Heather Wright/The Independent

St. Clair Township has given its blessing to a fifth proposal for a natural gas powered electricity plant.

Monday, council gave a letter of support to Vogtech Renewables for a bid to the Independent Electricity System Operator for a 250-megawatt plant at the corner of Greenfield and Bickford Lines near Courtright.

That was despite plea from Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment to reconsider approving natural gas powered plants for the health of the community.

Vogtech is now the fifth natural gas powered electricity plant project St. Clair Township has given a letter of support which is necessary to bid for a power generation contract.

The province wants to create 600 megawatts of new energy production with this round of project bids. The five proposed projects in St. Clair – Riverside Power Plant, the expansion to the Greenfield Energy Centre, an expansion at the St. Clair Energy Centre on Petrolia Line, and one Eastern Power – combined could generate 1,880 megawatts, if they all were to be approved.

The municipality’s support of the projects doesn’t guarantee the province will award the lucrative contracts, however the companies can’t bid to generate power without them.

St. Clair Township has been bullish on the natural gas powered electricity plants since companies started making plans.

Township council approved Eastern Powers’ bid for two new plants generating 390 megawatts of power after receiving a letter from the company.

St. Clair Township Mayor Jeff Agar has said a number of times that he’d like to see St. Clair Township “be the gas turbine capital of Ontario and I’ll be proud to have it.”

But not everyone is as enthusiastic.

Dec. 1 officials from Environmental Defense asked council to reconsider its support for natural gas powered plants. The Ontario Clean Air Alliance has also asked council to step away from the projects.

Monday, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment made their case. 

“Over eight million people today are dying around the world prematurely because of air pollution, and that translates to almost 7,000 Ontarians every year, Dr. Millie Roy of the University of Toronto School of Medicine told council via Zoom.

“When it comes to gas plants, the main culprit, the main air pollutant, is nitrogen dioxide…not only do we see lung diseases like asthma, but serious heart diseases like heart attacks, brain diseases like stroke and dementia, multiple forms of cancer, pregnancy risks like stillbirths and birth defects.”

Roy said some studies show people living within 20 kilometres of gas plants become ill. Sarnia is just 15 kms from the closest proposed gas plant expansion and just 25 km from the Vogtech site.

“We already know that in this area, we’re dealing with triple the national average rate of leukemia. We know that some pollutants such as benzene, a known carcinogen, sulfur dioxide and fine particulate matter are already found to exceed the safe exposure limits,” she said, adding the extra gas plants would increase the risk.

“We have a chance here to do better,” she said. “Please take a moment before you vote today, think of your constituents, family, friends, loved ones in the area, and please make the right decision.”

Council then discussed the Vogtech proposal, asking questions about how the plant could use hydrogen in the future, what the company was willing to provide as far as a community benefit program was concerned, the effect of the construction of a possible plant on the roads and why Vogtech left its bid to the 11th hour. Proposals have to be submitted to the IESO by later this week.

In the end, five councillors approved the project with only Councillor Holly Foster not raising her hand before Agar declaring the request approved. 

Councillor Pat Brown added, “We have approved other projects in the past and there is no guarantee this project from Vogtech will be approved…they’re just the new kids on the block.”

asIESO will be determining the best projects to proceed with the hope that the winning bids will be announced in the spring.