When I moved to this area in 1989, the first public event I took part in was a large protest march down Highway #7 to the Marmora Mine site. Back then the mine was 7 or 8 levels deep, as the springs hadn't filled it to its current depth of just one level. The boondoggle deal back then was to fill the almost empty pit with trash from Toronto. This proposal was so obviously horrible to everyone that a the local protest group Marmora Takes No Trash - TNT - was formed to oppose this ridiculous travesty.
Forward a couple of decades and a fresh "green" proposal appeared - pumped energy. Well, it turned out it was really a storage project, not an energy creating one. Many other "misconceptions" about this mine site project circulated. Several of us in the village went door to door with petitions opposing this new iteration, and I remember almost everyone I presented it to signed. We also held a small demonstration in front of the town hall when some of the leading promoters were scheduled to visit.
A sleepy decade followed, and lots of new people moved into the area. Now in 2023 there's fresh meat for the newest zombie project to taste! There are so many issues with this newest one that it's hard to number them, but once again Kathy Hamilton has taken on the challenge. (see her letter to Council below)
Wake up Marmora Charlie Browns! (and don't try to kick this football either)
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From: Kathy Hamilton
Date: February 6, 2023 at 8:54:50 PM EST
Subject: Letter to council members re Feb 7, 2023 council meeting
Dear Marmora and Lake council member:
I hope you'll appreciate having received this in advance to the pending council meeting and will reply to confirm received. This letter will be shared with others and may be further shared publicly by anyone as well, to increase the knowledge base of people locally and beyond. Below are the copy/pasted text contents. I've also attached a pdf copy with the original formatting intact for easier printing or reading. My contact info closes the letter itself as well.
Here's hoping you'll find this interesting and perhaps helpful now or in the future,
Kathy Hamilton
= =
February 6, 2023
Dear Council Member:
I see that a delegate presentation by OPG & Northland Power regarding their proposal for pumped storage in Marmora has been included in the agenda for the regular council meeting on February 7, 2023.
In case you remain unaware; that delegate presentation you're going to receive includes subtle but noteworthy changes that have been made to the information that was provided on panels at the public event held December 15th, 2022.
Although the potential addition of solar panels appears to have been a feature added once OPG became a politically-empowered partner in this 'pumped storage' proposal, it has now become obvious to me that the longstanding pattern of chameleon-like proposal changes will continue.
Expect to continue seeing the sales pitch for this 'pumped storage' pipe-dream altered whenever the wonderful sounding b.s. propping up current claims is confronted with evidence-supported realities.
Have you wondered why the flashy sales pitch on Dec 15 claimed that the power source for this project would be water but that key detail was removed from the presentation planned for you on Feb 7 - although the simultaneous Dec 15 claim that it would be "closed-loop" remains?
On Dec 15 I had personally pointed out to the OPG "project lead" the impossibility of those two claims being both true.
Do you know that since the Dec 15th powered-by-water claim isn't true, neither could be the claim displayed on the panel babysat by the nice young man from Hatch asserting that: "The proposed Marmora Project requires an individual Environmental Assessment (EA) under the Ontario EA Act". I ensured he also knew that wasn't the case (and why this was so) before I left.
Please note these quoted, related details that have been newly provided within the Feb 7th presentation's slide about the federal & provincial environmental assessment processes:
- "Environmental Assessment (Proponent Led)" is now under the Ontario process;
- "(if both apply)" is now stated on that slide, instead of the claim made in the Dec 15th sales pitch.
Need I further clarify the importance of noting the "Proponent Led" and "if both apply" ?
While thinking about Hatch and my further Dec 15th 2022 loss of confidence in that organization...
I'm old enough to remember the overflow spillway that was supposed to have become a 'Safety by Design' feature of the proposed "upper reservoir" . That too disappeared as quickly and permanently as the rest of that new-and-improved project construction plan presented at a council meeting in 2012 by a Hatch engineer.
Did this Hatch engineer that had spurned my initial loss of confidence in his organization think nobody living here would had studied the Lakes & Rivers Improvement Act, so could be easily assured of our future protection from upper-reservoir flooding - akin to the disastrous 2005 Taum Sauk breach - with his mere claim that this project would be subject to all LRIA dam safety regulations?
The reality is that: as-written, the LRIA offered no guaranteed applicability to the 'upper reservoir' planned for this money-making dream cloaked in Green, laughably being pitched as 'pumped storage' (and more laughably being claimed whenever deemed suitable for the sales pitch target-du-jour, as if it were 'like' other pumped storage of the past or current).
Had it been public, our follow-up private discussion outside the townhall may have rung loud alarm bells regarding the economic pain this project would be most likely to deliver to electricity consumers and taxpayers province-wide.
When I asked this engineer why this Marmora mine site for pumped storage that had been deemed "Impractical" in a 2005 report from Hatch was now being promoted, his response was that "the economics have changed".
I doubted that this meant "the economics" pertinent to this 'pumped storage' proposal had changed to the benefit of Ontario's electricity consumers since 2005, when considering the claimed benefits, jobs and prosperity to be delivered province-wide versus the negative impacts actually returned subsequent to Ontario's adoption and implementation of the Green Energy and Green Economy Act.
More questions to ponder:
Why is it that we have never been offered a copy of the follow-up report on that "bore hole" test drilling to determine the integrity of the rock pertinent to the planned penstock that John Wright announced in April 2015 (as publicized by local media) had already been done?
Had it made you feel warm and fuzzy to see, within the June 10 2011 'joint press release' prepared in advance to that same day's first local public revelation of this proposal, the claims that included "Northland Power is very excited to have the support of the people of Marmora and Lake for the Mamora Pumped Storage project."?
How could "the people" have given their support to a proposal they didn't yet know existed?
An open Public Meeting is routinely held during a council meeting to enable council determination of local public support or non-support regarding matters like minor zoning variance/amendment applications - this notably being enabled with advance public notification, being done prior to any council decision being made on the matter under consideration and without the disabling 3-minute restriction placed on Public Input.
Such an open Public Meeting with regard to this ongoing 'pumped storage' proposal has been overdue since June of 2011.
Should the current crop of council members wish to publicly demonstrate their commitment to the prioritization of the interests of all local residents in addition to showing due consideration of the future negative impacts your decision to support this proposal's advancement could have on electricity consumers and taxpayers province-wide (who will be forced to pay the unknown costs of this 'pumped storage' dream's contract with the IESO):
Please do NOT give your support to any motions/resolutions related to this proposal or its promotion before the long-overdue Public Meeting regarding this proposal has been held
and thereby;
Please STOP making our local municipal officials and local residents publicly look like gullible children that are easily lured into situations that were neither foreseen nor within their ability to control, having been blinded by promises of candy.
I might not have believed that the past levels of public confidence in so many public institutions world-wide could have been eroded and driven toward complete destruction so swiftly unless this had hit me personally.
I was born and raised within what is now called Durham Region and retain ties to family and friends still living in-between the Pickering and Darlington Nuclear Stations.
It seems a shame that at my advanced age and after so many years of having retained it...
That our local council's ongoing public support for and promotion of this new partnership's 'pumped storage' money-making dream has contributed toward causing such an unanticipated and swift loss of confidence in OPG as well.
'The jury is still out' on the same loss of confidence becoming applicable to the IESO, subsequent to seeing its promotion of "hybrid facilities" (ie: intermittent/unreliable renewables combined with storage added to the grid?!) and their intended future, joint IESO contracting assumed.
Will the IESO prove less gullible than most here, on the receiving end of the phony and 'changeling' sales pitches of the proponent(s) of this 'pumped storage' proposal - as evidenced by the key items on their presentations' yet-to-do (and obtain) lists that are so tellingly "pending Ministerial direction and IESO contract"?
Surely the IESO must also already know that one of the most telltale and unique characteristics of this 'pumped storage' mimic is its potential to lose 'head' from both ends simultaneously?
Hint: the upper reservoir dumps into a constrained lower that's self-refilling
Why would this 'pumped storage' proposal with that uniquely un-economic potential have been clumped with the Meaford and Schreiber 'pumped storage' alternatives by the Ministry of Energy? Did the Minister of Energy never watch the "which of these things doesn't belong with the others" clips on Sesame Street?
If this alone isn't enough to see this 'pumped storage' proposal denied any contract by the IESO in the interests of electricity consumers and taxpayer province-wide, what would be?
Same goes regarding any lingering confidence that the Ontario PC Party and its Ministry of Energy will return a brighter future economic outlook for electricity consumers and taxpayers province-wide than did the Liberal Party of Ontario.
In closing, I would suggest you undertake the following reading asap:
From Nov 18, 2013: Parker Gallant's cost analysis: "Pumped Storage equals pumped energy prices" published on Energy Probe
A more recently published forewarning: The Energy Storage Conundrum by Francis Menton
An example of wind + pumped storage, backed up with diesel generators (the Gorona del Viento project on the Spanish island of El Hierro) is detailed starting at the bottom of page 18 (pdf pg 24 of 32).
One noteworthy excerpt:
"The bottom line is that El Hierro has wind turbines for more than double average demand, pumped storage for more than double average demand, and also diesel generators for more than double average demand – three separate and redundant systems, all of which must be paid for, yet they struggle to get half of their electricity from the wind/storage system, averaged over the year. “
- Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station - Upper reservoir breached in 2005
- Reservoir Break Causes Flood in Southern Missouri: NPR - National Public Radio (USA)
Offered Sincerely,
Kathy Hamilton
Marmora
