Mr. Editor,
In the early days of the Pumped Storage debate I attempted to keep an open mind when assessing the pros and cons of the proposal.
When opponents of the project started to make unsubstantiated claims to garner support for their cause I felt it necessary to challenge them in a couple of letters to your paper. The feedback was varied and interesting. I must say that many of the ‘Save Georgian Bay’ advocates who discussed our differences were polite and reasonable and respected the fact that someone might have a different point of view.
The recent battle of the Engineers has been amusing. Thank you Mr. Mason for your risk taking. It is entirely possible that like myself you will discover that some people you thought were friends will stop speaking to you.
Let’s take a look at some of the recent comments made in letters by ‘experts’ on the subject, using Ludington as their model for the Meaford project.
1. Our water system will be destroyed by sediments. There are great differences between the modified TCE plan, and the very old Michigan project. The Ludington intake and outflow are located on a sandy shoreline directly under the pumps/generators.
There are no pipes going out into deep water, as planned here, then slanting up well away from a rocky lake bed. There, the water coming and going moves between a couple of stone breakwalls protruding a short distance out from the sandy beach. Not at all similar.
The Meaford municipal water intake has streams on both sides and the Big Head river not far away. Great quantities of silt, farm animal waste, and residual spray from orchards and fields have entered the lake near the intake forever and no one has been foaming at the mouth about that. Think of the hundreds of kilometres of unprotected stream banks in our town, caving in after every spring thaw or heavy rain, all sending a variety of materials into the area of the water intake. Maybe the Conservation Authority should be the focus of our wrath.
I have made phone calls to communities near the old Michigan facility to check for concerns about their water systems. They state, as I have in previous letters, that a big storm will stir up more silt along the shoreline than anything seen from the generating plant. They also agree that the rivers in the area are far larger sources of turbidity.
2. Let’s discuss fishing. Some suggest that the Ludington pumped storage facility doomed sport fishing in the area. My recent research, including phone calls to several charter boat captains there, would suggest the opposite. About 25 charter captains work out of Ludington. (one in Meaford). I was told the fishing is fantastic. In fact, Ludington has been ranked the Number One sport fishing location on all of Lake Michigan. I called captains in neighbouring towns and was told fishing is great and they don’t see power generation as a factor in the sport. I recognize that the people I talked to earn their living fishing and are not Engineers with several degrees. It is a well known fact that fishermen exaggerate.
3. It was suggested that the TCE project would have more of an impact on Meaford because the Ludington community is smaller. In fact, the difference in population is not great. However the difference in population density, a major factor, is considerable.
Meaford has about 48 people per square mile and Luddington has over 2,000. As well, the Ludington plant is quite close to the urban area and the main State highway to the town runs right beside the storage pond.
4. Dams break. They certainly do, but tailing ponds in the mining industry are the ones we usually hear about. That type of pond is about 100 times more likely to fail than ponds built for storage of water in municipal water systems or in electrical generation.
My research indicates that some of the recent failures in B.C. were blamed on the engineering firms who designed these dams. Hundreds of millions of dollars in damages were paid by these firms to compensate for their mistakes. I expect that TCE has hired, or will hire, the very best to do the planning of their pond, if they get approval for their proposal. Tailing ponds, where dams usually break, should not be compared with the type of reservoir which would be on the Military Base. There are major differences.
5. Tourism. Again, the people I talked to in Michigan, including a long conversation with a manager of the Ludington State Park (seven miles up the shore from the generators) said that they are not even conscious of the plant being there. The tourism industry has not been affected. Incidentally, the State Park people are not aware of any turbid waters caused by the operations and reiterated that river and stream outflow was the big problem.
Enough. I have tried to do my homework before presenting the above information which relates to comments by others about the proposed TCE project. If TCE offers up something that makes me curious or suspicious I will start ‘digging’ again. By the way, I am familiar with the Lake Michigan coastline having travelled it by land and water. I have taken vessels into Ludington harbour and other nearby towns on several occasions. Based on those experiences I have every reason to believe the comments made by the people who talked with me.
Jim Hepple, Meaford
