75 protesters from the local area and across the province picketed outside the opening ceremonies for the new Enbridge Ontario Wind Power Project near Underwood on Friday.
Health and noise concerns, along with the province’s new Green Energy Act were there main reasons for being there.
Bill Palmer, a Saugeen Shores resident and Research Director of Wind Concerns Ontario says there are people who live near the Enbridge development are already complaining that they are unable to sleep at night.
He says protesters also came from Essex and Chatham-Kent where people are also reportedly falling ill because of the turbines.
Complaints have also been raised in the Ripley area.
Palmer says they are not ignorant people and deserve to be heard. He says they’re being treated by the government as though they don’t exist.
Palmer says he hasn’t received responses to any of the four letters he’s sent to Huron-Bruce MPP Carol Mitchell stating his concerns with wind turbines.
He says his group met with Energy Minister George Smitherman and agreed to disagree.
One of the protesters says you don’t realize how bad the situation is until you live around wind turbines.
A woman says where she lives, they’re expecting that turbines will be built 700 metres from her home.
Another woman says she’s concerned about the health effects from wind turbines.
Another man says when winds are high near where he lives, the turbine by his home “sounds like a damned jet plane.”
