All posts by pbiljan

Shop Near Turbines Closes Doors – Fear For Female Employees Health and Unborn Children

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 10th 2014

… and kill another small business

mink-and-baby-375x241The Danish press reports the case of a garden centre going out of business because of nearby wind turbines. Headaches are frequent among employees, and female workers complain of unusual bleeding and problems with their menstruation cycles. They are worried that more serious illnesses may follow and five of them recently resigned from their jobs. The owner is now closing shop for fear of being held responsible should a child be born with deformities, as happened to numerous mink puppies at a fur farm near wind turbines in Jutland (1).

Boye Jensen, the owner of Lammefjordens Perennials, is 67-year-old. He started his plant nursery 43 years ago, and it became a prosperous business with 15 employees and annual sales of 12 million krones (equiv. $ 2.1 million). He was planning to continue working for another 6-7 years, then sell the nursery. But his business is now worth nothing, causing him an important financial prejudice.

He is presently consulting with his lawyer whether he should sue Vattenfal, the company that owns the wind turbines, or the Municipality of Holbaek, which approved their installation 400-700 metres from his garden centre. He will go to court, and seek damages worth several million krones.

read more World Council For Nature July 10 2014

Be thankful for the blessings of home, family and community.

Dear Neighbours and friends.

images (3)Take a good look around your home, your yard, your community and be thankful for the blessings of home, family and community. Take pictures of your family enjoying the property; take photographs and videos of the trees, wildlife, wetlands and woodlands. Take notes, write poems if that is your thing, but, take the time to enjoy and appreciate your surroundings and to realize what a wonderful, beautiful, quiet and peaceful place you live in, because it is about to change.

Any day now, the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) may approveimages (5) the NRWC project for West Lincoln and Wainfleet and Haldimand and we will see turbines as far as the eye can see. Our community will be industial, noisy and dangerous with huge transmission poles and miles of transmission lines and connector lines zigzagging through our townships. The skyline will be littered with huge 3 mw turbines over 600 feet to the tip. These industrial machines will be 4 times higher than the water tower in Smithville and you will always see them, especially at night when the mandatory lights are blinking on top of these monstrosities.

images (4)Get involved, get informed and get busy.  Its time to have your baseline health tests, hearing test, property value assessment and noise testing done so that if you are negatively effected by the Industrial Wind Turbines you will have a chance of compensation. If you do nothave these baseline tests done, you will never be able to prove that you are negatively affected by the turbines.

Have a pleasant summer 2014.   If NRWC and the MOE have their imageway things will NEVER be the same for us again.

Beginners Guide to Commonly Used Wind Industry Acronyms and Words

It can get confusing trying to remember what stands for what.  Thanks to Wind Victims Ontario for starting up this list.  We are sure it will continue to grow.  

We added the ones in RED to their list, and  added acronyms specific to our projects in West Lincoln/Niagara as well.


  • images (2)Audible – Something that can be heard by the general public
  • AMO – Association of Municipalities of Ontario
  • AWEA – American Wind Energy Association – wind energy lobby group
  • CanWEA – Canadian Wind Energy Association – wind energy lobby group
  • CAPE – Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment – (In favour of “properly sited” wind installations….yet in support of CMOH Dr. Arlene King and the 550 metre setback.)
  • CMOH – Chief Medical Officer of Health (provincial)
  • CofA – Certificate of Approval
  • dB A – audible noise
  • Developer –a wind energy company seeking to erect wind turbines
  • EA – Environmental Assessment (an elevated more detailed level of an ESR or REA when valid concerns require one…routinely denied in this industry.)
  • EBR – Environmental Bill of Rights
  • EBR registry – a government system to collect public input on proposed policy and legislation
  • ENE – Ministry of Energy
  • EPA – Environmental Protection Agency
  • EPAW – European Platform Against Wind – A group in Europe consisting of hundreds of organizations from many countries fighting for appropriate guidelines in wind installations.
  • ERR – Environmental Review Report
  • ERT:  Environmental Review Tribunal
  • ESR – Environmental Screening Report (required proponent driven report prior to the Green Energy Act legislation being adopted in 2009)
  • FIT Program – Feed-in-Tariff Program
  • FOI:  Freedom of Information
  • GEA – Green Energy Act – (legislation put in place by the current provincial government to fast track renewable energy installations by removing perceived roadblocks including human adverse health issues and environmental concerns.)
  • GHG – Green House Gas
  • IESO – Independent Electricity System Operator
  • Inaudible – Cannot be heard by the general public
  • ILFN – Infrasound – Low Frequency Noise
  • JR: Judicial Review
  • LFN – Low frequency noise – mostly, but not always, inaudible sound that can sometimes be felt.
  • MAWT – Mothers Against Wind Turbines Inc
  • MOE – Ministry of the Environment
  • MEI – Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure
  • MNR – Ministry of Natural Resources
  • Mitigation – measures taken to resolve a problem.
  • MOH- Medical Officer of Health (local)
  • MP – Member of Parliament – federal level
  • MPP – Member of Provincial Parliament – (the province regulates the wind industry)
  • NHMRC – National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia)
  • NIMBY – (Not In My Back Yard) Term given to some opponents (Next It Might Be You) 
  • NRCAN – Natural Resources Canada (federal)
  • NRWC – Niagara Region Wind Corporation
  • OAHPP – Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion
  • OEB – Ontario Energy Board
  • OFA – Ontario Federation of Agriculture
  • OPG – Ontario Power Generation
  • OPA – Ontario Power Authority
  • OSEA – Ontario Sustainable Energy Association – a collection of developers and proponents of wind energy
  • OWR – Ontario Wind Resistance – A wind energy information website
  • Opponents (wind) – not in support of wind energy.
  • Proponents (wind) – in support of wind energy.
  • REA – Renewable Energy Approval (required proponent driven report after the Green Energy Act legislation was adopted in 2009)
  • RESOP – Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program
  • Receptor – usually refers to a house situated within a wind installation.
  • RFP – Request for Proposal
  • Setback – term used for how far away an object (turbine) is placed from a home. Calculated using the center point of a home to the turbine not from the property line to turbine
  • S-T-O-P – Smithville Turbine Opposition Party
  • SWV – The Society for Wind Vigilance. (International federation of health and other professionals advocating for authoritative guidelines in wind installations to protect health)
  • VOW – Victims of Wind (a support group of people suffering adverse effects of wind installations.)
  • WEN  – Wind Energy Niagara  (Niagara Regions energy project -) 
  • WLGWAG – West Lincoln Glanbrook Wind Action Group
  • WCO – Wind Concerns Ontario – a wind energy information website
  • WHO – World Health Organization
  • WindVOiCe – Wind Vigilance for Ontario Communities – A valid community based health survey to gather data on adverse health effects. (Can be viewed at http://www.windvigilance.com)
  • WTG – wind turbine generator
  • WTS – Wind Turbine Syndrome – A name coined by Dr. Nina Pierpont in her research to describe a group of adverse health symptoms associated with industrial wind turbine
  • WWE  Wainfleet Wind energy (project in Wainfleet/Rankin)

 

Turtle Concert on Sunday, July 13, PECFN

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THE major single event on the County’s summer entertainment calendar.  Picton United Church, 2:30 pm, admission $20 at the door or in advance at www.saveostranderpoint.org.  Proceeds to support PECFN’s continuing legal battle to save Ostrander Point and Blanding’s turtle.  An afternoon of County-grown music, featuring a wide variety of local musicians covering blues, Celtic, folk, jazz and rock & roll.

Here’s the all-star line-up confirmed to date (in alphabetical order): Bud Gregory; Jeannette Arsenault; John, Penny, and Roanna Kitchen; Lenni Stewart; Little Bluff; Mark McGreevy; Suzanne Pasternak; The Frere Brothers; The Reasons; The Reasonettes; Tom Leighton.  We expect that hundreds of County folks and visitors will attend!

Regards

Gary Mooney 613-919-8765

On behalf of CCSAGE Naturally Green:

17203 Loyalist Parkway, Wellington, ON  K0K 3L0

www.ccsage.wordpress.com

 

Dear Mr. Murray, new Minister of the Environment,

unnamed (1)I would like to congratulate you in your re-election and as the new Minister of the Environment. I was impressed to see your experience as Minister of Transportation and as a former mayor. At the same time I understand what challenges you will be facing in this new position dealing with the incompetence you are inheriting within that department, handed down through the entire inappropriate process created in the Green Energy Act. This Act took away municipal powers and sidelined 21 other Acts of protection for the environment, human and wildlife habitat for the sake of wind energy development as first priority. This is also why the Liberals are facing a rebellion in rural Ontario by residents who have been ignored and bullied with no consideration as citizens in this province.

I would like to suggest that you now have the opportunity to start the change of perception of your political party by doing the right thing. First of all, you need to give back municipal powers. Secondly, you need to cancel projects such as the Port Ryerse Windfarm that are suspect to violating any of the environmental or heritage protections within the Green Energy Act or perceived to have possible health problems for people in the area. Thirdly, you need to change the setbacks to a minimal 2 km. from any residence. This will be a start. I would also suggest that you back away from wind energy altogether because of the associated problems.

I live in Port Ryerse, Norfolk County where we have had wind turbines since 2003 in the west part of the County. We saw the problems of IWT’s as the early experiments with wind energy were being made. We know firsthand about their inefficiency as an energy source, the way many people got sick and had to leave their homes or couldn’t sell them and sometimes sold at a huge loss as well as the inappropriate setbacks for these monstrosities. We now have another project on the eastern part of the County with 13 turbines right around a new development for retirement living, with a golf course to come and a beautiful spa and restaurant. Very sad for the people who bought there or those already living there when it comes time to sell their homes as they have already lost 25-40% of their value which is now common anywhere these things have been built. From the pier in Port Ryerse looking over the water landscape one can actually count 36 of these ugly blights on the landscape over Port Dover including the ones in Haldimand County. Now we are in the process where you get to approve or cancel a project smack dab in the middle of the County’s lakefront to destroy entirely the landscape of Norfolk County right within the inner Bay of Long Point across from a World Heritage Biosphere Reserve and a cultural heritage landscape which was delineated in a report done for our County back in 2006 called the Untermann-McPhail report or now renamed the Lakeshore report. Again this information has been sidelined because of the Green Energy Act and taking away municipal powers.

In Norfolk County, as with many other areas of rural Ontario, we have many rivers and old dams in need of repair. We also have a local company called Green Bug out of Delhi, Norfolk County putting in hydroelectrical facilities with the Archimedes Screw around the world. They presently have a F.I.T. contract and are awaiting approval from the M.O.E. Our Council and our Heritage Committee I sit on have approved this project we deem to be safe, viable and not interfering in wildlife or human habitat. This is the kind of project we favour for our municipality and we have many other dams in need of repair this could be adapted to. We do not want to be bullied into any more wind energy which will destroy our lakeshore landscapes and tourism as well as kill our eagles and songbirds and harm our residents and their property values. We also have 3 solar farms which already provide plenty of energy on the grid and have not posed the scale of problems like wind. The municipalities need their powers back to site appropriate electrical facilities according to their own resources and long-term plans.

Attached are some of the reports sent in to the environmental assessment group Stantec and to the M.O.E. to provide information that was not found in any reports of the wind company, UDI Renewables or Boralex. The application was flawed from the beginning when UDI made his application for the F.I.T. contract stating that this project was ”purely surrounded by agricultural land with no significant waterways, heritage or wildlife”. How can anyone miss Lake Erie? At the first public meeting with the company I asked, “What about that eroding cliff?” The answer I got from Uwe Sandner of UDI was, “What cliff?” Our cliff has been dangerously eroding over the last 100 years and especially in the 70’s and 80’s with the high waters of Lake Erie. It is a bluff of 50 feet deep which is seen from Port Dover’s pier by many tourists and locals as an iconic landscape which gave the town its name based on the “White cliffs of Dover”.

I would really like to see an end to the battle between the GTA Liberals and the rest of the province. It is time to end the war against rural Ontario. You have this opportunity. Will you side with the people or the bully money-hungry wind companies with more tribunals and lawsuits? It is time to give back municipal powers, respect those that have declared themselves “Not a Willing Host”, and save Historic Port Ryerse and rural Ontario from more devastation and energy poverty.

We will await the decision from the M.O.E. with the hope that finally there will be a change within the newly elected provincial government to start listening to and respecting its citizens and that this project and others will be CANCELLED utilizing your powers to do the right thing.

Sincerely,

Shana Greatrix
Port Ryerse

Port Ryerse Wind Farm EBR 012-0611:

links to attached documents below.

https://mothersagainstturbines.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/windturbineportryerse.pdf

https://mothersagainstturbines.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/windmill-vibration-on-broken-front-1-1.docx

https://mothersagainstturbines.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/untermanmacphaillakeshoreheritage.pdf

https://mothersagainstturbines.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/report-to-stantec-2.docx

https://mothersagainstturbines.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/summary-letter.docx

 

 

 

 

 

Holding Greenpeace Accountable

greenpeace-logo-copyFossil fuel and insurance company executives “could face personal liability for funding climate denialism and opposing policies to fight climate change,” Greenpeace recently warned several corporations. In a letter co-signed by WWF International and the Center for International Environmental Law, the Rainbow Warriors ($155 million in 2013 global income) suggested that legal action might be possible.

Meanwhile, the WWF ($927 million in 2013 global income) filed a formal complaint against Peabody Energy for “misleading readers” in advertisements that say coal-based electricity can improve lives in developing countries. The ads are not “decent, honest and veracious,” as required by Belgian law, the World Wildlife ethicists sniffed. Other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) make similar demands.

These are novel tactics. But the entire exercise might be little more than a clever attempt to distract people from developments that could create problems for thus far unaccountable Big Green organizations.

I don’t mean Greenpeace International’s $5.2 million loss a couple weeks ago, when a rogue employee (since fired) used company cash to conduct unauthorized trades on global currency markets. Other recent events portend far rougher legal and political waters ahead for radical eco-imperialists, especially if countries and companies take a few more pages out of the Big Green playbook.

India’s Intelligence Bureau recently identified Greenpeace as “a threat to national economic security,” noting that these and other groups have been “spawning” and funding internal protest movements and campaigns that have delayed or blocked numerous mines, electricity projects and other infrastructure programs vitally needed to create jobs and lift people out of poverty and disease. The anti-development NGOs are costing India’s economy 2-3% in lost GDP every year, the Bureau estimates.

The Indian government has now banned direct foreign funding of local campaign groups by foreign NGOs like Greenpeace, the WWF and US-based Center for Media and Democracy. India and other nations could do much more. Simply holding these über-wealthy nonprofit environmentalist corporations to the same ethical standards they demand of for-profit corporations could be a fascinating start.

Greenpeace, WWF and other Big Green campaigners constantly demand environmental and climate justice for poor families. They insist that for-profit corporations be socially responsible, honest, transparent, accountable, and liable for damages and injustices that the NGOs allege the companies have committed, by supposedly altering Earth’s climate and weather, for example.

Meanwhile, more than 300 million Indians (equal to the US population) still have no access to electricity, or only sporadic access. 700 million Africans likewise have no or only occasional access. Worldwide, almost 2.5 billion people (nearly a third of our Earth’s population) still lack electricity or must rely on little solar panels on their huts, a single wind turbine in their village or terribly unreliable networks, to charge a cell phone and power a few light bulbs or a tiny refrigerator.

read more:   Climate Change Dispatch, Written by Paul Driessen, guest post on July 07, 2014.

Related article : Canada Leaves Greenpeace Red-Faced 11 Jul 1999

The first 3 MW Capacity Turbines in Ontario are up and running…and so are the complaints.

In West Lincoln we will be keeping a close eye on the complaints coming out of Brinston. They are the un-lucky FIRST Residents in Ontario to have to live among the 3MW Capacity Turbines. The SAME size that the NRWC propose for West Lincoln. 

Brinston residents: call toll-free number to complain about turbine noise

168191The South Branch wind “farm” has only been in operation for two and a half months, but already people are talking about the noise and vibration from the turbines. Last week’s super-windy days were especially troublesome. The turbines are 3-megawatt capacity, the first of the powerful turbines to be operational in Ontario … for now.

read more: Ottawa Wind Concerns, July 7 2014

Sound, Noise, Flicker and the Human Perception of Wind Farm Activity

This very useful reference from a New Zealand group who have worked in this area for 8 years including Bruce Rapley, Bob Thorne, Huub Bakker and Philip Dickinson with an assortment of peer reviewed papers by various people is now available.

Product Description

Sound, Noise, Flicker and the Human Perception of Wind Farm Activity

This book is a review of how wind farms affect people through the sound and flicker that they produce. It covers topics in health, noise assessment, noise prediction, economics and noise management.

The format of this review is a series of papers that have been accepted from experts in different fields and peer-reviewed for this work. The intent is to make this material accessible to the layman, so many of the papers have extended introductions to the subject areas.

Amazon link is here:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sound-Noise-Flicker-Perception-Activity-ebook/dp/B00LHCSSWW

Sound, Noise, Flicker and the Human Perception of Wind Farm Activity

It is also available in book form, via http://www.smart-technologies.co.nz/books.html

SNFathpWFA25pcThe explosion of wind farms worldwide has brought with it a rising tide of resistance from residents near them. Complaints about noise and flicker, as well as health problems such as sleep disturbance, headaches, dizziness, anxiety and depression, are all strikingly similar. Developers are advised by experts that the noise levels are virtually undetectable and so low that sound cannot directly cause these symptoms and that these people are naturally anxious.

Why is there such a disparity between the perception of the issue from the two groups? Part of the problem is that the physics of sound and the human perception of noise are still not well understood by many. There is a great difference between being able to measure something and a person’s perception of it and the variation between individuals is never well accounted for by a statistical mean. This can split communities into the affected and the unaffected, the latter group who, due to no fault of their own, cannot understand the views of those who complain. Yet, for those adversely affected by the wind farm placement, there is no doubt about the intrusion into their lives.

This Review brings together the many threads that are needed to explain these issues as a series of Papers from experts dealing with issues of human perception of wind farm noise and flicker. The intent is to make this material accessible to the layman, so many of the papers have extended introductions to the subject areas.

Please spread the word around – the information is readily accessible.

Mothers Helping Mothers

This request goes out to all Mothers to answer a call for Help sent to us from a Mother of two small Chirldren  who lives in North Wales.

“I would be grateful if who ever can could support my family and I in North Wales against this proposed turbine application!

It’s proposed less than 450m from our house and we have 2 young children!

Thanks for your support!

Please support us by rejecting the planning application for a wind turbine 67m HUGE (73m to top of the blades) less than 500m from our home.

  Please think of Martha and Lago playing and sleeping under such giant alien structure whizzing around constantly!

You don’t need a medical degree to know that this is not fair on a child!

Just a small sentence to support us with your objection will mean a lot to us!

Thanks.”

Application details (C14/0479/37/LL)

Link to council website is above!  Any more information inbox me! (on Facebook)

Sioned Enlli-Morgan