Elmira Independent on Todd Cowan

The Elmira Independent had a couple of articles last week about Woolwich mayor Todd Cowan’s comments on Bio-En and the provincial government.

First, the report on the Council meeting:

Woolwich mayor critical of provincial handling of Elmira biogas project

Woolwich Township mayor Todd Cowan is not pleased with the provincial government.

Cowan expressed his frustration at the Sept. 3 council meeting, after outlining the township’s numerous attempts to get support from the province to move Elmira’s biogas plant, prior to construction.

“We weren’t opposed to green energy,” said Cowan. “We just weren’t overly pleased with the location.”

And then, editor Gail Martin’s editorial:

You can’t blame a guy for trying.

During his entire tenure on council, Woolwich mayor Todd Cowan has insisted it would be possible, somehow, to move the Woolwich Bio-En biogas plant to another location.

[…]

Here is the reality. The Woolwich Bio-En project is well underway, and will not be moved.
We never expected that it could be moved, even if Cowan promised it could.
It was a promise he should have never made —and he was irresponsible to make it.

And that’s exactly what many of us suspected right from the time the project was announced. From the Woolwich Observer, 13 February 2009: A letter circulated to surrounding homes by Bio-En’s consultants, Conestoga Rovers & Associates, read "like it’s a done deal"…

And it’s been a done deal ever since.