Kari Gunson

The appellants appealed the Director's decision to issue a Renewable Energy Approval for a wind facility, arguing it would cause serious and irreversible harm to the Little Brown Bat and Blanding's turtle.

In the remedy phase, the Approval Holder proposed mitigation plans to address the Tribunal's previous findings of harm.

The Tribunal found it had jurisdiction to consider the mitigation plans and applied the precautionary principle.

The Tribunal accepted the bat mitigation plan with a modification to extend turbine curtailment to sunrise.

However, the Tribunal found the proposed road restoration measures for Blanding's turtle were novel and unstudied, and therefore removed the turbines associated with those road upgrades from the approval.

The Association for the Protection of Amherst Island appealed the Director's decision to issue a Renewable Energy Approval to Windlectric Inc. for a 26-turbine wind facility on Amherst Island.

The Appellant argued the project would cause serious harm to human health from turbine and concrete batch plant emissions, and serious and irreversible harm to animal life, specifically Bobolink, raptors/owls, bats, and Blanding's turtles.

The Environmental Review Tribunal found that the Appellant failed to meet the statutory onus under the Environmental Protection Act to prove that the project would cause serious harm to human health or serious and irreversible harm to the natural environment.

The appeal was dismissed and the Director's decision was confirmed.

The moving party brought a motion for a stay of a renewable energy approval for a wind power generation project, seeking to halt vegetation clearing and site preparation.

The moving party argued that the proposed work would cause serious and irreversible harm to the Blanding's Turtle, a threatened species.

The Environmental Review Tribunal applied the RJR-MacDonald test for a stay.

While finding a serious issue to be tried, the Tribunal concluded that the moving party failed to demonstrate irreparable harm, as its evidence was speculative and did not account for the mitigation and avoidance measures required by the approval.

The Tribunal also found that the balance of convenience did not favour a stay.

The motion was dismissed.

In an appeal of a Renewable Energy Approval for a wind facility, the appellants brought several procedural motions.

The Tribunal dismissed a motion for further disclosure but granted summonses for two Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry employees to testify regarding species at risk.

The Tribunal dismissed a motion to adjourn the hearing, finding it unnecessary to secure a fair determination.

The Tribunal ruled on multiple motions to exclude reply witness statements, admitting those that properly responded to new evidence and excluding those that merely bolstered previous evidence or introduced new issues.

Finally, the Tribunal dismissed a motion for recusal, finding no reasonable apprehension of bias based on the Members' prior statements or their conduct during the hearing.

Ostrander brought a motion to narrow the scope of the issues and evidence in a remedy hearing concerning a renewable energy approval for a wind turbine project, and to strike portions of the witness statements of two experts called by the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists.

The Tribunal dismissed the motion, finding it premature to narrow the scope of the remedy hearing given its broad remedial jurisdiction and the introduction of fresh evidence.

The Tribunal also declined to strike the expert witness statements, finding the proposed evidence relevant to the remedy and responsive to the fresh evidence.