A meeting will be held on July 31st at 7 p.m. at Cecelia's Banquet Hall for anyone interested in having further discussions concerning a proposed wind power project in the R.M.s of Weyburn and Griffin.
In late June, the Saskatchewan Indigenous Investment Finance Corporation (SIIFC) pledged up to one hundred million dollars in loan guarantees for a new renewable wind energy project to be built southeast of Weyburn. In agreement with six Indigenous and Metis partners, Enbridge Inc. has joined with SaskPower to advance the project through a power purchase agreement.
Enbridge hosted an information night last Wednesday, with a turnout that was likely unexpected in terms of numbers.
"I think they had just designed it to be a come and go, and answer the odd question," shared one of the attendees, Kim Brady, who lives on an acreage five miles east of Weyburn. "There were no chairs in their room. They never thought that many people would show up."
"There's a group of four or acreage owners all together in this little clump. I knew they were going to go, and anybody that I talked to, any of the neighbours, are very upset. They do not want them."
Brady said his group was the first to arrive, signed in and the project engineer introduced himself to them.
"He's a nice guy, and I just said, 'there are a bunch of people coming, and they're not happy'," he noted. "I don't think they had any idea the pushback that they were going to receive."
Once the room filled up, which, according to Brady, was likely over-capacity, the crowd started to get quite noisy.
"People were getting madder and madder," he described. "I saw a chair in the corner, so I just stood up on the chair and I addressed the Enbridge people and I said, 'I think people have got questions and we wonder if you'd be willing to answer some of them?' So the gentleman said 'yes' and I just got down and let it go from there."
Brady said the explanation from Enbridge included the location of where the turbines would be located, and that the work would take two years to complete.
"We're all concerned about our property values, right? Who's going to want to live amongst these turbines? I mean they're as noisy as 40 DBA according to Enbridge. Who's going to want our property? Who's going to want to live beside that and see them things? They're 678 feet tall. To give you a little context, the Parrish & Heimbecker inland terminal is around 155 feet. So these things are monsters."
He said since that night he has been hearing from several members of the community. He has also reached out to land-owners outside of the area that have the turbines, including Assiniboia.
"They say they're noisy. They flash in the sun. You don't open your windows at night. They're just disgusting," Brady shared. "These things are terribly inefficient. They don't last very long. Their life span is short and you can't recycle them all that that concrete in the bottom of that base stays there forever. They can't move it. They can't take it apart. I don't want to have three or four hundred workers out there for two years traveling our roads. I just don't want it."
Other concerns for Brady include how far away from the homes the turbines will be located, and while the R.M. requires 1,000 metres, so far the province of Saskatchewan has no set regulations on this distance. He noted that he believes the provincial government's poising to back this project is part of a necessary response to the federal government's requirements for net zero emissions by 2050.
He added, "Maybe we could band together and maybe we can get Scott Moe's attention."
Brady said he has reached out to Mayor Marcel Roy and MLA Dustin Duncan, and would like to hear from them prior to the meeting on July 31st. Anyone who wants to attend the meeting, due to limited space at the venue, can email noweyburnwindmills@gmail.com to register.
