand The Orono Weekly Times welcomes letters to the editor on subjects of interest to our readers. Opinions expressed to the editor and articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Orono Weekly times. Letters must be signed and contain the address and phone number of the writer. Any letter considered unsuitable will not be acknowledged or returned. We reserve the right to edit for length, libel and slander. If your retail or classified ad appears for the first time, please check carefully. Notice of an error must be given before the next issue goes to print. The Orono Weekly Times will not be responsible for the loss or damage of such items. Blowing in the wind The public meeting at the Orono Town Hall on July 28 was an unusual one for this village. It was crowded, there was a line-up outside, and there was a police presence both inside the hall and on the street. People were behaving in an orderly fashion, but there was a lot of frustration being vocalized: frustration at the line-ups; frustration at the lack of any loud-speaker system to hear those on stage; and frustration at Zero Emissions People/Wind Works Power Corporation for the lack of information about the project. People wanted answers. How would this 10-turbine wind farm affect their health? How would it affect their property values? Where, exactly, was it going to be located? And who would be responsible if, down the road, residents' health was affected by the turbines? These were all good questions, and yet none of them could be answered by WWPC CEO Ingo Stuckmann, at least not to the satisfaction of those gathered inside the hall. In the same fashion - an open house -- as last summer, when he first announced his plans to create a wind farm in the Orono area, Stuckmann came back to fulfill the requirements of the Ontario Power Authority for Renewable Energy Approval by holding a public meeting at the Town Hall. There would be no presentation. But this time, residents let their dissatisfaction with the open house-style meeting be known. They wanted direct answers to their questions, and they wanted their neighbours to be able to hear the same answers at the same time. Orono residents were, it seems, wise to the divide and conquer tactics often used to quell dissent. According to the information provided at the meeting, "The wind turbine model proposed for the ZEP Wind Farm Ganaraska is the MM92, manufactured by the German corporation REpower Systems AG. This turbine has three fibreglass blades equipped with lightning arrestors. The rotor diameter is 92.5 meters (303.5 feet) and the hub height will be 100.0 m (262.5 ft.), for a maximum total height of 146.25 m (480 ft.) above grade." The exact location of the proposed wind farm was also not disclosed, despite the fact that the company reports that "the project area has been secured by the execution of option for wind farm easement agreements with various landowners. Environmental studies are near completion." We have been told only that "all turbines would be contained within the area between Ganaraska Road to the North, Concession Road 5 to the South, Main Street to the West, and approximately Henry Road to the East." Besides the ZEP Ganaraska Wind Farm, WWPC also has been awarded contracts for projects in Bethany, Millbrook, Norwood and Pontypool. "The Pontypool hall is also tiny," noted Heather Rutherford, spokesperson for Clarington Wind Concerns, about the public meeting scheduled two days later at the Pontypool Community Centre. "You have to wonder if these small venues are being chosen strategically." Not surprisingly, a few days later, it was reported by the Peterborough Examiner that the public open house in Pontypool for the proposed Settlers Landing Wind Park (Pontypool) and the Snowy Ridge Wind Park (Bethany) was shut down by the fire marshal when more than 140 people tried to crowd into the tiny building. The meeting has yet to be rescheduled. By holding its public meetings in small venues, and by not giving local residents a clear picture of it where it intends to place the wind farm, ZEP/WWPC is doing little to create a good relationship with the community. WWPC used to be called AmMex Gold Mining, a company which appears to have claimed bankruptcy within the last five years. Documents listed online (www.faqs.org/sec-filings/100517/WindWorks-Power-Corp_10-Q/) with the U.S. Securities And Exchange Commission confirm that AmMex Gold Mining Corp. changed its name to Wind Power Works Corp. on March 25, 2009. Form 10-Q, dated May 17, 2010, further states that the company does not intend to become a wind energy producer, but rather to develop the wind park for sale to wind energy producers. "Once we secure power contracts, we believe that we will be able to lease or sell the Wind Farms to operating utility companies or companies desiring to purchase wind turbines and erect the necessary power lines," it states. Things are moving rather fast for many residents, who have not received satisfactory answers to their questions. WWPC states on its website that, "through the new Green Energy Act, ... the Province [is] moving toward more rapid deployment by removing regulatory barriers." It seems that in its rush to embrace green energy, and to fulfill its part in the Kyoto Accord, the McGuinty government is willingly stepping on the rights of rural Ontario residents. When one considers the same government also enacted the Greenbelt legislation, it does appear that it has little care for its rural constituents. Staying in Touch MPP John O'Toole Time to Open the Books on Eco-Tax Agencies Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak has demanded that Stewardship Ontario and the other Waste Diversion Ontario secretive government agencies responsible for provincial recycling programs be held to a higher standard of transparency and accountability. Mr. Hudak called on Premier Dalton McGuinty to ensure that Waste Diversion Ontario and its component agencies make public the salaries of its senior executives. Furthermore, our Opposition Leader, Tim Hudak demands that Premier McGuinty reveal the terms of all eHealth-style consultant contracts, and abide by Ontario's Freedom of Information laws. As you will recall, the controversial "eco-fees" introduced at the same time as the Harmonized Sales Tax have been halted after a public outcry over the fees and how they were being implemented. Now that the McGuinty Government is leaving taxpay- ers on the hook for the operations of Stewardship Ontario, they must also force their secret eco-tax collectors to publicly account for how this money is being spent. Remember it is the McGuinty Government that's responsible for directing Stewardship Ontario to create a list of eco-taxes. The McGuinty Government is responsible for approving Stewardship Ontario's eco-tax plan. The McGuinty Government is responsible for permitting Ontario businesses to pass eco-taxes on to consumers in a haphazard and uneven way. The McGuinty Government is responsible for overseeing the programs on which eco-taxes are supposedly spent. Tim Hudak pointed out last week that a second Waste Diversion Ontario agency - the Ontario Electronic Stewardship - still refuses to make public its annual report and financial statements despite being legally required to do so by April 1, 2010. Everyone agrees that dangerous, contaminated waste must not simply be landfilled. I am sure most people must question why chemicals and other material known to be hazardous continue to be used in manufacturing and in products. Different solutions must be considered, rather than simply "taxing the consumer." There must be tax incentives and other measures to encourage the producers of this waste to invent new products and production methods. As with all provincial issues, your comments are encouraged. I may be reached at (905) 697-1501, toll-free at 1-800-661-2433 and by e-mail at john.otooleco@pc.ola.org. Grain & Oilseeds Risk Management Extended The Province of Ontario has announced it is temporarily extending the grain and oilseed sector's risk management pilot program for the 2010 crop year. In 2010, prices for grain and oilseed have dropped more than 25 per cent. This is significantly less than the cost of production. The Risk Management Program (RMP) helps farmers offset losses caused by low grain and oilseed prices. The program is open to farmers who received assistance in 2008 and/or in 2009, as well as those who began farming on or after January 1, 2008. All levels of O'TOOLE see page 14