{"id":9270,"date":"2019-10-15T12:12:16","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T16:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/?p=9270"},"modified":"2019-10-15T12:12:16","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T16:12:16","slug":"e-newsletter-october-15-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/?p=9270","title":{"rendered":"e-Newsletter, October 15, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The proponent&#8217;s non &#8211; &#8220;safety plan&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>\nApparently embarassed by how ineffective it will be, the proponent has not publicized that they have posted their <em>Bala Generating Station Public Safety Measures Plan<\/em>\u00a0on their web site, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.balafalls.ca\/s\/20190823_Bala-Public-Safety-Measures-Plan_FINAL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While this Plan\u00a0may be very useful as it provides a handy form to report incidents such as drownings (helpful checkboxes include <em>&#8220;Location of Incident: Upstream&#8221;<\/em>,\u00a0<em>&#8220;Incident Type: Fatality (not suicide or homicide)&#8221;<\/em>, and <em>&#8220;Person(s) doing at the time: Canoeing \/ Kayaking &#8230;&#8221;<\/em>) \u2013 imagine the time and hand-writing this will save!, the Plan\u00a0does not present any safety measures that will adequately protect the public for this unprecedented situation of building a dangerous hydro-electric generating station in the middle of an extremely popular in-water recreational area.<\/p>\n<p>For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A Qu\u00e9bec Coroner investigating a drowning due to a hydro-electric generating station there found that\u00a0it appeared\u00a0that the upstream &#8220;safety boom&#8221; <u>contributed<\/u> to the danger by tipping the people&#8217;s canoe due to the force of the flow of water against it.<\/li>\n<li>In the past, during the summer the fast water through Bala has been directed through the Bala south channel, so the Bala north channel is calm, as you can see in <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ORF2uN3eRjE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this video taken June 19, 2019<\/a>\u00a0which shows a flow of 150 m\u00b3\/s down the Bala south channel. However, the operation\u00a0of the Bala generating station would result in flow of <u>2\/3 of this through\u00a0the Bala north channel on\u00a0more than 20 days each summer<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>People being tipped out of their canoe by the Bala upstream &#8220;safety boom&#8221;\u00a0would be carried by the fast water and be at the unattended Bala generating station&#8217;s intake trash rack <u>within 45 seconds<\/u>\u00a0and would be held under water and that would be their end.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The proponent&#8217;s &#8220;safety plan&#8221; does not resolve this or other dangers\u00a0such as treacherously turbulent\u00a0water from their generating station extending\u00a0<u>outside<\/u> of their downstream safety boom.<\/p>\n<p>The public will\u00a0rightly expect that it would be safe to use the Township of Muskoka Lakes&#8217; docks, including the Township&#8217;s docks that\u00a0are directly adjacent to the Bala north channel. But using these docks would have new risks created by the operation of the Bala generating station. So it is likely that legal actions initiated due to injuries resulting from the operation of the Bala generating station would include actions against the Township of Muskoka Lakes.<\/p>\n<p>As the Bala generating station project has been entirely driven by the Province of Ontario (providing\u00a0the land, the approvals, and payment for power that would be produced), we feel the Province should take responsibility for these dangers created and fully indemnify the Township, including paying 100% of any costs incurred in defending against any legal actions.<\/p>\n<p>We will therefore be Delegating at the Township of Muskoka Lakes Council meeting tomorrow, October 16, 2019, asking that the Township request this indemnification from the Province.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The proponent&#8217;s non &#8211; &#8220;safety plan&#8221; Apparently embarassed by how ineffective it will be, the proponent has not publicized that they have posted their Bala Generating Station Public Safety Measures Plan\u00a0on their web site, here. While this Plan\u00a0may be very useful as it provides a handy form to report incidents such as drownings (helpful checkboxes <a href='https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/?p=9270' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-3-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9271,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9270\/revisions\/9271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}