Almonte resident and B&B owner Pat Vetter received this e-mail today after the publication of the Ottawa Citizen article on the Enerdy dam project.
Thank you for raising the story in today's Ottawa Citizen.
I don't live in Almonte, but the story does raise concerns for me as well.
I am growing increasingly skeptical about comments from Project Managers such as Mr Campbell or from Mayors such as Mr Levi who say that nothing could possibly happen, like losing one of the 4 waterfalls. But we have seen more than 1 occasion (which is 1 too many), when it becomes an oops, or a miscalculation. And I don't buy the insert into the story of controlling high water levels that have killed numerous red maple trees — that cannot be a tipping point argument.
We cannot then undo (maybe I should use the term "undu" in keeping with that company's name Enerdu) the hoe-ramming of 1,500 sq ft of river bottom.
I don't equate this, or being similar at all to a change like the Almonte Riverwalk which has apparently increased community assets. I am sure that most folks residing or owning tourist businesses in Almonte are not merely resistant to change as asserted by Mr Braithwaite who has refurbished other mills. I think people do have legitimate concerns, and want answers and reassurances, and not just trite or banal remarks.
My other concern is as an Ontario taxpayer and energy rate payer. This company wants to increase more than 3-fold the electrical output and sell it back to the Ontario power grid.
Umm, did not the Citizen already report on how much it cost us Ontario rate-payers to subsidize these "8x value return to grids" and how much it cost us to cheaply off-load excess electrical power to the US and Quebec?
And here we have another '"prosperous Canavagh family" company wanting to get at that public trough.
Again, thanks for raising the story, I cannot be there, but I sure hope that folks do become interested… and not just because they live in Almonte.