Content reserved for subscribers
The Friborg Government is showing its face: it is indeed the Grand Council which is requesting wind measurements in the territory of the municipalities opposed to wind turbines.
It is for contractual reasons that the measurements carried out at Châtelard remain inaccessible, according to the State. © Claude Haymoz
Published on 05/10/2024
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Why is the Council of State ready to impose wind measurement masts on municipalities which have refused wind turbines on their territory? Did he not say that he would not go against the wishes of the communes? And how can we believe that the measurements carried out will be public, when the Energy Department refuses access to those already carried out at Châtelard? In January, deputies Antoinette de Weck (plr, Fribourg) and Jacques Dumas (udc, Vuisternens-devant-Romont) sent a barrage of questions to the government. The response from the Council of State has just been received.
The latter immediately refers to the Grand Council: it was the deputies (on March 21, by 90 votes against 6 and 2 abstentions, editor’s note) who entrusted the State with the mandate to “place measuring masts on the all the sites present in the cantonal master plan to check the quality of the wind” (according to the mandate).
“This data should make it possible to work to restore the confidence of the population and the municipalities concerned”
Friborg State Council
The government adds that these wind measurements will feed into the reflections of the steering committee (CoPil), charged by the Grand Council with re-examining the wind theme of the cantonal master plan. The figures will make it possible “to confirm or refute whether the sites selected are suitable, or not, for the study of a wind farm”. In other words: whether or not they should be maintained in the cantonal plan.
The government also recalls that the CoPil is responsible for “verifying whether criteria other than those retained can determine the choice of the best sites”. The March mandate further calls for consideration of masts at sites not included in current planning.
Three members of the CoPil, including State Councilor Olivier Curty, should recuse themselves, eight municipalities estimate.
What about transparency? Measurements carried out by the company Ennova in Châtelard between May 2013 and May 2014 were made available to the State for the development of planning. But they were “on the sole condition that they are used in an aggregate manner, because of their economic value”, the government clarifies. Ennova, like all the companies that have provided wind data, still refuses to make it accessible, for the same economic reasons.
But the government insists: future data “will be communicated in complete transparency on the basis of formalized contractual commitments”. Likewise, the work of the CoPil, “complete with independent experts”, will be carried out “in a neutral and also transparent manner”. These “necessary bases” will make it possible to “restore confidence among the municipalities and the population”, estimates the Council of State.
