Rural Alberta’s acreage owners, such as those in Paintearth County, are among those who could lose the most in the nation’s rapid push toward renewable energy.
Paintearth County already hosts two wind farms, with another under construction. But a fourth project has had locals wrangling for several years with both the power company behind it and provincial and county officials, as well as with each other.
The Halkirk 2 project is emblematic of problems arising in some communities across Alberta, residents say, where renewable energy has been pushed forward with greater speed than anywhere else in the country.
While the province has put a moratorium on large-scale wind and solar projects to review concerns, some Paintearth residents are skeptical the review will address all the issues. They have developed a mistrust of the AUC, which is leading the review.
That’s the “icing on the cake,” Donna Fetaz told The Epoch Times, at the end of several long years’ fight against aspects of the project she says are problematic.
Ms. Fetaz and her husband, Gerard Fetaz, have shared out-of-pocket costs with their neighbours totalling more than $400,000 to fight what they say has been underhanded dealings to push the project forward.
The problems they and others have raised include alleged lying by land agents bent on convincing locals to sign onto the project back in 2015. Residents have alleged the agents told each of them that their neighbours had already signed on, so they might as well, too.
Also at issue is flooding on local properties, fire hazard concerns over difficult-to-maintain transmission lines, and logistical concerns for aerial crop-spraying.
While some in the region support the project, which brings tax revenue to the area and land-use revenue to some landowners, the Fetazes and about 20 other residents who are part of the Paintearth Protection Association continue to voice concerns.
The AUC approved the original project of 74 turbines in 2018. Capital Power chose to revise that plan, opting instead for up to 35 larger turbines, each with greater output. The revised plan gives some ground to the concerns of the Fetazes and others. But it still falls short, they say, and the amount of resources they’ve had to put into fighting for that ground is too much.
AUC spokesperson Richard Goldberger told The Epoch Times via email that the commission has tried to support residents through information sessions, some funding for legal aid, and other means.
Balancing of Public Interest
The July 27 decision discusses the AUC’s balancing of public interest. For example, it noted that local farmers complained planned turbines are too close to their fields, which will prevent them from aerial spraying their crops safely.At AUC hearings on the revised plan, which ran from April 24 to 28, a Capital Power representative said the company would shut down the turbines for spraying with 24 hours’ notice. But the farmers said that’s impractical, as the weather can change and sometimes spraying needs to happen immediately.
The AUC said Capital Power’s offer was sufficient, but it should try to shut down the turbines more quickly. The commission said the farmers’ testimony, along with written testimony from an aerial sprayer, was not strong enough evidence to prove the turbines would be a problem. It said live testimony from an expert would have been better.
The AUC provides some compensation for expert testimony, but the Fetazes said they still shared a $50,000 bill with one of their neighbours for one expert whose costs were beyond what the commission would cover.
“Based on what we’ve seen, the AUC is very hesitant to take any kind of a position that might impede development,” resident Carmen Felzien told The Epoch Times. “If you make the right argument, if you use the right lawyers, if you invest enough money, then perhaps you can have them put a condition on that may or may not answer what you’re asking for.”
A Capital Power representative said at the hearing that the company would find a solution for Ms. Felzien’s concerns that her mother’s land would be flooded when one of the turbines is built over a nearby drainage ditch. However, the AUC did not put in a requirement.
Experiences With AUC
Resident Brian Perreault has experienced costly flooding from a substation that services Capital Power’s Halkirk 1, already in operation for 11 years, and will service Halkirk 2. It was built over a drainage ditch and the water was diverted toward his land. The AUC delayed addressing his concerns, which he brought forth in 2019, the Fetazes said.The AUC told him he would have to attend proceedings regarding the station, for which he hired a lawyer and engineer. After that, the commission told him it was a ministry of environment issue. Finally, in July this year a ministry representative met with Mr. Perreault to look at the damage.
A ministry spokesperson confirmed to The Epoch Times that the matter is currently being evaluated.
This back-and-forth is characteristic of the Fetazes’ experience with the AUC as well, they said.
In response to Mr. Perreault’s and the Fetazes’ complaints about AUC communication, AUC’s Mr. Goldberger noted the information the commission makes available to stakeholders, including having staff available throughout the proceedings to answer questions.
Mr. Fetaz recalled that when he asked at an AUC hearing in 2017 what the safe distance was for a turbine from an aerodrome, that information wasn’t forthcoming. “Dead air,” he said. “It was just dead air.” It took independent research to find the answer, and much money to pay a lawyer to present it on their behalf.
The Fetazes have had some hard-won victories over some eight years of going to the AUC, and even above the AUC, to the ombudsman who oversees it. For example, the number of turbines close to their aerodrome has been reduced.
‘The Little Guy’
“Landowners go into it so blindsided,” Ms. Fetaz said. “They don’t even know what they don’t know, and you trust the system to do things right.”She said that before this started, she had never written a letter to the government. She didn’t have internet. But she’s had to learn the ins and outs of regulations, procedures, appeals, and more.
Ms. Felzien said she’s not against wind power “when it’s done carefully and thoughtfully.” But she and others say they’ve felt a lack of respect from Capital Power representatives from the start.
They “belittle and demean” residents and have been “mocking” and “running roughshod” over them, Ms. Felzien said. Another resident, Steve Maier, said Capital Power has “strong-armed and bullied their way through it” and “they always want to run over the little guy.”
Mr. Maier has an airstrip, which he uses recreationally, and the AUC determined it has a lower public-interest priority than two planned turbines that will interfere with his flying.
He said he acknowledges his neighbours’ rights to lease their land to Capital Power, and he’s not against the project on the whole. But he feels there were other viable locations for the two turbines that wouldn’t have interfered with the use of his land.
He invested in the land a little less than a decade ago because he wanted space for an airstrip and wanted the open, beautiful landscape, he said.
Mr. Maier was never directly informed that turbines would be close to his land, aside from a general notice sent to everyone in the area about the project.
“Basically, they’re saying it’s in your court to fight it.”
He said he is a working man with a family and doesn’t have time to fight it. “I’m just trying to pay my mortgage. I don’t have the time, and they probably know that.”
Daryl Bennett, director of landowner advocacy group Action Surface Rights, has worked with the residents of Paintearth on their appeals over the years. He told The Epoch Times of similar experiences with dozens of other wind and solar projects he has helped negotiate across the province.
“We’ve been raising these issues for 10 years,” he said. “There’s always bad actors. We need to try to figure out a way that resolves a bunch of those concerns and allow renewable energy to go ahead.”
