It’s about time!
“A promise made on the campaign trail by Doug Ford in May 2018 to conduct a health hazard investigation on the possible contamination of private water wells in the North Kent Wind farm area is about to be met…..”
READ MORE:
Chatham Daily News|January 21, 2021| Province to begin testing water wells in North Kent; COVID-19 prevented previous investigation from getting off the ground
Letter to Editor| Published January 19, 2021|Cornwall Standard-Freeholder
Mixed messages
An open letter:
On Jan. 12, the Government of Ontario declared a state of emergency to address issues of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Premier Doug Ford stated the government is following the advice of the chief medical officer of health for the province, Dr. David Williams.
In North Stormont, the Nation Rise Wind project, comprising 29 3.44-megawatt Enercon wind turbines, is being constructed and it is anticipated they will become operational soon.
People in our community and beyond believe the Province of Ontario should not be permitting a project such as this, given our understanding of the adverse effects expected to result by operating industrial wind turbines in residential neighbourhoods.
We continue to advocate the project should be terminated and the disastrous wind-energy program of Ontario and the harm it has caused to people should be investigated in a public inquiry format.
I wrote to Williams about this and received his email reply on Nov. 26, 2020. He wrote:
“Studies show some people find the sound level of wind turbines annoying.”
In correspondence to a local physician in October 2019, our local medical officer of health, Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, wrote: “wind turbine noise is a “nuisance…”
In Canada, no business should be permitted to disturb the peace and security of our homes and threaten and injure the people in our communities.
A medical officer of health should be trying to prevent these adverse health outcomes; instead ours are ignoring and downplaying the disaster about to hit. This causes a loss of confidence about the advice these public health officers provide to the leadership of the Ontario government
Ford and Minister of Health Christine Elliott need the people of Ontario to buy in to their pandemic program and the restrictions they are attempting to impose.
As long as these politicians continue to overlook the bad advice they get about industrial wind turbines, they are less likely to achieve the support of the people of Ontario
Ruby Mekker
Finch
Letter to Editor; published January 19, 2021 Cornwall Standard-Freeholder
I am beside myself with these frigging turbines. Whomping and Roaring through the house. House is vibrating. My body is vibrating. My chest feels likes it’s going to cave in. My ears hurt and are plugged. My sinuses are burning. My headache has been constant for 9 days straight. Vertigo has been a huge challenge ALL day. Ears are screeching.
I’m too damn tired to drive away from my home and sleep in some parking lot……..
Did you think wind power is green energy? Not in pristine Norwegian wilderness, it isn’t. Learn more about how wind turbines are tearing apart Norway, its nature, and its culture, and not saving the climate. This video series aims to bring Norway’s wind power controversy to an international audience.
The town of Forest, WI has concerns over the end results of the Highland Wind Farm. Forest has spent more than half-a-million dollars fighting the project at the Public Service Commission. The devastation from the Shirley Wind Farm is a prime example as to why the town is fighting this project. (Video 5:06 in length)
Shot/Edited: Tyler Grimh
Executive Producer: Jodi Lyon-Grams
Producer: Madison Lee
April 20, 2020|News Release; University of Gothenburg
Wind turbine noise (WTN) influences people’s perception of the restorative effects of sleep, and also has a small but significant effect on dream sleep, otherwise known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, a study at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, shows. A night of WTN resulted in delayed and shortened REM sleep.
Knowledge of how sleep is affected by WTN has been limited to date. Research involving physiological study of its impact using polysomnography, the top-ranking method of sleep recording, is lacking.
Studies carried out in the Sound Environment Laboratory at the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in Gothenburg are adding new knowledge in the field. Polysomnography involves using electrodes attached to the head and chest to record brain activity, eye movement, heart rate, etc. during sleep.
Of the 50 participants in the new study, 24 had been living within one kilometer of one or more wind turbines for at least one year. The other 26, the reference group, did not live near wind turbines.
Kerstin Persson Waye, Professor of Environmental Medicine at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, is the corresponding author in the study, published in the journal Sleep.
“We wanted to find out whether people exposed to noise from wind turbines over time become more sensitive or more habituated to WTN, so that their sleep may be affected differently than someone who doesn’t live near any turbines,” she says.
The participants spent three nights in the Sound Environment Laboratory, one for acclimatization and then, in a random order, one quiet night and one with four separate periods of WTN. The sounds that were used were modeled based on outdoor measurements from several wind turbines, and was filtered to correspond with the sound insulation of a typical Swedish wooden house. Exposure was further modeled, to correspond to sleeping with a closed window and window ajar respectively.
The sounds were chosen to represent relatively unfavorable conditions, with a slightly higher average outdoor noise level than is currently permitted in Sweden. This level corresponded, however, with a low indoor noise level — below the levels at which sleep had previously been found to be affected by, for example, traffic noise.
During the night with WTN, according to the physiological measures, the participants spent an average of 11.1 minutes less in REM sleep, which they entered 16.8 minutes later, than during the quiet night. The proportion of time they spent in REM sleep was 18.8% for the night with WTN, compared with 20.6% for the quiet night — a small but statistically significant difference that, moreover, was independent from habituation to WTN.
There were no statistically significant differences in other sleep parameters, such as number of awakenings, total sleep time, time in deeper (non-REM) sleep stages or fragmentation of deep sleep, and heart rate. However, rhythmic sound variations appeared to disturb sleep, especially with closed windows.
Besides the physiologically based measurements, participants filled out a questionnaire on their sleep quality and how tired or rested they felt. Both groups reported that they slept worse during nights with WTN.
The study gave no indication of the habituation effect or increased sensitivity in the participants exposed to wind turbines in their home environment. However, the group that lived close to wind turbines reported worse sleep overall, even during the quiet night.
“Sleep disturbance, a negative health effect according to the World Health Organization (WHO), can in itself contribute to chronic diseases. However, we can’t draw conclusions from this study on long-term health impact. Further studies should, if possible, investigate sleep in people’s home environments and include longer exposure time,” Kerstin Persson Waye concludes.
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Title: A laboratory study on the effects of wind turbine noise on sleep: results of the polysomnographic WiTNES study; https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsaa046
Source: EurekAlert!
Cleanwater Wind LLC received approval on March 10, 2020 from New York state to place a data buoy in Lake Erie for its proposed offshore project. The wind developer is just one of many who are pushing for regulatory approvals for offshore wind turbines to be placed in our Great Lakes. The Great Lake ecosystem are the location for globally significant flyways, freshwater marine life and home to one of the largest human populations in North America on the adjacent shores.
99.1 FM CKXS|March 6, 2020
Monte McNaughton says he’s committed to the promised health hazard investigation into contaminated water wells in Chatham-Kent.
The Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP says it was a government commitment and things are moving forward.
“The RFP process is happening as we speak to hire an independent company to do the water well testing,” McNaughton says. “This is an independent body, five scientists including a local geologist.”
McNaughton says as many as 200 home owners should be contacted in the next four months…….
thejournal.ie|by: Aodhan O Faolain|February 26, 2020
THREE SIBLINGS WHO claimed their family had to abandon their home due to illnesses allegedly caused by a nearby windfarm have secured €225,000 as a settlement of their High Court damages claims.
The awards, were part of settlements made without admission of liability, made to Laura, David and Jack Kelleher.
The siblings claimed that they, along with their parents, had to leave their family home at Gowlane North, Donoughmore, Cork in late 2016 several months after a ten-turbine wind farm went into operation.
They claimed that the noise, vibrations and shadow flicker from the turbines, located just over 700m from their family farm, resulted in them suffering from various illnesses.
These included nosebleeds, ear aches, skin rashes, swollen and painful hands, loss of power in their limbs, sleep disturbance, and headaches.
Through their father Valentine Kelleher, the three siblings sued Green Energy Supply Ltd, which owns and operates a wind turbine installation known as Knockduff Wind Farm in Cork.
The actions were also against company director Michael Murnane of Gortyleahy, Macroom, Cork, who is the owner of Green Energy Supply….
Ireland fined €5m plus daily penalty of €15,000 over landslides at Galway wind farmNovember 12, 2019
THE EU’S COURT of Justice has fined the State €5m over its failure to comply with EU legislation that might have prevented landslides linked to the construction of a wind farm in the west of Ireland in 2003.
The penalty is set to increase further as EU’s top court set an additional daily fine of €15,000 until the Government achieves compliance with environmental legislation on assessing the impact of the wind farm Derrybrien, Co Galway.
The fine is due to the “seriousness and duration” of the failure to carry out an environmental impact assessment on the wind farm in the 11 years since a previous CJEU ruling on 3 July, 2008.
The legal action by the European Commission followed a massive landslide at Derrybrien on 16 October, 2003, when tonnes of peat were dislodged and polluted the Owendalulleegh River, resulting in the death of around 50,000 fish.
At the time Derrybrien was the country’s biggest-ever wind farm, and one of the largest in Europe, with 70 turbines. Its construction required the removal of large areas of forest and the extraction of peat up to a depth of 5.5 metres.
The European Commission said two investigations had concluded that the environmental disaster had been linked to the construction work on the wind farm.
On those grounds, the Court (Grand Chamber) hereby:
1. Declares that, by failing to take all measures necessary to comply with the judgment of 3 July 2008, Commission v Ireland (C‑215/06, EU:C:2008:380), Ireland has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 260(1) TFEU;
2. Orders Ireland to pay the European Commission a lump sum in the amount of EUR 5 000 000;
3. Orders Ireland to pay the Commission a periodic penalty payment of EUR 15 000 per day from the date of delivery of the present judgment until the date of compliance with the judgment of 3 July 2008, Commission v Ireland (C‑215/06, EU:C:2008:380);
4. Orders Ireland to pay the costs.
Mothers Against Wind Turbines Inc. 