Residents of small N.B. community win 3-year scrap over wind farm

A wind farm project in the coastal community of Anse-Bleue is officially dead after several years of back and forth stemming from resident backlash. 

The tiny community of 400 people near Caraquet has been fighting the project for more than three years. The project was led by Naveco Power, a renewable energy company in Fredericton.

The community has prevailed.

"There's a lot of relief … now the anxiety can stop," said Anse-Bleue resident Martin Dionne.

N.B. Power confirmed that the wind farm project will not go ahead. 

"NB Power and Chaleur Ventus were not able to come to a mutually agreeable solution to the delayed delivery of the Chaleur Ventus Wind Project," N.B. Power spokesperson Marc Belliveau said in an email. 

Some Anse-Bleue residents have opposed the project from the beginning. They worried the five wind turbines would be too close to homes and upset the tranquility of the community. 

More than 85 per cent of residents signed a petition against the wind project in early 2020. 

Dionne said he and the rest of the community only found out about the project in 2019, two years after it was proposed. 

He said there are many reasons why wind turbines aren't wanted, including risks to the community's well system and potential impacts to its diverse wildlife that were found in the environmental impact assessment process. 

Some residents worried about "shadow flicker," a flashing effect created by sunlight and shadow from the wind turbines inside their homes. 

"Everybody has different reasons and the majority of people don't want it here … no means no," said Dionne. 

Dionne said much of the community is for renewable energy, but there were too many risks in the case of this project. 

News that the wind farm project will no longer happen comes just two weeks after Naveco Power filed a lawsuit against the City of Bathurst.