Project Noise, Blasting, and Vibration Impacts on Nearby Residents

I oppose the Ontario Pumped Storage Hydropower Project on the current record because TC Energy has not shown that noise and vibration effects on nearby homes will be acceptable. The project description says some residential properties adjacent to 4 CDTC are located less than 500 m from project components. It also says project-specific existing-condition noise and vibration studies have not been completed. For a project with homes this close, that is a serious gap, not a minor detail.

The filing shows that this would be a long construction project, with construction planned from 2029 to 2035. TC Energy says construction will generate noise from vehicle traffic, equipment, tunnelling, and blasting. It also says blasting vibration can annoy people at large distances and damage buildings at close distances, and that applicable noise guidance is used to identify when residents may reach thresholds of annoyance or sleep disturbance. Those issues should be addressed before the project advances, not deferred to later stages.

Operational effects are also unresolved. TC Energy says the project is not expected to produce substantive environmental noise during operations because most sound-generating infrastructure would be underground, but it also says the main operational noise sources would be the ventilation shafts and the switchyard. In the engagement record, it acknowledges concern about operational noise from the pumps, water moving through the tunnels, and whether the noise will be the same as the tank range. Its response is only that sound is anticipated to be limited to the immediate area of the project and that site-specific studies and noise modelling may be part of the later Impact Statement process. For nearby residents, expectations and future studies are not enough.

I also reviewed comparable pumped storage projects using official public sources. Based on the examples I could verify, major projects of roughly this scale are generally described in more remote settings or at greater remove from towns. I did not find a primary-source example of a modern project of roughly 1,000 MW explicitly documented as having homes within 500 m of project components. This shows that the residential proximity issue here is serious and unusual enough that IAAC should not dismiss it.

For these reasons, I ask IAAC not to allow this project to proceed on the current record. At minimum, it should require full independent baseline monitoring, site-specific noise and vibration modelling for both construction and operation, assessment of structural risk to nearby homes and wells, and enforceable limits before any further decision is made.