THE HYPOCRISY OF WIND
by J.R. Irwin, B. Sc. F.
For almost twenty years, one of my jobs was to review environmental impact assessments, particularly those impacting forest resources. This included proposals for development of forested land for estate residential housing, golf courses, highway rights of way, and utility corridors for hydro lines and pipelines. During this process, there were two basic premises. The first was that, unlike the provincial policies that protect prime agricultural land and provincially significant wetland, there is no similar provincial policy, unless endangered species are involved, for protecting forested land. Significant Woodlands are lands designated by municipalities, as a result of that lack of provincial policy. The second premise was that the agricultural community was opposed to any development or corridors that impacted agricultural land, and preferred, as a general rule, that developments impact "rear lot lines". Thus the corridor would result in reduced loss of productive agricultural land and reduced farm fragmentation, but resulted in a disproportionately high impact to forested land that typically occurs at the rear of the farm. Even hydro corridors were discouraged on agricultural land, as the construction and placement of towers would disturb the soil, and result in inconvenience to cultivation, spraying and combining operations, and create a source of weeds. If hydro corridors did cross agricultural land, care was taken to place towers on lot lines or non-cultivated areas. I can cite a few examples: Highway 403 from Brantford to Ancaster, the proposed Highway 86 corridor from St. Jacobs to Elmira, the proposed Highway #7 corridor from Guelph to Kitchener, and from New Hamburg to Stratford, the existing Highway #7 corridor from Kitchener to New Hamburg, the power line from New Hamburg to Kitchener, and the power lines from the Bruce Nuclear Station to Milton. Strictly speaking, the proposed Highway #86 corridor is an exception, because the chosen corridor had the advantages that it had "gradual curves and sweeping vistas".
