Against the centre Village Renewables Integration and grid security project

August 13, 2025

This is a letter against the Centre Village Renewables Integration and Grid Security Project, a proposed gas turbine facility in Centre Village, NB, 20kms from Sackville, NB, from a concerned citizen of Tantramar, NB, and of the Chignecto Isthmus.

I am deeply concerned about several aspects of the large gas and diesel 10-turbine facility (up to 500 megawatts, supplying up to 320,000 homes) being proposed for Centre Village, 20 kms from Sackville, NB, and located within the Chignecto Isthmus. First, and foremost, I have no confidence in the process being used to put this project in place. It feels like it is a fait accompli and that it will go through no matter how many citizens are against it. The public comment period was short, from mid July to mid August, when many are on vacation (and when the Legislative Assembly is on vacation) and our MLA did not find out about the project until right before its announcement. The mayor of Tantramar has also said that he felt blindsided by this announcement. This limited public access to information and consultation. The online sessions on July 21 and 22 were frustrating, to say the least, and it felt like they were just for show. A sit-down, question and answer session, duly recorded and administered by an impact assessment agency, and not by the Proenergy company, needs to happen. Instead, we are treated to an open house event, over two days and eight hours, August 12 and 13, 2025, right before the due date for questions to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, and hosted by the company leading the project, a clear conflict of interest in my books, and highly unprofessional. And Proenergy is going to redact a summary of the public’s questions and comments. How can we be sure they will include everything and not redact the comments for their own benefit? How can the public ask informed questions with such limited time to find out about the project? How can the public have an unbiased view of the project if it is Proenergy, the company behind the project, who is hosting the information sessions? The initial advertisement for the information sessions of August 12 and 13 did not specify that Proenergy, the company behind the project, is hosting them. This is patently dishonest.

The proposed location, the centre of the Chignecto Isthmus, is an ecologically sensitive area of flora and fauna, a major migrating bird flyway and wildlife corridor between provinces, already under great threat of severe rising sea levels. Numerous organizations have been working on this region’s health, such as the Atlantic Wildlife Institute, Nature Conservancy Canada (A Wildlife Connectivity Analysis for the Chignecto Isthmus Region, 2016), the Habitat Conservation Fund, Nova Scotia, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Ecology Action Centre, and CLIMAtlantic, to name a few. The cumulative impacts of air pollution, water usage and noise pollution from the construction, operation and decommission of these 10 combustion turbine generators pose serious threats to local ecosystems, wetlands and agriculture. Gas flares can have catastrophic effects on migrating birds (remember the deaths in 2013 of 7,500 songbirds that flew into a burning gas flare at the Canaport LNG facility in Saint John), and vast water usage (up to 7000 cubic metres of water daily) will impact our groundwater supply. Devastating environmental damage over several years has already occurred in this area when the gas pipeline was built in the late 1990s. Rain runoff from the cement pad will bring about environmental pollution every time there is a leak of chemicals on the cement. While environmental impacts are named in the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada document, it doesn’t appear that impact limits are established.

And finally, the plant will be running on American shale gas: fracking is neither clean nor renewable, and methane, 80 times more polluting than CO2 in the short term, is associated with every stage of its production, transportation and use. We will be locked into these expensive, non-renewable, polluting fuels for a minimum of 25 years, and possibly more, as this is stated as a minimum, with the option to renegotiate at that time, instead of investing in battery storage systems, clean energy industries, energy efficiency and stronger regional transmission infrastructure. We will be paying for NB Power’s criminal negligence, and not fulfilling the Liberal mandate to

–Introduce a Clean Electricity Standard that will set Canada on a path to cut more emissions by 2030 and to achieve a 100% net-zero emitting electricity system by 2035.

–Develop additional investment tax credits for a range of renewable energy and battery storage solutions, to accelerate the deployment of clean energy.

–Create a Pan-Canadian Grid Council to promote infrastructure investments, smart grids, grid integration, and electricity sector innovation with the goal of making Canada the most reliable, cost-effective, and carbon-free electricity producer in the world.

–Make clean power more readily available, including working with Atlantic Canada and Quebec on the Atlantic Loop, to improve how electricity is generated and moved within and between those provinces.

A minimum of 25 years does not fit into this equation by a long shot, in terms of building an affordable and resilient power grid which fulfills the mandate of sustainable energy, as endorsed by the Liberal Party.

I feel that this proposal undermines the commitment to a just energy transition and that it poses real threats to our region and I ask that you reject it.

Sincerely,

Peter Stephenson, citizen of Sackville, NB

17 Pleasant St.

Sackville, NB E4L 4E7

902-225-1203

sackvillegrind@gmail.com