Another big step has been made towards the full decommissioning of a wind energy farm project in Prince Edward County.

County Council members voted to pass a motion entering the municipality into a replacement road users agreement with WPD for the White Pines wind project near Milford at its Committee of the Whole meeting Thursday.

The updated agreement speaks specifically to the decommissioning, related works that will be required and current conditions and gives council an opportunity to better define the process.

The road allowance will enable wind turbines, equipment and infrastructure to continue to be dismantled and removed by the company on properties in Athol and South Marysburgh wards.

A third-party consulting engineering company, EXP Services Inc., was retained on behalf of WPD and the Municipality jointly, to complete a road evaluation back in June.

They will assess the damages following the decommissioning and WPD will remain responsible for maintenance and emergency repairs of the roadways and associated costs.

These damages include surface and base of the roadway and other related damages in the road allowance, including, but not limited to landscaping, trees, signage, roadside safety devices and more.

Resident Liz Driver, who lives on Royal Road, which is one of the roads being used as part of the decommissioning, spoke to the committee about her concerns regarding removal of nearby trees and rural natural habitat.

“Roadside trees are a distinctive element of the County’s heritage and they contribute to our natural environment,” she stated.

“WPD installed part of the inter-connection line along Royal Road. It was painful to watch the company cut down over 20 trees to the east of my property to allow for trenching and remove trees to the west to widen the gateway to the Ackerman property (on Royal Road).”

“No trace remains of any of these trees…my general concern is replacing lost trees will take a distance second place to fix some roads.”

Driver outlined four specific items that County staff and council should be considering.

These include; whether an arbourist was hired to properly document trees for removal during construction, accurate consultation for the number of downed trees were not reported, adding up to $1,000, adjusted for inflation, from the original road users agreement to the updated one and encouragement to partition funding towards tree restoration.

Regarding lost tree documentation, Construction Supervisor Tanya Redden told council that staff does have the formal arbourists reports that were completed before the installations took place.

“They identified the trees that were moved for entrance locations as well as the collection system on Bond Road, Royal Road and County Road 10,” Redden explained.

She also noted that the amended RUA has the same installation/removal process and $1,000 per tree would still go to the municipality, and that if it turns out that WPD does not replace the trees, staff would allocate the money in lieu of the trees accordingly in County budgets.

Upon completion and agreement of the final road repair assessment post-decommissioning, staff stated in a report that WPD will pay the assessed funds to the municipality to complete the road repairs through the County's own equipment/staff or contractors.

The funds will be added to the annual Capital Project for the Road Surface Maintenance Program.

Staff expects the funds would be received in 2021 and the road repairs would take place in 2022.

CAO Marcia Wallace stated the Ministry of Energy is driving the decommisioning forward and the approval process continues.

"We have not assigned or agreed to an actual road use agreement, it is currently being negotiated between lawyers," Wallace stated. 

"We have heard back from the Ministry lawyer, but we have yet to hear back from the WPD lawyer. I think they may have been waiting for the outcome of this discussion."

Wallace added they need council's approval for any type of project that relates to green-energy and bringing the matter to Committee of the Whole allows staff and council to gather its bearings with the report.

The decommissioning route will use the same roadways that were used for the construction of the project and there will be no major repairs to the road allowances at this time.

WPD’s project originally consisted of 27 wind turbine generators and interconnecting hydro transmission lines located in Athol and South Marysburgh.

However, the number of turbines would end up being reduced to nine, with only four completely built and five partially built before the provincial government announced two years ago that it was going to cancel the project.

Decommissioning work started last October.

Council will officially vote on the motion at a meeting next month.

More information on the project, including key changes to the RUA, can be found at this link.