In response to statements made to local media by Water Wells First spokesman Kevin Jakubec, the municipality of Chatham-Kent has issued a statement about the issue.
“The Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit is not contravening any legislation in regard to water quality in the municipality.
“We take exception to these frivolous accusations.
In open session Chatham-Kent Council publicly offered to pay for testing of well water as well as sediment. A number of residents have stepped forward to accept the offer and are in the process of having their well water tested.
None have indicated interest in sediment testing.
Despite our repeated requests during the last year, Mr. Jakubec continues to refuse to present evidence to support the health risks he suggests exist.
The municipality supports Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Colby’s science-based position while at the same time it continues to work with residents of the community to help alleviate their concerns.”
Reports indicate Jakubec said on Thursday that the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit contravened the Health Act by not testing water well sediments.
According to the Council of Canadians, who is working with Water Wells First, 14 Chatham area well owners have now filed water well interference complaints against the developers of a 34 turbine wind power project near their farms.
The Council of Canadians is demanding work stop immediately on the North Kent One Wind project (owned by Samsung Energy and Pattern Energy) before more families lose their well water.
Council of Canadians officials say Dave Lusk filed the fourteenth well interference complaint after his water stopped running while he was showering recently.
“Four generations of my family have had pure, beautiful drinking water from that well for 52 years,” Lusk said in a press release.
“A week after the pile drivers started next door, we are choked out with black silt. How the hell are they allowed to keep doing this to people? This has to stop.”
Several of the 14 wells affected to date have become so silted up that water no longer flows through the household plumbing, Council of Canadians officials say.
Last September, Kevin Jakubec, the spokesperson for Water Wells First challenged the provincial approval of the project at an Environmental Review Tribunal hearing.
Experts testified that vibrations from both pile driving and wind turbine operation would cause pollution problems in local wells, but the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change continues to rely on a vibration study paid for by the developers which predicted no adverse affects, Council of Canadians officials said.
“Despite all our work to warn the Ontario government and Samsung, despite 14 pristine wells suddenly becoming polluted when pile driving started, they continue to pretend that nothing is wrong,” Jakubec said in a press release.
“This isn’t about whether wind power is good or bad. This is about a poorly designed project wrecking our water. This is about a government that is so deeply beholden to the interests of billion-dollar corporations that it refuses to protect its own citizens.”
North Kent One Wind recently won a court injunction against protestors who had blocked access to one of the 34 turbine construction sites for 11 days in August.
