Category Archives: Adverse Health Effects

Adverse Health Effects, Direct Effects, Green Energy, Health

The Great Noise Debate

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towers of turbinesAudiologist’s are among allied health care providers that are seeing increasing numbers of patients seeking assessment for a range of symptoms that can include migraines, vertigo, tinnitus,and sleep deprivation in response to exposure of wind turbine sound.   The following article while slanted in favour of wind energy also demonstrates the widening cracks in the veneer of the wind industry’s posturing that all is well for the health of those who live near the turbines.

Articles about Visceral Vibratory Vestibular Disturbance (WVD), Vibroacoustic Disease, and Wind Turbine Syndrome are appearing in books, newspapers, and on websites with increasing frequency. While the effects of intense noise in the range that we can hear are becoming more widely recognized and publicized, physicians and researchers are now concerned that infrasound – sounds that are in the frequency range too low for the human ear to hear – are the cause of these symptoms. They theorize that the low-frequency sounds and vibrations emitted by wind turbines may interfere with the ear’s vestibular system, which controls our sense of balance, or may affect heart and lung tissues.

By Andrea Graham
Audiologist, M.Sc. (C) Reg. CASLPO
Heritage Hearing Care

READ ARTICLE: http://www.lifestylehearing.ca/2013/02/great-windmill/

Adverse Health Effects, Children Affected, Cost Benefit

Rural Ontario “in Crisis”

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“If we had 30 kids in Ontario with the measles, we’d have a health crisis. With 60,000 households in Ontario who were disconnected from hydro, that’s a crisis. And in rural Ontario, when that disconnection means you can’t use your well, that’s a public health crisis”

Rural Ontario ‘in crisis’ due to high hydro rates, local United Way head says

By Denis Langlois, Sun Times, Owen Sound

Friday, July 29, 2016 3:39:26 EDT PM

Soaring hydro costs have created a crisis situation in Ontario that is especially concerning in rural areas like Grey-Bruce, says the head of one of the local agencies that is helping people to keep their lights on.hydro meter 1

Francesca Dobbyn, executive director of the United Way of Bruce Grey, which has released a report on utility assistance provided to households in the region over the past year, pointed to national news reports that quote the Ontario Energy Board as saying nearly 60,000 residential customers were disconnected in 2015 from hydro services due to non-payment.

That number was confirmed by The Sun Times Friday.

“If we had 30 kids in Ontario with the measles, we’d have a health crisis. With 60,000 households in Ontario who were disconnected from hydro, that’s a crisis. And in rural Ontario, when that disconnection means you can’t use your well, that’s a public health crisis,” she said in an interview.

The local United Way’s report found that from July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016, the United Way, along with Bruce and Grey counties, Y Housing and the Salvation Army in Wiarton distributed nearly $750,000 to help people with hydro or natural gas arrears or to purchase wood, oil or propane to heat their homes.

That figure rises to more than $1 million, the report says, when factoring in the staff time and resources provided by the agencies.

Dobbyn said while that number alone is startling and points to a “crisis brewing in our region,” it doesn’t include the financial assistance provided to people by other sources, such as churches or other organizations or by family members or friends.

The report says electricity costs have climbed by 100 per cent in the past decade.

Rural residents have been hardest hit, Dobbyn said, because they are charged higher delivery costs by utility companies.

Rural residents, on average, pay almost double the delivery rates compared to households in “urban high density” areas, according to the United Way report.

An average household in a low-density area is charged about $84.46 for delivery, distribution, connection, network and other fees, the report says, while homes in high-density areas pay about $44.50. And that’s without using any energy at all, it says.

Homes that use baseboards for heat pay about $80 a month in hydro rates on top of the delivery fees.

“And that’s before turning on a light or using a microwave or any other source of electricity,” Dobbyn said.

The numbers, she said, show that even while conserving energy in the home, people in rural areas are still facing high monthly hydro bills.

“Our clients, our families are not wasteful. They do everything they can to reduce consumption, they unplug everything and we often advise them to turn breakers off in an effort to reduce their bill,” she said……….

READ ARTICLE: http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/2016/07/29/rural-ontario-in-crisis-due-to-high-hydro-rates-local-united-way-head-says

Adverse Health Effects, Destruction from turbines, Environment

Water Wells Useless by nearby Turbines

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turbines & water

Water wells made useless by nearby turbines

We found the opinion expressed by letter writer Dean de Jong in the July 22 edition of the Sarnia Observer both hurtful and inaccurate.

With research Mr. de Jong would have realized he has misconstrued the situation. There is a problem in Dover Township and a pending problem anywhere in the area where wind turbines are constructed in this manner in this soil and rock composition.

Mr. de Jong did get one thing right; the situation is about water quality. Had the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change listened to the people of Dover and reacted to their complaints, along with writing meaningful precautions into the Renewable Energy Approval for North Kent Wind 1, this situation could be reported differently and there would have been no need to push to an Environmental Tribunal.

The ministry’s approach of “let them eat cake” or in this case providing farmers with livestock “bottled water” is insulting. We’re afraid it shows there is more than one person out of touch with what is at stake here.

Furthermore Mr. de Jong, we assure you the Health Unit would not test this water, as you cannot see through it. It looks rather like chocolate milk but with a lot of grit. Perhaps Mr. de Jong has the time to invent a way to have a shower, do the laundry or run the dishwasher with “bottled water”.

There is no hidden agenda here. Water Wells First has been abundantly clear that it’s not against the wind turbines, or any other type of renewable energy. What Water Wells First is against is having water wells that have been used for generations made useless by wind developers. The blind compliance to renewable energy demonstrated by the performance of the ministry confirms direction from a Toronto-centric ideology and no concept of what goes on in rural Ontario. Not all water comes out a tap fed by a lake, you know.

Perhaps if Mr. de Jong could see past the anti-wind energy neo-Luddites, as he describes them, he might see the countryside where people have sourced clean natural ground water for generations (why would they stay if they couldn’t?) and understand the irony, in that the majority of these folks’ ancestors used wind energy (wind mills) to pump their water for all those generations.

Seismic coupling – no one is making this up! People, especially rural people, have far more to do than fight to protect their wells from the government they pay for.

K.C. Craig Stainton, executive director

Ontario Ground Water Associaton

and Kevin Jakubec, executive director

Water Wells First

Published July 26, 2016 The Observer: http://www.theobserver.ca/2016/07/26/3500-tags-for-not-an-igloo-project

Adverse Health Effects, Environment, Health, world Health Organization

International Appeal to WHO

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download (4)The battle to protect health, our homes and environment knows no border, as renewable energy projects powered by wind globally continue to generate reports of harm.   The WHO is currently reviewing its  European noise guidelines and will include consideration of noise from wind turbines.  Signatories from around the world are calling for careful review of these standards and are uniting those who are demanding protection and prevention of harm to health.

The international letter has been signed by health professionals, researchers and concerned individuals from around the world including Dr Robert McMurtry and Carmen Krogh of Canada, Dr Sarah Laurie of Australia, Dr Alun Evans of Scotland, and acoustician Jerry Punch of the United States, among many others.  Wind Concerns Ontario has signed on behalf of its membership and has sent in a prior letter of comment to the WHO. http://www.windconcernsontario.ca/wind-concerns-joins-international-signatories-on-letter-to-who/

The campaign has been picked up by the media in the UK such as the article in the Press and Journal published on July 21, 2016   http://www.windsofjustice.org.uk/2016/07/health-campaigners-take-windfarm-battle-global/

LETTER: https://www.scribd.com/document/319161091/Open-Letter-to-Members-of-the-Panel-Developing-the-WHO-Environmental-Noise-Guidelines-for-the-European-Region-1-1

 

Adverse Health Effects, Health, world Health Organization

Environmental Noise & Sleep

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Environmental noise and sleep disturbances: A threat to health?

sleep

Environmental noise, especially that caused by transportation means, is viewed as a significant cause of sleep disturbances. Poor sleep causes endocrine and metabolic measurable perturbations and is associated with a number of cardiometabolic, psychiatric and social negative outcomes both in adults and children. Nocturnal environmental noise also provokes measurable biological changes in the form of a stress response, and clearly affects sleep architecture, as well as subjective sleep quality. These sleep perturbations are similar in their nature to those observed in endogenous sleep disorders. Apart from these measurable effects and the subjective feeling of disturbed sleep, people who struggle with nocturnal environmental noise often also suffer the next day from daytime sleepiness and tiredness, annoyance, mood changes as well as decreased well-being and cognitive performance. But there is also emerging evidence that these short-term effects of environmental noise, particularly when the exposure is nocturnal, may be followed by long-term adverse cardiometabolic outcomes. Nocturnal environmental noise may be the most worrying form of noise pollution in terms of its health consequences because of its synergistic direct and indirect (through sleep disturbances acting as a mediator) influence on biological systems. Duration and quality of sleep should thus be regarded as risk factors or markers significantly influenced by the environment and possibly amenable to modification through both education and counseling as well as through measures of public health. One of the means that should be proposed is avoidance at all costs of sleep disruptions caused by environmental noise. house and wind turbine

Keywords

  • Environmental noise;
  • Sleep disturbances;
  • Health outcomes

READ MORE: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1984006314000601

 

 

Adverse Health Effects, Health, Health effects from wind turbines

An Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Canada

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Below you will find a link to the open letter written to the Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of Health and Associate Director at Health Canada requesting a meeting with the Minister to discuss compliance by the wind turbine industry with the Radiation Emitting Devices Act and wind turbine industry compliance obligations, and the need to conduct an investigation of related complaints.Wind Turbines --- say NO

The letter includes issues with the design of Health Canada’s wind turbine noise and health study with interpretation of the results, and implications regarding the fact that wind turbines fall under the Radiation Emitting Devices Act as industrial Act.

We have been informed that there are numerous signatures supporting this letter. Those who wish to add their support can do so by contacting Barb Ashbee at  barbashbee@gmail.com.

Open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau regarding industrial wind turbines June 2016 

Thank you to CCSAGE  and Barb Ashbee:  https://ccsage.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/an-open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-of-canada/

Adverse Health Effects, Children Affected, Environment, fighting big wind., Uncategorized

Amherst Island ERT Wraps Up

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“The project is putting children’s safety at risk and that is something that I don’t think we, as Ontarians, want to tolerate”

Kingston Heritage Published June 8, 2016   

By Mandy Marciniak

amherst Island haywagon

On June 7, members of the Association to Protect Amherst Island (APAI), along with many Island residents, gathered at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church to hear the final submissions in their appeal against Windlectric Inc.

The submissions were the final part of the more than six month long Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) that took place regarding the project, and members of APAI were feeling optimistic.

“It has been a long process and we are very proud of what we have accomplished and we are very confident,” said Michele Le Lay, a member of APAI before the final hearing. “We feel we had a fair hearing.”

The final instalment of the tribunal started with a statement from island resident and concerned parent Amy Caughey, who originally spoke to the tribunal in December. Caughey’s main concern is the proposed placement of a concrete batching plant and high-voltage substation directly next to the school on the island.

“It seems like all the industrial activity will be occurring next to the school and I think it is too close,” she said. “Also, the cumulative impacts of this project, especially on the school, have not been assessed. It seems that each component is looked at individually, but it is not looked at as a whole and I think that is a major problem.”

Caughey explained that after six months of hearings she still has numerous unanswered questions about the safety of the project, especially in relation to the school, and she worries that her children and others will be at risk.

“The project is putting children’s safety at risk and that is something that I don’t think we, as Ontarians, want to tolerate,” she said. “We don’t have enough information and if we just go ahead and do this, it is actually our children who become the test to see if the directive is right or wrong and I think that is entirely inappropriate in Canada in 2016.”

READ MORE:   http://www.kingstonregion.com/news-story/6712312-environmental-review-tribunal-wraps-up-on-amherst-island-results-expected-by-end-of-june/;send=false

Adverse Health Effects, Corruption, Government corruption, Government Misrepresentation, Noise, The problem with Wind Turbines

Damning report of the Polish national auditor on wind developments

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Wind Power Complex installations demonstrate a common, reoccurring  and global pattern of adverse effects and harm.  The following  mirrors the range of issues being reported and documented by impacted residents in Ontario, Canada.

Massive conflict of interests, no adequate measurement of noise and deliberate misinformation of residents.
stopwiatrakom.eu
A NATIONAL ONLINE PLATFORM
FOR SAFE WIND TURBINE SETBACKS FROM HOMES

 

13 May 2016

The president of the Polish National Audit Authority (NIK) told a parliamentary committee on 12 May 2016 that in up to one third of all the rural municipalities covered by the NIK investigation, decision makers responsible for granting permits for wind farm developments, or close family members of such local officials, were beneficiaries of land leases for these projects.

These are the findings of a multi-year study by the Polish Audit Authority, which sought to investigate if the public interest was adequately safeguarded in the planning and permitting process for publicly-subsidized wind power developments. Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, NIK president, told the parliamentary committee on infrastructure that the study included a total of 70 inspections in 51 municipalities and 19 county-level local government administrations.

In 90 per cent of inspected municipalities, local authority’s approval of wind farm developments was made contingent on the developer’s funding the preparation of planning documentation or making donations to the municipality. Yet, under Polish law such expenditures must be covered from the municipality’s own budget. According to the Polish Audit Authority, such actions may give rise to conflict of interests between the developer’s preferences and the interests of municipalities and local communities.

Mr Kwiatkowski also noted that the existing regulations on noise measurement did not guarantee “reliable [assessment] of nuisance resulting from the operation of a wind farm”. Specifically, under the existing regulations noise was measured at low speed levels, with wind speed below 5 m/s. However, the noise is most intensive at wind speeds of 10-12 m per second, which are optimal for wind turbine’s performance. Furthermore, the regulations did not require measurements of other impacts such as infrasound and shadow flicker, according to President Kwiatkowski.

The Polish National Auditor also noted that in the absence of clear laws and consistent caselaw of courts, wind farms were occasionally built in areas of outstanding landscape value.

The inspections also disclosed that in one third of the municipalities there were conflicts of interests involving “individuals who were primary beneficiaries of wind farm projects”, that is people who concluded land lease contracts for wind turbines. Such people tended to be “mayors, members of their immediate families, municipality officials, council members” who had approved changes to local zoning plans enabling the construction of wind farms in the first place.

The Polish National Auditor also questioned the manner in which local communities were being informed about the planned developments. At times, meetings were announced in a manner intended to make it difficult for interested residents to attend and then the failure to attend such meeting was considered to imply consent on the part of local population.

Source: http://www.cire.pl/item,129196,1,0,0,0,0,0,prezes-nik-w-sejmie-o-nieprawidlowosciach-dotyczacych-lokalizacji-wiatrakow.html (12.05.2016)

Download this article

Article originally posted on: friends-against-wind.org

Adverse Health Effects, Health, Health effects from wind turbines

Health controversy continues

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el pasoSheriff and NextEra to conduct infrasound study at El Paso County wind project located in United States.

By Lindsey Harrison
   Calhan residents attended the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners meeting again Nov. 3 to voice their concerns about potential health hazards related to the Golden West Wind Farm project. Joe Cobb, a resident who lives within the wind farm’s footprint, said he left the meeting as frustrated as when he went in.“I take two days off of work to come to talk, and I get three lousy minutes,” Cobb said. “I am spending a lot of money just to be heard.”

In all, Cobb said he has spent $3,700 on his animals, which includes veterinary and farrier bills and extra hay because the animals won’t go out to pasture, since the wind turbines became active in September. His animals and his family are feeling the negative effects from the turbines.

“We’ve got a blind duck, four out of seven horses that can hardly walk because their feet hurt so badly, donkeys that will not go out to graze, two guinea fowls have died; our little dog has congestive heart failure and mastitis, and four of my son’s five neon tetra (fish) have died,” he said. “The fifth is blind in one eye. These animals all acted normally for the many, many years that we have lived here, and you put these turbines up and there are dramatic changes in my animals’ health and my family’s health.”

According to an article published online in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society Sept. 20, 2011, “The electromagnetic waves are generated by the conversion of wind energy to electricity. This conversion produces high-frequency transients and harmonics that result in poor power quality … . High-frequency transient spikes that contribute to poor power quality, also known as dirty electricity, can flow along wires, damage sensitive electronic equipment, and adversely affect human and animal health.”

Cobb said his other concern is the infrasound emitted by the turbines. Infrasound is acoustic energy or sound pressure felt as separate pressure pulsations, according to an article written by acoustic engineer Richard James, published on wiseenergy.org Feb. 20.

Dr. Nina Pierpont published a book in 2009 called “Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment.” In it, she lists adverse effects of living near a wind farm, which include “sleep disturbance and deprivation, headache, tinnitus (ringing in ears), ear pressure, dizziness, vertigo (spinning dizziness), nausea, visual blurring, tachycardia (fast heart rate), irritability, problems with concentration and memory, and panic episodes associated with sensations of movement or quivering inside the body that arise while awake or asleep.”

People can find information to support claims for either side of the issue, said Dan Martindale, director of El Paso County Public Health. “In terms of infrasound, that is something that is very difficult to measure,” Martindale said. “It depends on who is studying it, the length of the study and so on. There is just no conclusive evidence of what the residents are claiming of the noise and infrasound projected by the turbines.”

Laura Wilson, another resident living within the wind farm’s footprint, said she pleaded with the BOCC to hold off approving the project in 2013 (when it first went to the board), until the county had a chance to further review all the available information about turbines.

“These very issues were brought to the commissioners’ attention before they approved the project on Dec. 19, 2013,” Wilson said. “There is no excuse for anyone to try to plead ignorance about any of this.”

Amy Lathen, BOCC member, said she has read literature that states wind turbine syndrome is a legitimate concern, and she has read other literature that states it is a placebo effect. Because of the conflicted literature, the BOCC has directed the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office to work with NextEra Energy Resources, the company that owns the wind farm, to study the existence of infrasound on the wind farm, she said.

“Because it can be considered a noise ordinance issue, the sheriff’s office is responsible for investigating that,” Lathen said. “The sheriff’s office has already been out there testing prior to the Nov. 3 meeting because we had complaints about audible noise.”

Lathen said the county does not have the equipment to study inaudible noise or infrasound, so they are in discussions with NextEra to supply the equipment to conduct the study. The county will ensure that someone qualified to study inaudible or infrasound will help with the process and calibrate the equipment readings, she said. “We want to make sure we are doing this right.”

Lathen said she voted against the project in 2013 because she thinks the turbines have an impact on people, and some turbines have been built too close to some of the residences. “I do not like the federal mandates or the subsidies,” she said. “I have a problem with the whole wind power program and the mandates that exist there. I am just not a fan; I never have been. I am just trying to do my best dealing with these issues, but I lost the vote about whether or not to approve the wind farm.”

The BOCC only has authority when it comes to land use issues, Lathen said. Any health issues would need to be addressed through the board of health, she said.

Wilson said she has no faith that the board of health will take the issue seriously. “I feel that they have intentionally ignored all of the information we have given them,” she said.

EPC Public Health could easily do what the health department in Brown County did, but they have chosen not to do anything, Wilson said. “I truly believe that each and every one of them has the attitude that they are too big to be accountable to anybody, and that is a problem.”

According to the September issue of The New Falcon Herald, the Brown County Wisconsin Board of Health declared the Shirley Wind Farm Project a human health hazard.

Cobb said that with all the evidence the BOCC and EPC Public Health have received on the health hazards of the turbines, a similar declaration by the EPC Public Health board should be made.

Commissioner Dennis Hisey, who also sits on the EPC Public Health board, said he was not aware that the declaration handed down in Brown County was made by their board of health. “I did not read all of the information (presented to me),” he said.

Martindale said the situation in Brown County is different from the one in El Paso County. “The board of health here does not have the authority to determine what happens with the wind farm here,” he said. “The board of health and myself are very sympathetic to these individuals that have come to us with their requests and information regarding the wind farm. I truly believe that they are having these symptoms.”

The only recourse citizens have is the study, Lathen said. NextEra has to supply the equipment and coordinate with the sheriff’s office to conduct a study of the infrasound within the wind farm’s footprint.

“It is a very difficult balance, but it is the reality now, and we want to work within that reality,” she said. No date for the study has been set.

READ ARTICLE:  http://www.newfalconherald.com/DisplayPrintArticle.php?ArticleID=10921
Adverse Health Effects, Health, Health effects from wind turbines, Noise, Uncategorized

Living With Wind Turbines

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Community Information Open Househouse surrounded by wind turbines

May 17th,  2016    3-7pm 

Abingdon Community Hall, 9184 Regional Road (Silver Street):   https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&mid=1ToLNLuNTtV1jlj25jc1BN6lu1W4

This will be a small drop- in style open house which will provide a private opportunity to compare experiences, share resources and learn from others living within Industrial Wind Turbine areas. It will give us the opportunity as a community to better understand how IWTs are affecting us and learn what to do about it.  We hope to empower you as we discuss the issues.  Please invite your neighbours.