Maple Wind Farm | A wind too strong against the citizens

While Quebec is preparing to experience a new wind boom, citizens who have fought for 10 years against the nuisance of wind turbines in their countryside at the foot of the Appalachians have just laid down their arms, sickened and discouraged.

Their case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear it and put an end to the story in early May. “You have to accept it, that’s for sure, but I have a lot of trouble living with it,” says Yvon Bourque, one of the residents of Sainte-Sophie-d’Halifax behind the class action. against the Éoliennes de L’Érable.

Selected by Hydro-Québec following its 2005 wind power call for tenders, the park of 50 wind turbines planted on the territory of the villages of Saint-Ferdinand, Sainte-Sophie-d’Halifax and Saint-Pierre-Baptiste built without social acceptance and without the green light from the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE).

The three municipalities are located about a hundred kilometers from Trois-Rivières between Victoriaville and Thetford Mines in the Centre-du-Québec region.

The BAPE noted in its report that the population had been belatedly informed and consulted about the project. He also pointed out that the wind turbines would not be far enough from homes.

With the blessing of the Government of Quebec, Hydro-Quebec and the MRC de L’Érable, the Spanish promoter Enerfín built its park. Opponents were left with recourse to the courts to obtain compensation for the change in their environment.

Their lawyer David Bourgoin pleaded the neighborhood disturbances between the 100 megawatt park and an inhabited environment located in a postcard environment: degradation of the landscape, disturbing noise and loss of value of the houses. None of the citizens’ group’s arguments were accepted.

The government, Hydro-Quebec, the MRC, everyone wanted the project to be done, he says. “Neighborhood disturbances were far from their concerns. »

There is cause for concern for the future, according to him, because regional county municipalities (RCMs) have themselves become promoters of wind projects in order to find new sources of revenue.

A permanent gap

Eight years ago, Yvon Bourque and his wife left the house where they had chosen to end their days to get away from wind turbines. “We saw 17 of them from our area,” says Mr. Bourque.

It took him three years to sell his property and a clause was included in the sales contract to ensure that the buyer was well aware of the noise generated by the wind turbines. A noise that is not constant, eventually found the farmer. “It depends on the wind, but also on the atmospheric pressure,” he explains. At times, it’s like an airport. »

The Bourques now live farther from the wind turbines, but still close enough to their former neighborhood to see that the wind farm has created a permanent gap in this once tightly knit environment.

Yvon Bourque, who is also an electrician, used to help out his neighbours, who gave him other services in exchange. “That’s over. And it was passed on to the second generation,” he says of his 25-year-old son, who experienced the same division at school and who will take over on the farm.

The experience of the courts, from the Superior Court to the Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme Court, left Yvon Bourque bitter. “I don’t know if it’s because we had too strict an education, but I didn’t know we had the right to lie in court,” he says.

Bigger wind turbines to come

With the demand for electricity increasing, Quebec is about to experience a new wind power boom. Wind power generation is to double by 2030, from 4,000 to 8,000 megawatts. Tenders totaling 1000 megawatts have just been concluded, another 1500 megawatts is about to be launched.

“It’s going to make holes in the landscape,” warns Claude Charron, one of the early opponents of the L’Érable wind farm, because he was settling in an inhabited area.

The next-generation wind turbines that will equip future farms are larger and more powerful than those running in the L’Érable wind farm, with a production capacity of 6 megawatts, compared to 2 megawatts for the older ones.

Citizens affected by future projects have an interest in taking an interest in them from the start, according to Claude Charron. “City councils and mayors have great power,” he recalls of his experience.

Responsibility for marking out the installation of wind turbines falls to the RCMs with interim control regulations (RCI). These regulations are more or less restrictive from one region to another and are adopted by the mayors who sit on the bodies of the MRCs.

In this entire saga that is coming to an end, it is the actions and decisions of the municipal councils involved in the L’Érable wind farm that have mainly disappointed Yvon Bourque. “I want them the most. »