This is an excerpt from a letter to Minister Duguid and the Premier recently. Water quality and contamination issues are at stake here. Please think carefully about the concept of putting huge industrial turbines in our drinking water! No where else in the world are countries planning the industrialization of their drinking water.
We are also very concerned about this project as it would apparently have some relevance to water quality: even on land, there are errors, leaks, breakages that would most certainly impact water quality. No where else in the world are fresh water lakes being subjected to turbine installations. As you are aware, the world is currently undergoing massive shortages of fresh water, and in the Great Lakes we enjoy 20% of the fresh water supply for the entire planet. We must not allow these fresh waters to become another instance of refuse (n.), pollution, and greed. The quote below outlines in the damaging words of a wind developer, what the consequences could be for water quality of surface and ground waters, and one can only imagine the impact in fresh water supplies:
Contamination of aquifers and ground water: by Mark Duchamp, former Windfarms/Birds Research Manager of Proact International. Mark has written many papers on this subject. This report contains some revealing quotes from developers’ own environmental “studies”, including this: “A pollution incident during construction could have an impact of major magnitude on the water quality of the surface and ground waters of the area, potentially irrevocably damaging the ecology.” and this: “During the upgrading works a number of potential pollutants may be present on site, including oil, fuels, chemicals, unset cement and concrete. Any pollution incident occurring on the site may detrimentally affect the water quality of the nearby surface waters and groundwater. Where there are fisheries and water supply interests this may have a significant impact.”
Again, the above comments refer to on land turbines. Imagine a pollution incident in fresh water!