Protesters in Mainland block road to wind power test site over water supply fears

A group of protesters from Mainland, on Newfoundland and Labrador's Port au Port Peninsula, has blocked a road to a wind power test site for more than a week, citing concerns about their water supply.

Crown land near Mainland has been identified as a site of a future meteorological evaluation tower designed to collect data and help determine the future viability of a development by wind power company World Energy GH2.

But Mainland residents opposed to the construction of the tower say the road a contractor has cut to the area is creating problems with their supplemental water supply.

"What's coming down is not fit to drink," said Zita Hinks. "We have an all-grade school here in our community, a lot of small children — that water was going to them as well. Somebody will get sick if this water system is not cleaned up."

The road to the tower site runs about nine kilometres along the side of a mountain, heading to the peninsula's interior. Streams and brooks in the area run into LeCointre's Brook, the secondary source of water for the local service district.

"We're asking the government, 'Why?'" said Hinks. "'Why are you doing this to our water supply?' It's not fair. It's inhumane because the way we feel, water is the very basic necessities of life. The government cannot deny us a good drinking water source."

According to the local service district, a pumphouse, funded largely by the provincial government, was installed near the mouth of LeCointre's Brook in the late 1990s. It pumps water into the primary reservoir when water levels are low. 

Dwight Cornect, who was elected to the local service district committee in 2009, said the provincial government's subsidization of the project means the land should be protected from development.

"It is not a secondary water supply. It is actually part of our water system."

When the committee heard in late 2022 the mountainous area around LeCointre's Brook was not considered a protected area, it applied for protection for the land to prevent any work from happening in the area.

"We as an LSD, as elected representatives of a community, that we have a responsibility to ensure that access to our public drinking supply is controlled, limited, that not just anybody can enter this area," said Cornect.

The Department of Environment and Climate Change declined an interview request.

In a statement, the department said it issued two temporary licences to World Energy GH2 to permit temporary wind-monitoring activities in the area. Once World Energy GH2 completes its data collection, the licences end and the site is to be returned to an acceptable condition, says the statement.

The department says it collected samples from LeCointre's Brook twice, most recently on Nov. 24.