Financial Post article exposing Marmora pumped energy boondoggle in 2013

 I heard through the grapevine today that this boondoggle from almost a decade ago has arisen like a zombie for the people of Marmora to oppose once again. Following is an excerpt from an old Financial Post article as a reminder of this dangerous proposal. Have we lost our minds and now want a lake-in-the-sky dangerously looming above our village??? 

Ontario's latest electricity scheme: Pumped energy storage

As the Ontario government’s $1-billion gas plant relocation scandal slips into history, the province’s electricity ratepayers should not assume that the era of big-ticket rate-boosting power projects of questionable value is a thing of the past

Author of the article:

Special to Financial Post

Publishing date:

Oct 10, 2013  •  October 10, 2013  •  4

Article content

But a new pumped storage proposal is under active deliberation around the eastern Ontario village of Marmora. The proposal comes from Northland Power for a stand-alone, 400-megawatt pumped storage facility at the abandoned Marmoraton Mine, on property owned by Aecon Construction. Project cost: Somewhere between $660-million and $700-million.

The Marmora project was endorsed by local council members without public notice. With local people in the dark, Northland Power announced it was “very excited to have the support of the people of Marmora.”

The design envisions the former iron ore mine pit becoming the lower reservoir, once most of its existing, spring-fed lake is pumped into an adjacent upper reservoir. The elevated man-made lake would loom above substantial portions of urban Marmora. When Ontario’s grid has excess power, the operator would pump water up from the lower reservoir. During high demand periods, if the upper reservoir is full and water had not filled the lower reservoir, the elevated water could be dropped through reversible turbines.

Crows over Marmora Mine (a political haibun)

Today's hike with my little dog Chase was on one of our favourite trails, a section of the Trans-Canada Trail which passes the site of the Marmora mine. The hike begins with marsh on both sides of the trail, but soon slag heaps from the old iron mine come into view. After half an hour of sunny late October hiking, huge rocky heaps rise on both sides from millennial swamp. Three crows are hunting over the haunted mesa-like heap to the east:

crows skrawing overhead
thankful I'm not a mouse!
 
These black hunters screech horribly, floating on air currents, intent on flushing small scared creatures from their hidey-holes. Mice and voles bolt in terror when these small 'black riders' fly. I imagine their screeches amplified 100 times - 1,000 times - my little dog and I too would panic bolt.

The crows hunt continues,  crossing the trail to hunt the mine site. The giant blue water eye of the mine, gouged for our iron age hungers, is occluded. After the iron was ripped out, the huge hole lay dormant. A greedy corporation decided to fill the hole with garbage from Toronto - I'm not making this up. There are cracks and deep fractures, underground streams which run from here to Belleville and into the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario. The people of our nearby village opposed the black crow lawyers of GreedCoInc and this crazy scheme was squashed.

A new mine scheme has recently arisen, complete with its flock of black crow lawyers. Now it's 'pumped storage' - another scam scheme to enrich another GreedCoInc while endangering the rural villagers. This time the villagers are slower to awaken to the danger. It's never fun being David facing Goliath.

lawyers circle
hoping to flush
the truth away
 
This morning on CBC radio I sadly heard a woman's story of setting her tap water on fire. Fracking!  Another evil story in the reign of our current King, 'Sauron' Stephen Harper. I could hear the brave shakiness in her voice for taking on GreedCoInc - the larger the feast, the bigger the black riders.

Crows become vultures
blackening the skies  
over Marmora minesite