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EDUCATION Public board examining consolidation models 14
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THE PICTON
Gazette
Volume 186, Week 23
THURSDAY
JUNE 9, 2016
TOURING
TASTING
Cheese festival draws enthusiastic samplers
Rotarians learn about Camp Picton’s past and present
Canada’s longest publishing non-daily newspaper, proudly serving Prince Edward County since 1830
THEY’RE READY TO RUN
Panelists see public interest in preventing potential harm to animal life near project
ERT revokes Ostrander Point energy permit JASON PARKS STAFF WRITER
County Kids of Steel participants Violet Blower, left, and Spirit Lake hit the pavement after dismounting their bicycles in an attempt to not lose time heading into transition to the running portion of the triathlon Sunday. (Adam Bramburger/Gazette staff)
Score another win for Blanding's Turtles and the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists (PECFN). The Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) announced its decision on PECFN's appeal of a Renewable Energy Approval issued by the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) to Gilead Power Corporation to install a nineturbine, 22.5-megawatt wind energy project on crown land in the area of Ostrander Point in South Marysburgh. In its decision, the ERT explained that proceeding with the project, when it will cause serious and irreversible harm to animal life, a species at risk and its habitat, is not consistent with the general and renewable energy approval purposes of the Environmental Protection Act, protection and conservation of the natural environment, and protection and conservation of the environment, nor does it serve the public interest. “In this particular case, preventing such harm out-
See DECISION, page 28
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OP/ED
weighs the policy of promoting renewable energy through this nine-wind turbine project in this location,” ERT panel members Heather Gibbs and Robert Wright wrote. In its summary against proposed Gilead developed remedies that would have protected Blanding's turtle habitat while still permitting the construction of industrial wind turbines on the south shore, ERT agreed with evidence that the Ostrander Point Crown land block is a complex ecosystem, supporting a self-sustaining rare alvar landscape and the project would have been located entirely within a candidate life sciences area of natural and scientific interest which extends from Prince Edward Point to Petticoat Point and is roughly 2,000 hectares. The ERT found proceeding with the project in these circumstances is also “not consistent with the precautionary principle and the ecosystem approach, which are principles of the MOECC statements of environmental values.
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