Wentworth Court Challenge Finds New Life
PROTECT WENTWORTH FINDS GOVERNMENT FLIP FLOP
The Protect Wentworth Valley Committee believe’s its lawyer has unearthed a smoking gun in their quest to review the decision to proceed with a mega wind project on Higgins Mountain.
The lawyer was hired to seek a judicial review of the project approval because they felt the Minister of Environment failed to properly consider their concerns about the wind farm’s impact on the environment and the growing community in the Wentworth Valley.
Last week, the lawyer reported he found evidence buried in the 27 hundred pages of government evidence that the Minister intended to deny the project but quickly changed his mind.
Speaking on Six Rivers Radio this morning, a spokesman for the group said the lawyer unearthed a copy of correspondence that said no to the project. Gar Moffatt said the letter was dated on a Friday but over the weekend it was replaced by an approval letter that was issued on May 4, 2023.
Moffatt says his group wants to know what changed. He said officials from the Department of Environment made a private pitch before the approval letter went out.
Whatever was said, has not been part of the public record in the decision making process.
Referring to it as, “a last-minute flip flop,” the group hopes the judge hearing the review will agree that the minister’s decision was more arbitrary than fact based.
A one day hearing is set for January 2nd to consider this latest information.
The judge could order more information on what caused the change of heart. He could also rule it is evidence that the environmental assessment was not entirely fact based. Of course, the judge could also rule no harm, no foul, leaving the approval to stand and the project to proceed.
The protection committee is a subgroup of the Folly Lake Wentworth Valley Environmental Preservation Society. They have stated from the outset that they are in support of wind energy as a green source of electricity. They simply want the particular windmill sites moved a little further away in the Cobequid Mountains. The current plan puts mega, industrial turbines within sight and earshot of of the community and a sensitive ecological corridor under close scrutiny by both the Department of Environment and its sister Department of Natural Resources.
Once considered a ‘David and Goliath’ initiative, the latest revelation may have put the debate on more even ground. The judge now has something more specific to consider.
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