Editor,
Recent developments in TC Energy’s Pumped Storage Proposal include plans to use public funds to place two drilling barges in Georgian Bay this summer for what the company describes as geotechnical testing. In my view, this is a premature and unnecessary use of provincial tax dollars.
TC Energy has had a decade to prepare this project. As part of its responsibility to submit an Initial Project Description to the IAAC, the company already had access to geological research prepared by Hunter and Associates of Mississauga, Ontario. That research should have provided enough understanding of the bedrock beneath Georgian Bay and throughout the proposed project area at this time.
After ten years, however, the Initial Project Description submitted to the IAAC appeared to contain very little in the way of the studies and mitigation measures that should already have been addressed. TC Energy spokesperson Sara Beasley has described this testing as an important step in ensuring the project meets high environmental standards. If so, why is this work being emphasized now rather than after governmental approvals?
Why are public funds being spent on research that should already have been available and sufficient for the project description TC Energy submitted? For a large corporation, the company’s approach appears disorganized and under-prepared unless of course they are simply withholding information. Key questions from the public are rarely answered, and when responses do come, they are too often limited to the phrase, “it is too early to provide insight at this time.”
Ms. Beasley, where are the results from last year’s barge drilling in the same area? If those results already exist, why have they not been shared publicly?
Why is TC Energy continuing to spend public money on a project that has not yet been approved by the DND, the IAAC, the IESO, or Meaford Council? These unanswered questions point to a troubling lack of transparency and accountability.
A decade of what I would call silent ignorance must come to an end. Alternative energy storage technologies and alternative means of carrying out the project must be considered and reckless spending our tax dollars stopped immediately!
Pat Maloney, Meaford
