Greater Napanee, Ont., recently voted to support three battery energy storage facilities in the town.
But it’s a much different scenario in Elizabethtown-Kitley Township.
“So many strange things unfolded in this whole process, to tell you the truth,” says the township’s mayor, Brant Burrow.
That’s Burrow’s reaction to council’s refusal to support a battery energy storage facility proposed for a parcel of land near Leacock Road by Baseload Power Corporation.
He says the process felt flawed and rushed right from the first contact with the company in mid-September, to the public meeting held on Nov. 2nd.
The meeting held at the legion degenerated quickly, according Baseload Corporation’s president.
An email to Global News from president Jonathon Sandler claims residents came with their minds made up.
“They went to the internet for their source of information and pulled old reports about outdated battery technology, and cherry-picked from other reports to create a narrative that supported their position and NIMBY mentality, and were only interested in bullying us out of their town,” read the email from Sandler.
“I stepped in to take the temperature down in the room, get everybody to be respectful, and it went a little bit better after that,” adds Burrow, commenting on what happened at the November 2nd meeting.
Burrow says the initial notification about the public meeting was too limited — only residents within a 1km radius of the project got notices, and it contained almost no information.
“You don’t give anybody any information. What do you think they’re going to do, right?” says Burrow.
“If that’s 15 days notice, you’re just giving people two weeks notice to go out on the internet and fill their minds with whatever you are calling misinformation.”
Another twist in the process occurred when the company withdrew from its presentation at the Nov. 28th council meeting, when township politicians eventually voted not to support the project.
“I think we made the right decision, it’s just unfortunate,” says Burrow.
“If everybody had backed up the runway and started this earlier, and left us enough time to get the answers and to deal with misinformation, the outcome might have been different.”
The motion not supporting the project also included not permitting these types of facilities for the remainder of this term of council.
Burrow says the township didn’t have time to hire an independent expert, which would have helped — but for now, there’s no energy left for this project.
Comments