Friday, November 14, 2025

Letters

Reader Offers Thoughts on Recent Pumped Storage Letters

Dear Editor, In response to Roberta Docherty’s July 10 Letter to the Editor, I will try to eliminate Roberta’s confusion. Tesla Fire is an online site that tracks all Tesla fires from worldwide newspaper articles, including cars and Tesla Megapacks. Megapacks are used for electrical grid scale energy storage. Out of 232 Tesla fires documented since 2013, there were only 3...

Reader: How Soon We Forget

Editor, Is there no one around to remember Hurricane Hazel anymore? Here we are, about seventy years later, planning to build an entire apartment block on a flood plain. Although Meaford was not the hardest hit by Hazel, it was bad enough and there have been other events since with the potential to present a significant threat to life and...

Reader Shares Thoughts on Proposed Condo Development

Editor, The floodplain condominium development to be constructed directly behind the Meaford Library and alongside the Bighead River has been a hot topic in your newspaper. A recent letter to The Independent indicated that the original proposal was for a massive structure that would be almost 3 times larger than any other building in Meaford. It now appears that one...

Change in Nursing Home Attitude

Dear Editor, I used to be so set against nursing homes because what I saw was dreadful. However, the ministry seems to be more efficient and the homes are now better run. The "park em in the hall" mentality is gone and there is caring in the caring. Please let people know to check before you judge. Things have changed. Thank...

Batteries vs Pumped Storage

Dear Editor, After reading last week's paper I am really confused. Both letters to the editor espoused the value of batteries over pump storage, but they were incomplete: If batteries in cars blow up, why would a bigger battery not do so? Getting Lithium out of the ground is environmentally bad too. In fact I can think of every complaint used against...

Healthcare & Bridges

Dear Editor, I was just reading your excellent editorial about opening the bridges. They were closed because of people who did not understand their importance and reopened because it was the right thing to do. It occurs to me that you can say the same things about public health care. Politicians want to sell it out to American style private companies,...

The Elephant in the District

Editor, You can ask just about anybody who lives in Meaford what it is they appreciate most about it and the things everybody will agree on is the heritage character of Sykes Street, the adjacent streets, the Bighead Riverscape, and the Georgian Bay shoreline and harbour area. This was so important that the Council in 2014 passed a Heritage Conservation...

Reader Compares Pumped Storage to Battery Storage

Editor, If you want to get real comparative data about Grid storage options, do this web search. “Grid Storage Comparisons”. There is a lot of information available from well researched, reputable sources. Or, you could just read TMI letters from local "experts" with their “opinions”. The following is based on my research from many sources. Batteries. ( Li-Ion) Life expectancy/warranty 10-15 years Efficiency:...

Reader: When Tenacity is Unbecoming

Editor, I write in response to a letter you published on June 5, from Mr. Mikkelsen of TC Energy. He has been using your 'Opinion' section for the past 6 years to promote the virtues of TC Energy’s proposed Pumped Storage Project (PSP) to be built atop the Niagara Escarpment in Meaford. During this 6 year period, no “much needed” storage...

Reader Suggests Alternatives For Energy Storage

Editor, Another TCE letter? Yes! Until the evidence, greed and perhaps corruption is acknowledged by this corporation and their Archaic Pumped Storage Project is finally cancelled, Meaford and all of Ontarians had best keep up and keep exposing the shortfalls of this project! The recent completion of the Oneida 250MW Battery Storage Project by the Six Nations of the Grand River sums...