![\"Wind](\"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/files\/2013\/08\/wolfewindmills_600.jpg\")
<\/a>Wind turbines on Wolfe Island<\/a> now dominate the view there and are also visible from Kingston Ontario. Photo: Lucy Martin<\/p><\/div>\n In Ontario, the current policy gives approval authority to the province. The top-down approach has become something of a political hot potato. That’s partially a standard NIMBY problem and partially because the province’s over-all energy policies have been the subject of controversy and scandal.<\/p>\n Details of that larger energy policy are layered and complex. Gas power plants were cancelled<\/a> at great expense with a lack of accountability and transparency. (Indeed, the political side of that issue <\/a>was big enough to be part of long-time Liberal Premier Dalton McGunity’s unexpected decision to step down.)<\/p>\n Bringing that back to wind power, critics complain surplus wind power<\/a>\u00a0(too much at the wrong time) must be sent to the U.S. power grid at a steep financial loss to Ontario ratepayers. The Liberal policy’s push for promised wind farms has also resulted in painful David-vs-Goliath battles<\/a> between small wind opponents and large companies.<\/p>\n Taken as a whole, the tangle of poor implementation also causes dismay at the loss of positive momentum <\/a>in seeking “green” solutions. Or put another way: it’s hard to assess the pros and cons of wind power if it’s part of a larger muddle that is hard to defend.<\/p>\n More recently \u00a0Ottawa Citizen reported<\/a>\u00a0on growing rebellion at municipal levels of government in Ontario:<\/p>\n A coalition of 62 communities in Ontario have declared themselves \u201cunwilling hosts\u201d to provincially approved windmills and they\u2019re demanding that Premier Kathleen Wynne\u2019s government allow municipal governments to choose whether and where to put industrial wind projects.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Wind farms have become a political wedge issue that forces Ontario’s ruling (minority) Liberal government to tread carefully. As reported in the Citizen on 8\/20:<\/p>\n Progressive Conservative Party leader Tim Hudak told 1,600 delegates gathered at the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference this week that, if elected, he would \u201cscrap the Green Energy Act\u201d entirely. If communities don\u2019t want windmills, the municipality should not be \u201cforced\u201d to house \u201cindustrial wind turbines,\u201d Hudak said.<\/p>\n New Democratic Party leader Andrea Horwath said \u201cshort-sighted\u201d decisions on the energy file have created a needless backlash against wind power in communities that feel inadequately consulted.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n While those 66 declared communities are just a fraction of \u00a0the province’s 444 municipalities, the conservative-friendly Toronto Sun says the\u00a0“not a willing host” movement is strong and growing<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cIt was important for someone to keep this list and say, \u2018You are not alone,\u2019\u201d said Wind Concerns president Jane Wilson.<\/p>\n \u201cWind power can work,\u201d she conceded, \u201cbut plunking them (turbines) down, right next to communities and next to homes and schools, is not the right idea.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course, the “who decides” battle is nothing new.\u00a0Similar jurisdictional frustrations exist in New York State<\/a>, where passage of something called Article X<\/a>, which created a one-stop approval process at the state level \u00a0for energy plants and wind farms.<\/p>\n Do you think there is a way to do wind “right”, so to speak? Get enough agreement and buy-in so the heated battles become general acceptance? Or is there no where to put a wind farm that won’t have some faction crying foul and pushing back?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wind farms continue to generate disagreement. 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