A group which advocates for people and the environment has numerous concerns with government approval of the World Energy GH2 project on the Port au Port Peninsula and in the Codroy Valley.
The company plans to build more than 300 massive windmills with accompanying infrastructure, but some in the region aren’t happy with that prospect.
The final product, so-called green hydrogen/ammonia, will be shipped abroad, with similar projects proposed for central Newfoundland and the Burin Peninsula.
But the Avalon chapter of the Council of Canadians insists such massive projects are neither green nor economically beneficial.
Spokesperson Yvonne Earle calls it “our next Muskrat Falls.”
Earle and others are also concerned about the quality of water on the Port au Port Peninsula and other potential environmental fallout.
It’s expected that jobs will be plentiful during the construction phase, but she doesn’t see long-term economic benefit.
“There will be jobs in the plant, presumably to do with the ships taking the ammonia away, and all of those jobs will be quite dangerous, because ammonia is very dangerous to be handling,” she said.
“But we don’t see that there will be thousands of jobs ongoing. We think that may be a bit of a misinterpretation of exactly what the employment will be.”