Media Release – PREMIER’S GOVERNMENT OVERRULES SENIOR ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEWER, OSTRANDER POINT TURBINES
MEDIA RELEASE
North American Platform Against Wind Power
(NA-PAW)
September 10, 2015
PREMIER’S GOVERNMENT OVERRULES SENIOR ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEWER,
OSTRANDER POINT TURBINES
“When we start to treat nature and species like a bunch of widgets in a factory, we’ve completely lost sight of what’s truly important for our communities and our very identity as Ontarians,” Gord Miller, Ontario Environmental Commissioner, 2013
Potent questions remain after the ERT (Environmental Review Tribunal) hit the pause button at the behest of Toronto environmental lawyer, Eric Gillespie, on September 5th, 2015 (Ostrander Point turbine project). Why did the Premier’s government overrule a senior environmental reviewer?
Question after question was put to Mr. Joe Crawley, from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, highly qualified as a species at risk North American Platform Against Wind Power herpetologist with expertise in Blanding’s Turtles. (Crawley’s “Gold Standard” qualifications include: member of COSEWIC (Committee on
the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada), reviewing reports for that committee, decision-making for listings of species at risk, as well as key roles in developing a provincial task team forestry policy regarding amphibians and reptiles.
Why was this expert’s advice to the Ministry, to not grant the permit to “kill, harm and/or harass endangered or at risk species” at Ostrander, not listened to? Why, given the 5.5 km of roads that would naturally appeal to the Blanding’s Turtle as prime breeding sites, was this permit advanced, and who advanced it, given the expert’s own admission that these roads would be harmful to the species?
