Two more stories about the land known as the Meaford Tank Range, or the 4CDTC.
The story of 'Blue Eyes' features a pretty little girl who lived on a farm in the area now occupied by the army base early in the last century. The story is that the girl went out to gather flowers before supper one day, and never returned. Though they searched everywhere she was not found until too late. It turned out that she had wandered into an area where she was not allowed and fell into a deep well, drowning before she was found. She is buried in the small cemetery there.
What makes this an interesting ghost story is the number of army personnel who have reported a 'hair-raising' experience when nearby. Most reports seem to occur at night.
One man reported being on a reconnaissance patrol in the area at 3 am, checking out an old forest road to see if it could still be used. Learning to operate as a team in the middle of the night is an important part of training. Soon the team reported the air turning ice cold and the hair on their neck standing up as they felt they were being watched. Then they saw a moving white apparition far through the woods.
A year later the same man reported, again in the middle of the night, through IR goggles, seeing a little girl in a flowing white night gown. I should add that this training also included sleep deprivation.
Several other people have reported feeling they were being watched, or seeing shadowy human figures through night vision goggles when operating in the area of 'Blue Eyes' grave. In the reports I have found there have been no harmful episodes apart from that of the original girl who drowned.
The TCE Proposal
Moving from one end of the time scale to the other, Trans-Canada Energy is currently proposing to construct a large pumped storage plant on the army base in Meaford, and the proposal has drawn a lot of opposition from Meaford residents.
In this image you can see the present base buildings in white in the upper right, and Georgian Bay in blue in the lower left. This is an unusual perspective, from the northeast. A new lake (in blue) would be constructed on the base, with a pipe to Georgian Bay. The simple concept is that water is pumped up to the lake at night when energy prices are lower and demand is less, and then power would be generated during the hours of high demand by allowing the water to run back down hill, when energy prices are high.
At that point it stops being simple.
You can first consider the immediate local impacts. Fears of fish being sucked into the intake valves are probably number one, the impact of a new hydro corridor is a close second. Will it use land the base requires? And what will be the impact on Meaford during the period of construction, from both trucks on local roads and the number of workers involved?
Portraying itself as listening to local concerns, TCE has proposed three important design changes, first moving the generating station underground, second screening the intake valves to avoid harm to fish, and third, running transmission lines through Georgian Bay and underground to the junction at Essa, southwest of Barrie, all at a cost of an extra $1 billion.
These points are illustrated in the diagrams below.
This shows, in a conceptual way, the generating station underground, fed by water from the new lake above, with outflow/intake pipes running underground out to Georgian Bay.
And this shows the alternate transmission lines. Obviously the under Georgian Bay option will be much more acceptable locally.
However, all of this just looks at local impacts. Comparisons to other projects are also important to look at, since TCE has described the project as contributing to making Ontario's hydro production 'greener'.
First TCE claims that it would be 'greener' than a gas-fired plant, but there is no proposal to build a gas-fired plant, so that comparison doesn't seem very legitimate. Then the Ontario Clean Air Alliance came forward to point out that we could import power from Quebec (which has plenty of surplus hydro power), at a very small cost in comparison. It leaves me wondering just how this decision will get made.
It has also been pointed out that the cheap overnight energy prices that TCE will be paying come because the nearby Bruce Nuclear Power Plant has the energy available, and TCE owns 49% of the Bruce plant.
Personally I'm left confused, but there you have it, a new lake on the base and everything else underground and out of sight.
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In case you're wondering, Ontario has one of the lowest rates of carbon-producing energy production in the world. We are heavily dependent on nuclear energy and hydro (thanks to places like Niagara Falls). Coal was phased out some years ago and only a limited amount of natural gas production is used.
the fact is, we cannot now live without power,here we have wind turbines and hydro dams, Do the powers that be take everything into consideration, I sometimes wonder where the consultants come from, their previous experience, and again the massive fees they can charge before a project even gets approval and starts.
ReplyDeleteThe story of the little girl who drowned and may or may not haunt the area is the kind of tale we might mock but would be reluctant to wander in that particular area at night.
ReplyDeleteInteresting ghost story and, as usual for ghost stories, sad. I have mixed emotions about pumped-storage energy projects; so many of the proposals seem to rely on dirty energy to do the pumping and the disruptions caused by their construction and transmission of the resulting electricity aren't what I'd consider desirable.
ReplyDeleteOkay, the ghost story is eerie. I do wonder why all ghosts seem to be wearing white night gowns - though I've never seen one myself.
ReplyDeleteI'm not certain I'd be happy with the proposals either. How will the transfer of water in Georgian Bay to the new lake impact those who live and work in Georgian Bay? It seems quite ridiculous to think the company can "monitor" the fish from being sucked into the intake valves. Monitoring doesn't sound very proactive. With the availability of other sources of power, it seems to me this is more of an opportunity for the company to purchase nuclear power from an associated company as a way of transferring revenue from one company to another. That's the cynical accountant coming out in me.
I will follow what happens with this through your continued research. And I do believe in ghosts!
ReplyDeleteThere must have been many sad stories like this. My grandmother told a story of being lost in the woods and First Nations people would bring them home in the wilderness of Quebec.
ReplyDeleteSuch stories as you told about the young girl were commonly told when I was growing up in Newfoundland. Similar tragedies always had ghost stories associated with them. Curious!
ReplyDeleteI can read the last name but the first name on the stone is confusing. Interesting story. One has those kinds of stories in your memory. As a kid I remember a boy killed by a falling gas barrel. We too had a gas barrel on stilts and thought of that boy every time I was outside on the farm.
ReplyDeleteThe added not about sleep deprivation had it making more sense.
ReplyDeleteI confess to not following the detail of the plan. It’s too early. 😀
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ReplyDeleteI tend to keep an open mind on the subject of ghosts as I do on a lot of other strange phenomena. I don't know what I think about that water power project. Things like that are sometimes good decisions and sometimes not. I once found it a hard decision when trying to decide what color socks to wear for the day. I finally solved that one by buying only black socks:))
ReplyDeleteI love stories like the ghost story you told. I seldom doubt their reality. I've had enough experiences of my own to remain open- minded.
ReplyDeleteI love the story about seeing the ghost with the IR goggles. Who knows what you might pick up when you expand the ability of our eyes.
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