The Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) dismissed an appeal filed against the approved Armow Wind project, rejecting claims the project will cause serious harm to human health.

But instead of backing down, a local group of anti-wind activists — Huron-Kinloss Against Lakeside Turbines (HALT) — will take the fight to divisional court and beyond.

“We have always seen this as having the potential to go all the way to the Supreme Court,” said HALT’s Kevin McKee in a telephone interview on May 2.

McKee said the group never expected to win at the ERT, but had to file the appeal before divisional court would consider their legal challenge.

“We weren’t surprised by the result,” he said. “Citizen groups like our own have been 0-for-25 at these ERT hearings. It is nearly impossible to win.”

“By their standard, it would be hard to prove asbestos would cause harm,” he said.

Barring intervention from a court, the April 22 decision clears the way for Samsung-Pattern to erect a 92-turbine, 180-megawatt wind farm in the Municipality of Kincardine, on land northeast of the North Line and Highway 21.

The appeal was organized and funded by HALT and its partners, but filed on behalf of Ken and Sharon Kroeplin — whose 100-acre family farm is located within 600 metres of one of the planned turbines.

The ERT dismissed their claims, writing in its lengthy decision that the Kroeplins “failed to establish, on a balance of probabilities” that the project “will cause harm to human health.”

In its findings, the ERT wrote that it wasn’t enough for the Kroeplins to show “the potential for harm,” but the onus was on them to “prove that a project will cause harm.”

The ERT wrote that so-called “post-turbine witnesses” — people who have reported health conditions and symptoms they believe have been caused or exacerbated by living near wind turbines — did not prove that turbines were the cause of their ailments during their testimony at the nine days of hearings held on Kincardine.