Terence Bay wind farm concerns fuelled by toppled turbine

A toppled wind turbine in Point Tupper, N.S.,fuelled concerns at a Terence Baycommunitymeeting Wednesday night about a wind farm coming to the communityin 2018.

Leaders of several community groups met with the windfarm developer, ChebuctoTerence Bay Wind Field Limited (CTB),to talk about the project. The media was not allowed insidethe meeting.

'Great concern'

"That actually gave us great concern,"saidLynn Slaunwhite, organizer of the Friends of River Road, a community group that is against the project.

"The collapse, the company who owns the Point Tupper turbines is Renewable Energy Services Limited and they've partnered with Chebucto on our development."

Members ofSlaunwhite'sgroup had a signwith a pictureof the broken Point Tupperturbine and a caption that referred to the incident as a "catastrophe."

CTB and RenewableEnergyServices Limitedare working together to build the three-turbine, 7.5-megawatt farm on River Road in Terence Bay.

Farm to open in 2018

The developer says they're on track to have the farm built, pending some last minute paperwork. The project has been in the works since 2011, receivedfinal approval in 2014 and is now slated to be finished in 2018.

The Terence Bay turbines will be Enercon E-92s, a different modelfrom the one that collapsed in Cape Breton recently.

"One of the differences with our project is that we have concrete towers for our turbines, whereas they are steel towers at Point Tupper," said CTBpresident Terry Norman in a phone interview.

It was a steel E-82 tower that fell last Wednesday. Enercon, the manufacturer of the turbine, says itsinvestigation has begun, and that the collapse was an isolated incident.

CTB says when that report is complete, community groups will be sent a copy of the findings.