New nuclear at Wesleyville concerns

We live within 35 km of the Wesleyville new nuclear power plant and we are  extremely concerned about the enormous irreversible and permanent impacts this proposed project will have on our county, our people and our land. 

 

We are a farming community with many  generations of active farming families on class I and 2 prime  agricultural lands. Our farms have produced food crops and livestock for many decades, some for over 100 years. Agriculture is the mainstay of our employment and economy in Northumberland County, contributing to our food security, buying local economy, and  sources of food for our farmers’ markets, restaurants, and stores. We cannot have our irreplaceable farmland turned into industrial sites, roads, residential development, hotels, and rental housing for construction crews. One cannot just look at the nuclear power plant site. The full project will expand its impact throughout the county. Once our farmland is gone, it is gone forever. If this development is allowed to proceed, the amount of prime agricultural land taken out of production will not only seriously damage the County’s agricultural production capacity, but completely change its character. Our  farmland would become a mega industrial complex and a bedroom community like Pickering, an example of how energy infrastructure can drive suburbanization. Construction and crew housing needs would rapidly industrialize and suburbanize our farmland.  This housing boom would spike rents and home prices during construction years, then bust leaving excess or mismatched housing thereafter. Construction and its disruption could continue for 10 to 15 years with the influx of thousand of workers during at peak construction, adding additional pressure for roads and services.  This would push prices up and encourage non-farm development resulting in a permanent shift in our local economy. While the benefit of electricity supply is distributed across the province, the costs and risks of this project are concentrated and borne locally. We believe our concerns are central to whether this project fits in Northumberland County, at Wesleyville. This is not the right location given what would be irreversibly and permanently destroyed or changed.

 

Ontario loses about 319 acres of productive farmland every day due to development. The biggest Nuclear Power Plant In the world here would result is thousands of prime agricultural acres gone forever. There is certified organic farming on Lakeshore Road next to Wesleyville. Who will want to grow, sell, or buy food from farms near such gargantuan construction sites and a nuclear power plant? Even if the contamination risk is low, perception matters and buyers may hesitate regardless of actual safety data. Organic certification near this site could  become harder to maintain and market and brand identity of our farming region may shift. Consumer confidence and our rural identity are very real economically.

 

Our local water systems are often taxed by multiple months of drought when wells go dry. Baltimore community water system is suffering, farmers often don’t have enough ground water for their crops and livestock, and we have water use restrictions for months. We had a 6 month drought in 2017 and last year the drought lasted months. A nuclear power plant and its construction, cooling pools, and the electricity generation itself will take enormous amounts of water 24/7/365. We do not have enough water here for our agriculture, and existing homes and businesses so there certainly is not enough for the  construction of this mega project nor to provide for ancillary building and residences. Any part of this project that uses municipal or ground water sources that could compete with farmers’,residential and business needs is concerning, especially during droughts, which are projected to be more frequent, longer and more severe due to climate change. Will this project use lake-based cooling exclusively? Are local aquifers or municipal water supplies involved at any stage?

 

We are also concerned about thermal pollution affecting our aquatic systems. The Bruce generation plant is currently dealing with dead fish and fish caught in their inflow. 

 

Our county and township roads have slow farm vehicles and equipment use throughout the spring, summer and fall. Our farmers, local residents and cyclists  cannot compete safely with a heavy volume of construction trucks, heavy equipment, and construction worker traffic. This is a real safety concern. There needs to be a traffic impact assessment that addresses years of construction traffic truck volume and the seasonal overlap with planting and harvesting cycles.

 

Our county and townships do not have public works budgets to construct new or expand existing roads and bridges to meet the demands of the nuclear power plant, nor to handle the traffic that will ensue, nor to maintain safety of the current roads we have, with an enormous increase in traffic. The costs of upgrades, maintenance and enforcement of our roads and bridges should be paid by OPG, ie all the taxpayers of Ontario, not the municipalities of Northumberland County. Nor should our rural and local  communities have to inherit the ongoing costs for infrastructure to accommodate this project. 

 

Our residents remain in Northumberland County for many reasons and many of our children stay here or return here because they love the life they have known here. People from cities and suburbs move here because they love what our county offers and many retire here for the same reasons. We have value of place;  quiet, beautiful areas along the stunning shores of Lake Ontario, with its beaches, shore birds, migration paths, fishing, and wildlife, a place to kayak, paddle board, canoe, sail, and motor cruise.  Lakeshore Road is one of the best cycling routes from the GTA to Brighton. People have established successful productive farms along and beyond the lake, stunning homes, little hamlets, campsites and playgrounds, restaurants, yacht clubs, and parks. The enormity of the nucler power plant affects all of this directly and indirectly, visually, and with inevitable nuclear stigma, increased noise, dirt, air, water and light pollution, traffic, road closures, traffic diversion and congestion.  The wildlife, trees, grasslands, shoreline, fish, birds, animals, and insects, will lose contiguous habitats, wildlife corridors, and migration routes and their populations will decline. Some are on the threatened and species at risk lists. Place value, farming, recreation, tourism, local businesses, wildlife corridors, and migrating birds and butterflies routes are important to us, and our visitors. This project will negatively affect all of this and our visual landscape, with an industrial skyline and transmissions towers.  These impacts are intolerable and unacceptable to the people and businesses of Northumberland County. This is truly a nightmare we should not have to defend against.

 

The growth plan for Hamilton Township is for 2000 new residences over the next 30 years. This infill and measured growth, mostly in settlement areas and hamlets, maintains our farmland and the forests, wetlands and aquifers of the Oak Ridges Moraine protected by the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act. A new nuclear power plant and all its adjunct industries, roads, hotels, and thousands of new residences to house an influx of workers, may not only take up our farmland but also move housing up into the Moraine lands and destroy them as well, forever. We cannot let this happen and neither should the Impact Assessment Agency which is established for this very reason. This project will trigger not only what the project builds but also what it causes others to build such as worker housing demand, service sector expansion, and speculative development. Induced growth and pressure on our farmland, the Oak Ridges Moraine, our local government and service providers will be in high conflict with the measured targets and growth plans of most Northumberland County communities and the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act protections. This project is not appropriate for this specific location because it is not compatible with our land use.

 Our hospital will not be able to handle 4000 or even 1700 workers’ and their families'medical needs. Our elementary and secondary schools cannot accommodate hundreds more, neither can our fire and emergency services, nor our police forces who are already stretched with shared OPP resources beyond the 2 municipal police forces. 

 

The skilled construction trades jobs for the nuclear power plant will not likely be available for locals who need jobs and the high level, high paid permanent staff will not likely be locals. Meanwhile, local people who vie for affordable rental homes or to purchase a home here will be facing even more competition for housing with construction workers from away and later others. 

Our municipal councils are loath to increase property taxes and yet we have had to, to afford increased policing costs, to maintain, repair and replace aging infrastructure, and beg for provincial funding to keep municipal water flowing to our homes and businesses. We taxpayers are left paying for this when the nuclear power plant  is built and the provincial government subsidies end. The costs for expanded infrastructure will outweigh the increased tax base. Further, loss of local control when growth outpaces governance capacity is very concerning. We are concerned our 7 municipal governments will be forced to amalgamate to a central county government or one regional government from Wesleyville to Grafton, resulting in a loss of our local knowledge, experience, expertise, transparency, accountability, and close connection and oversight we have and need with our local municipal governments.

The IAAC is obligated by section 22 of the Act to ascertain need for this project including need for such an increase in electricity generation. The IAAC has not done so. The IACC must rectify this error of law and address the need for this project in the first instance. Notwithstanding the proponent is a provincial government , the IAAC has a legal obligation to ascertain the need for this project and the need for this project at Wesleyville. So far the IAAC has not met its obligation to the government or its people. I ask the IAAC to undertake its important and necessary function required by law. 

If a new nuclear power plant is in fact needed it should not be at Wesleyville. Our farmland, people, quality of life and liveability, economy, governance, and natural heritage will be negatively and irrevocable impacted forever.  The cumulative effects mentioned herein are not compatible with and are highly in conflict with exisiting growth plans and Moraine protection legislation. These have been developed over decades with local knowledge and relevant and necessary land use control. Our area is already under stress. There are other sites that do not have the farmland and natural heritage found here, and would be less negatively impacted. The IAAC is mandated by section 22 of the Impact Assessment Act, to investigate alternatives. That is not the obligation of the proponent and they haven’t addressed it notwithstanding they should be in the best position to do so. The IAAC  is obligated to consider alternatives and should correct this error of law and consider alternatives, not only in location but also in methods of electricity generation. Current scientific reports, some published after the proponent's proposal, indicate that renewable, sustainable alternate electricity generation of wind, both onshore and offshore, solar power, storage batteries, and conservation can provide the electricity we need including for our transportation electrification, building heating and cooling, industrial electrification, and AI data centres at a fraction of the cost of new nuclear. There is viable  alternate energy generation at significantly less cost than new nuclear not only in terms of construction and ongoing maintenance , but also for the cost of electricity for all Ontarians. Why are alterntives being ignored? Alternative electricity generation can be spread out where it is needed, is not a terrorist threat, doesn’t leak radiation, can abut farmland without harming it and is quicker, easier and less costly to install and maintain. We have viable economic alternatives OPG is ignoring and the IACC is obligated to consider because  it is legally mandated to do so. I request the IAAC  consider and factor in the viable alternatives to new nuclear generation for Ontario at Wesleyville. Need and Alternatives are fundamental to any assessment of impacts, especially a project of this scale, cost and impact.

 

 

Ontario Power Generation is hosting one sided information sessions in some of the areas affected by this proposal but they are not telling the whole story; the technology to be used, the footprint of the entire project, the cost of the project, its ongoing costs, the risks to our health and security, the disruption and destruction to our farmland, forests, grasslands, plants, animals, insects, and fish, what kinds and extents of infrastructure will be required, why this is needed here and why it cannot be elsewhere, and what alternatives are available. We and a few organizations are trying to inform the community on what we are not being told and need to know, accurately, quickly and fully. Most people are unaware of this proposal and what it will mean to them, their children and generations to come. The enormity of this project and its potential social, economic, and cultural impacts for generations must be assessed carefully, thoroughly, and professionally and we count on this Agency to do that.  

There should be a full independent environmental assessment that details disclosure of the total land footprint not just the reactor site, water sourcing and discharge, agricultural and environmental impacts, independent studies of the hydrogeological assessments,  economic impact on agriculture vs energy jobs, and traffic assessment. 

Interms of process, we want to ensure accurate and  expert evidence, and the opportunity to fully cross examine witnesses and evidence will be available for the hearing on this project. We want assurances that  local impacts will be included in the process. We will need funding for intervenors, experts and legal counsel to prepare for and participate in the process.

 

Further, it is imperative that the host community  be changed from Port Hope to Northumberland County. The impacts, effects, costs, governance, land use control, roads, services etc. will occur more at the county level than merely local to Port Hope. Our property taxes, after education is deducted, are split almost equally between our muncipality and the county so we all contribute to the county jurisdictional expenses which will be far more affected than merely Port Hope's.