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CCRA President
Jeff Forsyth
Posted Dec.08
Happy New Year to
everyone and welcome to 2009!
On
Saturday January 31st our annual Winterfest will take place
from 11:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Port Union Recreation Centre.
More details on this activity are in this newsletter. CCRA co sponsors
this event along with West Rouge Sports and Rec., Port Union Seniors and
the City of Toronto. This is a wonderful community outing for the whole
family. Please mark the date on your calendar and plan to attend.
In early
December I attended the quarterly meeting of the Port Union Waterfront
Trail Working Committee. Items discussed at the meeting included an
update on construction progress on phase 2 and a review of some of the
minor maintenance issues for phase 1. Some minor reshaping and
replacement of the beach cobblestones may have to be undertaken in one of
the 5 “beach” areas. Phase 2 construction is on schedule with 2 of the 6
“headlands” constructed.
Some of
you may have read about a proposal by Toronto Hydro to install an
anemometer in Lake Ontario about 2kms off shore from the Guild Inn. On
November 24th Toronto Hydro held a public meeting at Laurier
Collegiate in Guildwood to discuss this proposal. I did not attend this
meeting but from reports of people who did it was a very emotional meeting
with over 1000 people in attendance. The purpose of the present proposal
is to measure wind speeds, directions, humidity, temperature etc. over a 2
year period to assess the viability of placing a series of wind turbines
(wind farm) in the lake. The proposed area for the wind turbines would
stretch from Ajax to the Leslie Street Spit some 2-4 km out in the lake.
It would be visible from the Waterfront Trail Although the meeting dealt
more with the pros and cons about wind turbines and not the placement of
the anemometer it should be stressed that at this point Toronto Hydro has
not made a decision to install a wind farm in Lake Ontario. Once the
results of this test period are tabulated Toronto Hydro will then decide
on whether to go forward with a proposal for the wind farm. Should
Toronto Hydro decide to proceed with the installation of the wind farm, a
full Environmental Assessment would be required. At that time there will
be opportunities for public input to the proposal. We will keep you
posted on further developments as they are available. To get more
information you can go to
www.torontohydroenergy.com/offshorewind .
There
have been some changes of responsibilities on the executive for 2009.
Neil O’Brien has resigned due to new employment commitments. I want to
thank Neil for the work he has done as advertising chair for the past
year. Kelsey Dorval has agreed to assume the position of Advertising
Chair. Kelsey’s contact information is contained elsewhere in the
newsletter. As indicated earlier Mike White did not seek re-election for
the coming year. New executive member Junior Ward has agreed to take on
the Transportation Chair. Junior’s contact information is contained
elsewhere in the newsletter.
This year
marks the 60th anniversary of CCRA. We are planning events for
late March and during the last week in September. Watch for further
details and information in the coming months.
Jeff
Forsyth - President
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