TORONTO - Opponents of new wind farms in Ontario accused Energy Minister George Smitherman of trying to duck protesters Wednesday by keeping a tight lid on a scheduled appearance at a Kingston-area energy project.

A group called Wind Concerns Ontario complained that Smitherman's office hadn't told anyone the energy minister would attend Thursday's grand opening of the Wolfe Island wind project.

The anti-windmill activists claimed Smitherman was "deathly afraid" he would face protests at Wolfe Island after he ran into about 50 protesters at a wind farm near Kincardine in April.

"We have felt for a long time that the government is not really that interested in what the victims of wind turbines have got to say," said group spokeswoman Beth Harrington.

The government finally put out a release Wednesday afternoon confirming that Smitherman and Environment Minister John Gerretsen would be at the Wolfe Island event, but it offered no site address and told reporters they had to RSVP, but did not say how to do that.

Smitherman was unavailable for comment late Wednesday, but press secretary Amy Tang said the energy minister has not avoided protests in the past, and that he took time to talk with some of the wind farm opponents in Kincardine last spring.

Media can attend the Wolfe Island event by sending an RSVP to Canadian Hydro Developers Inc., the company running the wind farm, said Tang.

Wind Concerns Ontario said the industrial wind turbines pose a real health risk to people living nearby.

People living close to turbines have reported nausea, headaches, dizziness, anxiety, sleep deprivation and tinnitus -- an incessant ringing in a person's ears -- according to the group's website.

Complaints from Wolfe Island residents can be expected in a few months, predicted Harrington.

"The cumulative effect of people living there is what's going to be reported and that will happen over time, not in the first six weeks or two months," she said.

"The more exposure you have, the more negative the health impacts are."

Queen's University researcher Neal Michelutti, who is studying the impact of the Wolfe Island wind farm, has said there has been no substantive research so far linking those ailments to the presence of windmills.

The Ontario government has legislated a 550-metre setback for wind turbines, but the 86 machines on Wolfe Island that started operating in June are only 400 metres from people's homes.

"We have reports of people with serious health impacts who are almost two kilometres away (from the large turbines)," said Harrington.

"Keep them away from human habitation and protect human health."