Shawn Taylor

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 Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County brought a motion to stay a Renewable Energy Approval for a wind power project pending the disposition of its appeal.

The moving party argued that vegetation clearing and site preparation would cause irreparable harm to the threatened Blanding's Turtle and its habitat.

Applying the RJR-MacDonald test, the Environmental Review Tribunal found that there was a serious issue to be tried, that irreparable harm would ensue to the spring foraging habitat of the Blanding's Turtle, and that the balance of convenience favoured the moving party.

The Tribunal granted the stay in part, halting vegetation clearing in identified spring foraging habitat.

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.