Category Archives: Adverse Health Effects

Adverse Health Effects, Health effects from wind turbines, Property Rights, Uncategorized

Legislators, please put people over profits

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vermontRecently the Vermont Senate voted against protecting Vermonters who live near industrial wind turbines.

The Senate voted against requiring sound monitoring to ensure compliance with noise pollution standards. Green Mountain Power’s lobbyist Todd Bailey, of KSE Partners, told senators that GMP could not afford to pay an unsubstantiated cost of $264,000 for sound monitoring for its industrial wind project in Lowell. As reported in Seven Days, “they (the army of energy lobbyists) got their message to Senator Bray and other senators in a hurry. The Senate voted 18-8 to strike sound monitoring from the bill.”

It is enlightening to understand GMP’s opposition to the cost of sound monitoring at industrial wind projects in comparison to other costs at Green Mountain Power. For instance, annual sound monitoring costs, estimated by ethical experts to be $50,000 to $75,000, pale in comparison to the annual compensation for company CEO Mary Powell.

According to the Valener Energy Company Management Proxy Circular, included with the March 22, 2016, stockholders’ meeting notice, total annual compensation to Powell for the fiscal year ending September 2015 was $1.9 million. Her total compensation for 2013, 2014 and 2015 was over $5 million. Her total compensation consists of base salary, annual and long-term incentive plan (bonus pay), current pension value and other compensation. Her current retirement benefit is $3.3 million.

Gaz Metro owns GMP and has determined that Powell’s long-term incentive compensation will be based on a program that “takes into account cash flow, asset base growth, and achievement of Merger savings.”

“Asset base growth” occurs whenever GMP completes a new energy project. Utilities make money by earning a return on the equity portion of their assets, called asset base in the proxy report or, more commonly, “rate base.” Rate base increases whenever a utility builds anything. Intermittent (renewable) generation assets such as wind and solar projects are extremely capital-intensive. It makes sense that GMP’s parent corporation would want to increase asset base, because it increases corporate income. The more projects GMP builds, the more money Powell makes.

The problem is these industrial wind projects are located close to Vermont families who feel their negative impacts. People who live near an industrial wind project, according to the Vermont Public Service Department, will experience “a significant impairment of quality of life,” and unlike the CEO of GMP will not be compensated by a higher bonus in their paycheck. Instead, Vermonters who live near industrial wind projects will see their quality of life deteriorate and their home values decrease. I have met with Vermonters who have abandoned their homes, are sleep deprived, get headaches, have been hospitalized, are awakened in the middle of the night with their heart racing due to a panic attack, get dizzy and nauseous or have sold homes at a loss, all because of the impact of unregulated industrial wind turbine noise pollution.

The GMP financial incentive to increase rate base resulted in a provision added to the proposed 30 megawatt Deerfield Wind power purchase agreement. GMP negotiated the power contract with Iberdrola, the entity that would develop and own the wind power project on U.S. Forest Service land that is poised to destroy critical bear habitat and the high elevation headwaters of Wilmington. It is no wonder that this agreement includes a provision that allows GMP to buy the project for $50 million in 10 years. After GMP’s long and ugly battle to build its Lowell industrial wind project, it may have found a new way to own wind projects without all the problems of building them. It contracts with a developer to build wind projects and buys the projects later, which adds assets and increases compensation for CEO Powell. Neighbors get the noise pollution and significantly impaired quality of life.

The opposition to continuous sound monitoring at Vermont industrial wind projects is also not consistent with established utility practice. The McNeil wood chip generating plant, part of which is owned by GMP, is required to maintain a Continuous Emissions Monitoring System. The CEMS equipment provides hourly data. The McNeil plant is smaller than the Lowell industrial wind project. Despite the wind industry’s well-funded denials to the contrary, it has been proven that industrial wind projects emit harmful sound emissions.

Sound generated by a wind turbine is directly related to its power output. More power output equals more sound. The real cost of continuous monitoring to the wind companies is that they would have to shut down when they are out of compliance, which would mean that the developer would make less money.

The Legislature must act to require third-party continuous sound monitoring to ensure compliance for all industrial wind projects. Legislators, please put people over profits.

READ ARTICLE:  http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20160424/OPINION06/160429743

Adverse Health Effects, Uncategorized

Lives at risk

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Turbines planned for spot less than four kilometres from runway.

TORONTO (The Canadian Press) — Opponents of a wind-power project in the Collingwood, Ont. area warned Thursday that it will put lives at risk because giant industrial turbines will be built less than four kilometres from an airport runway.Collingwood_Regional_Airport___Content

Three local municipalities, residents and a pilots’ association say they don’t want eight 50-storey-tall wind turbines so close to the Collingwood airport and the nearby Clearview Aerodrome.

“The province is knowingly approving turbines that are a hazard,” said Kevin Elwood of the Canadian Owner and Pilots Association.

“These eight turbine locations are killers, there’s no doubt in my mind.”

The wind turbines will be “jammed” between the two airports, which operate mainly on visual flight rules, and will “penetrate the arrival and departure airspace as defined by Transport Canada’s guidelines,” added Elwood.

“Does this province want to be the first government with blood on its hands after they cause the first aircraft-turbine crash in Canada?”

Eldwood warned that pilots could have trouble seeing the giant white turbine blades, especially in snowy, cloudy or rainy conditions, and said they produce strong wake turbulence that is invisible….aviation and turbines

READ FULL ARTICLE:  http://www.ohscanada.com/health-safety/collingwood-ont-residents-fight-wind-turbines-planned-near-local-airport/1003350058/

Adverse Health Effects

Construction Dust from Niagara Wind Sends Family Fleeing to Hospital

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ST. ANNS — A local resident says a plume of construction dust from the Niagara Region Wind Farm was so severe it sent two adults and three children to hospital.

Dust is seen spreading from the construction site of one of 77 wind turbines that make up the Niagara Region Wind Farm.
Dust is seen spreading from the construction site of one of 77 wind turbines that make up the Niagara Region Wind Farm.

Stefanos Karatopis was at home Thursday, July 23 when dump trucks began unloading concrete to construct an access road to one of the 77 turbines. The work began shortly after noon and Karatopis said that by 6 p.m. he could barely breathe without coughing. His sister and her three children, who live in between Karatopis and the host property, were even worse off, he said.  A fine film of construction dust settled over their country home and seeped in through open windows.

A young boy is seen covering his nose and mouth as he exits his home July 23. A plume of concrete dust travelled from a nearby construction site, sending five to hospital.
A young boy is seen covering his nose and mouth as he exits his home July 23. A plume of concrete dust travelled from a nearby construction site, sending five to hospital.

Later that night, when the coughing and burning failed to subside, Karatopis, his sister and her children went to the emergency room at West Lincoln Memorial Hospital.

“I’m still pulling crud out of my eyes even after they were irrigated at the hospital,” said Karatopis. “Our throats were burning. Our eyes were burning. I couldn’t breathe. It was a very horrible, horrible feeling.” Continue reading Construction Dust from Niagara Wind Sends Family Fleeing to Hospital →

Adverse Health Effects, Green Energy, Health Canada's wind Turbine Noise and Health Study, Health effects from wind turbines

Annoyance is an adverse health effect

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To:
Malcolm S. Lock, MD., M.P.H.
(A) Medical Officer of Health
Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit
malcolm.lock@hnhu.org
Copy:
Haldimand-Norfolk Board of Health
c/o Chair, Mr. Charlie Luke
Charlie.Luke@norfolkcounty.ca
Ms Stephana Johnston
Ontario, Canada
stephjohnston519@gmail.com
February 25, 2015
Dear Dr. Lock,

Re: Response to your November 20, 2014 letter to Ms Johnston

Ms Johnston has asked that I respond to your letter of November 20, 2014. She requests that a copy of this letter be provided to the Chair and the Members of the Board of Health.

Personal disclosure: I declare no potential conflicts of interest and have received no financial support with respect to the research and authorship of this commentary.

This letter is public and may be shared.

I met Ms Johnston for the first time on April 22, 2009, during the Standing Committee on General Government, Green Energy and Economy Act, 2009 hearings. I have been in touch with Ms Johnston since that time and am aware of her circumstances. In my opinion since early 2009 Ms Johnston has explored every avenue available to her, including contacting your office, to find a remedy to her circumstances which are associated with the operation of
the wind projects in her vicinity.

There is sufficient evidence that some, including Ms Johnston are negatively affected by industrial wind energy facilities. Examples of reported adverse health effects include chronic and high annoyance, chronic sleep disturbance, stress-related health impacts and reduced quality of life.1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, 12 In some cases families reporting adverse health effects  have abandoned their homes, been billeted away from their homes or hired legal counsel to successfully reach a financial agreement with the wind energy developer.13

Peer reviewed and published references, testimony under oath, and/or disclosure evidence and/or witness statements, authoritative documents and other references such as those briefly
summarized in this letter have acknowledged adverse health effects.

A brief bio and summary of the peer reviewed articles and conference papers for which I am an author / co-author is provided at the end of this letter.

Assurances of Health Protection

In a communication dated pre-Green Energy and Economy Act (GEA 2009), the former Minister of Environment of Ontario, John Gerretsen states the MOE is committed to siting and operation of facilities in a manner that is protective of human health and that it is an offence to violate a condition set out in a CofA (Certificate of Approval): [excerpt] Continue reading Annoyance is an adverse health effect →

Adverse Health Effects

one is a lot more than none;

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Paul D. Schomer, Ph.D., P.E.; Schomer and Associates, Inc.;

Standards Director, Acoustical Society of America George Hessler,

Hessler Associates, Inc. 20 February 2015

On 10 February 2 015 George Hessler and I warned that rather than making patently groundless arguments, something like an “expert statistical analysis” could be expected “proving” this was not a “valid sample” of the public at large, or proving the study did not do something else it was never intended to do. Now we see the assertion that this was a “medical study” and that Steven Cooper, George and I are not qualified to make medical judgements. And of course we are not medical researchers, but it is the predicate that is wrong. This is not a medical study, and these are not medical conclusions. As predicted, this study is being made to be something that is not.

To explain this we offer the following analogy. Part of the condition of being a human is we get gas. And certainly many if not most have observed the cause-and-effect relation between eating beans and a certain aromatic condition. We ask each reader to reflect on this. Does it take a medical researcher to tell you that eating beans causes gas in some people? Certainly not. The medical research may say why or how the gas is produced in the body. But anyone can make the simple observation of the relation between eating beans and the aromatic condition, cause-and-effect, literally the input to and the output from the system.

read the entire letter here:  Cooper review-2A

Adverse Health Effects, Direct Effects

Three Decades of Wind Industry Deception: A Chronology of a Global Conspiracy of Silence and Subterfuge

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Access the timeline of wind industry deception

stopthesethings's avatarSTOP THESE THINGS

lies

A little while back, a Scottish pen-smith posed a little rhetorical on the subtle art of skulduggery:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practise to deceive!

There have been few industries that have had more practice, and as much success, in that subtle art, as the wind industry.

STT has popped up 880 posts in the, just over, two years since we cranked into gear – on our mission to destroy the wind industry.

A fair slice of them have concerned the topic of the adverse health effects caused by turbine generated incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound; the woefully inadequate, indeed, utterly irrelevant noise standards written by the wind industry; and the institutional corruption that:

a) allowed those standards to become the “benchmarks” in the first place; and

b) witnesses public authorities, with a responsibility to protect public health, not only sitting on their hands, but…

View original post 2,204 more words

Adverse Health Effects, Noise

Kevin Dooley’s Research on Infrasound

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MAWT (Mothers Against Wind Turbines  Inc.)  was very grateful that researcher Kevin Dooley and his associate took the time to present their research at the Environmental Review Tribunal as presenters in the recent appeal hearing against the approval for the Niagara Regional Wind Corporation project.  The following links are provided courtesy of Mr. Dooley permission is granted for their use with proper citation.  The two papers are copyrighted  by ASA but can be downloaded at the links provided.

CaptureMore information and up to date research relative to infrasound is available at:  www.kevindooleyinc.com

Video Presentation:

Infrasound and Motion Sickness

Kevin A Dooley

http://vimeo.com/103602357

Significant infrasound levels a previously unrecognized contaminant in landmark motion sickness studies

Kevin A Dooley

http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/poma/20/1/10.1121/1.4868716

Acoustic interaction as a primary cause of infrasonic spinning mode generation and propagation from wind turbines.

Kevin A Dooley and Andy Metelka

http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/poma/20/1/10.1121/1.4863410

Adverse Health Effects, Children Affected, Fighting the NRWC Wind Project, Health Canada's wind Turbine Noise and Health Study, Health effects from wind turbines

Michael Jankowski – Presentation as heard at ERT.

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NRWC ERT Presentation Companion – Michael A Jankowski (1)

here is the word for word presentation….without the accompanying slide show…. that was heard at the ERT.

Michael A. Jankowski – Presentation Companion (Exact Spoken Words at Presentation)

Slide 2:

I have come to you today because I know, based on our experiences, observations and learnings,  that the HAF Wind Turbines have invoked serious health issues for my family and myself and to warn you and others that if NRWC is allowed to proceed with a much larger Wind Project nearly the same distance from our home as HAF, that not only will our issues continue to get worse, but many of the 10,000 people living in the environ of the NRWC project area will also start to suffer from serious Wind Turbine induced negative health impacts as we have and probably worse. Many who will suffer will have a difficult task to determine why they are suffering and will also need help to know where to report any such suffering. Further, if they overcome the hurdles to find out where to report, it is unlikely they will receive any meaningful response, as experienced by my family and I.

We have established a chain of causality, from the noise/vibrations which invade into our home, most often at night as we try to sleep through to the resultant health impacts we have experienced, which, are strikingly the same health impacts that studies note and the experiences of many other people also report. You should consider my presentation to be “eye witness” material. In my full submission, I’ve provided what information I can from professionals in the short time I have been afforded by the ERT process. I offer this in addition to my experiences, observation and learnings including a letter from our family doctor.

In my direct experience, the giant Wind Turbines which are the HAF Wind Power generation project do emit audible Low Frequency Noise and Inaudible Infrasound with a multi-cyclic characteristic so significant that we can hear/feel this noise/vibration in our home many nights as we try to sleep. (Similar in characteristic to 2 or 3 alarm clocks sounding) Often, when we hear/feel this, my ears feel pressurized and in some pain at times after hearing/feeling the noise/vibration from the HAF Wind Turbines. This is also consistent with what many others have noted. The sound/vibration bears a distinct monotonal predictable repetitive pattern – WHOOM, WHOOM, WHOOM, WHOOM, WHOOM which is in time with the HAF Wind Turbines and only present when they are turning as I will describe later.

Since the HAF Wind Turbines (HWTs) commenced operation on June 14th, 2014, my family and I noticed serious and negative changes to our health and wellness over time. Since my family and I have been subjected the HWTs noise/vibration, we have endured negative health consequences which we have not experienced previously and which are directly related to the parts of my body which are irritated when we hear/feel this noise/vibration. Continue reading Michael Jankowski – Presentation as heard at ERT. →

Adverse Health Effects, Children Affected, Health effects from wind turbines

West Norfolk mother tells of blindness fears for son over wind farm scheme

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This is the mother who says she will have to move if a controversial wind farm is built – or risk her nine-year-old son going blind.

Karen Robinson with her son Ronnie Robinson (9) in the garden at Clenchwarton Hall, showing the current view. ANL-150129-112536009
Karen Robinson with her son Ronnie Robinson (9) in the garden at Clenchwarton Hall, showing the current view. ANL-150129-112536009

Ronnie Robinson suffers from primary congenital glaucoma, asevere visual impairment in which his eyes cannot cope with changing light conditions.

Developers of the Ongarhill wind farm, which is due to be debated by the West Norfolk Council planning committee next week, say conditions attached to any permission, and technology on the turbines themselves, will prevent shadow flicker from affecting residents.

But Ronnie’s mum Karen says she has been warned by doctors that she will have to leave her home on Hall Road, Clenchwarton if the plan goes ahead, in order to save his sight.

She said any flicker would leave Ronnie at risk of becoming disorientated and banging his head. Continue reading West Norfolk mother tells of blindness fears for son over wind farm scheme →