Opposed

The provincial government energy regulator has reviewed this project and indicated that it does not have economic value for the province of Ontario. This would seem sufficient to stop the project now. There are much better ways that TCE could contribute to green energy if it is committed to do so, rather than pursuing this pumped storage project. There will be negative environmental impacts on both the water and the land. The transmission line was originally going to be underwater to Wasaga Beach in order to connect to the Stayner transformer station, however this seems to have changed to an overland transmission system. I have not seen any indication of the route. Presumably it could revert to an underwater line again, which would be disruptive to the Georgian Bay ecosystem. The project's impact on fish is likely to be negative, with increased turbidity in the water at the base of the pump lines as well. The project seems predicated on lower electricity rates overnight when energy will be needed to pump the water to the reservoir, but this assumption may not hold true in the future as more people switch to electric vehicles and machinery and appliances that will require energy use at night. There will also be a disruption to the activities of the armed forces base at Meaford. The project would divert from the military activities that are done on the base and take away valuable land that is needed for training or other purposes. This site could also be used as the receive site for the OTH-A radar project, instead of locating it on valuable prime farmland in Clearview township. That would be a military installation on Base Meaford that would make sense. This project has virtually no economic benefit to the region or the province, and hopefully the assessment process will confirm that.