M'Cheeging Protest June 15, 2012
An LSARC member joined First
Nations and non-First Nations people in protesting the M'Cheeging Wind
Generating Station and what First Nations on Manitoulin Island see as
David Suzuki's interference in local affairs.
The site of the protest had a view
of one of the M'Cheeging turbines. The previously scenic local
hiking trail now has IWT on it.
Our member had to contend with
Jutta Spletstosser and Carl Brothers P.Eng of Frontier Power Systems
Inc, who said they call him the old man of wind.... A rather
intense discussion with Jutta ensued when she said she is from
Kincardine and we should be grateful we had such a scientist as Suzuki
to tell us how wonderful Wind Energy is and that all is good...
needless to say she was disabused of her mistaken impression that the
man was in any way qualified in a science that mattered! Carl
Brothers wanted to know why we were protesting green energy while
standing beside a kayak... poor fellow was at a disadvantage from the
outset.
After he was forced to agree that
our member and the Ontario Auditor General had a point about the greed
and all that entailed (the ways were enumerated) and he conceded that
minimally impacted watersheds might be a bad place to industrialize, he
remembered he had a presentation to deliver so scuttled off, probably
regretting he had given LSARC his card.
The protest was well attended
considering it was a work day and the occasional spatters of
rain. David Suzuki apparently snuck in riding in the back of a
Police car.
