Category Archives: Health effects from wind turbines

Adverse Health Effects, Green Energy, Health, Health effects from wind turbines, Noise

GoodBye to Peace & Quiet

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quiet

“When I first came inside, it almost sounded louder inside than outside.” Yes, it does. It’s like living inside a drum.

I sat in my living room reading this article last night with painfully throbbing ears and a headache, due to turbine noise that penetrates through the walls of my house. The noise kept me awake until 3 a.m. I had to write a reply to the tripe that was published in the OBSERVER (Feb. 19).

I bought my home to reside, because of its semi-secluded, quiet and peaceful nature. There is a river across the road from me and wooded area that surrounds me. I enjoyed listening to the river and birds, which is about all I ever heard, until a wind farm was erected around my property. There is a never-ending, jet-like sound that rips through my property and house. There is nothing natural about the noise that comes from these turbines and they are loud! The peaceful existence I once enjoyed here has been stolen from me!

EDP Renewables and the town of Chateaugay’s Jericho Rise Wind Farm was planted too close to my house. There are four 482-foot turbines approximately 1,800 to 2,600 feet from my home. The industry standard for turbine “setbacks” from residences are ridiculously too close.

Much of the time, sound levels at the west and south side of my home is above the allowable 50 dBA which the town of Chateaugay has deemed to be acceptable and legal. The lower frequency dBC levels for sound, or infrasound, are not even taken into account. According to acoustic engineering experts, dBC sound levels have a much higher pressure rating than dBA readings. This noise is detrimental to human health and is well documented throughout the world. I am living proof. The noise inside and outside of my home is a completely menacing nuisance.

I am not a “naysayer.” I am living with these behemoths that surround my property. In fact, I have been living with wind turbines from an older wind farm approximately 3-4 miles from me for the past 6 1/2 years. About 7 months out of the year, due to leafless trees, I can see 15 of them from my front porch. They really don’t bother me. I can’t say I like them, but I can’t hear them either.

I was never an opponent of wind power. I am a science teacher of 11 years and teach about sound and alternative energies. It is in the state curriculum. I even went to an all day wind power teacher’s workshop to get a better understanding of wind energy eight years ago. The wind industry has been setting us up for a fall a long time ago.

By the way, standing directly underneath a turbine is the quietest place to listen to them. Stand back 500, 1000, 1500 feet and downwind from them, and if you still think they are not loud, then you must be deaf. If anyone would like to come to my home in Chateaugay to get a true experience of what these monsters sound like, you are welcome to visit. A town councilman from a neighboring town was here yesterday and he said, “When I first came inside, it almost sounded louder inside than outside.” Yes, it does. It’s like living inside a drum.

As far as a tax base for your community is concerned, there will be none. They will not pay any business property tax whatsoever. The wind farm company will cram a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) Program down your throat. The county, town and possibly school district will receive a pittance compared to what the wind developer receives in government subsidies. This is how they can afford to build these wind farms.

The absurdity of saying that birds will just fly around the towers is also ridiculous. Birds of prey are looking down to the ground for food, not what’s in front of them. Migratory birds are flying in excess of 40 miles per hour. They do not have the ability to just stop in mid-air and fly around.

Putting “hope and trust” in the wind company is dangerous. I have made many complaints to EDP Renewables and Chateaugay about the nuisance noise. They have been to my house once to take a sound test. It was taken on a day with 2-3 mph wind speeds, and in between my house and garage which blocks all of the south wind. The town engineer said the reading was 38.5 dBA.

Folks, it is not a far stretch from 38.5 dBA to over 50 dBA when the winds are from the west or south in excess of 12 miles per hour. I know, because I have been taking my own sound level readings since Jan. 1. The town and EDP Renewables said they would be taking multiple tests. Two days later, with no notice, town board members popped into my backyard at 9:30 a.m. with a sound meter. I wondered what they were doing here, because it was a legal holiday and again, practically no wind. They acted as though they didn’t realize I was home. They didn’t even knock on my door.

They stated they would be back. Just before they left, one town board member stated, “We wouldn’t want these in our backyard either.” I called the town supervisor later in the day and asked to be notified 24 hours in advance and that I want to be present when these tests were done. They have not been back since. It has been almost two months. I have been lied to and ignored.

During this time, I was introduced to a well credentialed acoustic engineer through a friend. He sent me data on what a proper sound test should include. I have continued to call the EDP Renewable complaint hotline. They were supposed to take more tests last week. I sent EDP Renewables operations manager, town engineer and town supervisor data from the acoustic engineer about what I would be expecting for a proper sound test. I am being ignored once again. So, if anyone thinks that the process of developing a wind farm (before, during or after) is honest and trustworthy, you really should be talking to people that are living in the middle of a wind farm.

Please, do not be fooled by any wind farm company! Also, if you are a non-participating landowner, do not sign their “Neighbor Agreement.” You will lose all your rights (on, under, over, around, etc.) as a property owner. If you have any of the problems I am experiencing right now, you will lose the ability to do or say anything to anyone about it. It is a “gag order” for a very small annual payment.

In closing, I need to say that I gain nothing by writing this. It is only to help those that may be in danger of having to live with a wind farm near their home.

Kevin Sigourney is a resident of Chateaugay, which is located in Franklin County in northern New York near Massena.

Published in Observer March 12, 2017:  http://www.observertoday.com/opinion/commentary/2017/03/once-turbines-arrive-say-goodbye-to-peace-quiet/

Adverse Health Effects, Health, Health effects from wind turbines, Noise, world Health Organization

Noise Measurement, Assessment & Control for Wind Facilities

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111882606XWind Farm Noise: Measurement, Assessment and Control

Colin H Hansen, University of Adelaide, Australia

Con J Doolan, University of New South Wales, Australia

Kristy L Hansen, Flinders University, Australia

A comprehensive guide to wind farm noise prediction, measurement, assessment, control and effects on people

Wind Farm Noise covers all aspects associated with the generation, measurement, propagation, regulation and adverse health effects of noise produced by large horizontal-axis wind turbines of the type used in wind farms.

The book begins with a brief history of wind turbine development and the regulation of their noise at sensitive receivers. Also included is an introductory chapter on the fundamentals of acoustics relevant to wind turbine noise so that readers are well prepared for understanding later chapters on noise measurements, noise generation mechanisms, noise propagation modelling and the assessment of the noise at surrounding residences

Key features:

  • Potential adverse health effects of wind farm noise are discussed in an objective way.
  • Means for calculating the noise at residences due to a wind farm prior to construction are covered in detail along with uncertainty estimates.
  • The effects of meteorological conditions and other influences, such as obstacles, ground cover and atmospheric absorption, on noise levels at residences are explained.
  • Quantities that should be measured as well as how to best measure them in order to properly characterise wind farm noise are discussed in detail.
  • Noise generation mechanisms and possible means for their control are discussed as well as aspects of wind farm noise that still require further research to be properly understood.

The book provides comprehensive coverage of the topic, containing both introductory and advanced level material.

ORDER YOUR COPY:  http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-111882606X.html 

Adverse Health Effects, Green Energy, Health, Health effects from wind turbines, Noise

Deniers in Wind Industry

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hear-no-evil

The human health consequences of manipulated measurements

Science deniers in the wind industry

By: Helen Schwiesow Parker, PhD, LCP

Like the tobacco industry before it, the wind industry has spent decades vehemently denying known harmful consequences associated with its product, while promoting its fraudulent feel-good image. Dismissing or denying the serious health impacts of industrial-scale wind turbines is wishful thinking, akin to insisting that tobacco is harmless because we enjoy it.

The problem with wind energy is not just its costly, subsidized, unreliable electricity; the need to back up every megawatt with redundant fossil-fuel power; or its impacts on wildlife and their habitats.

Infrasound (inaudible) and low-frequency (audible) noise (slowly vibrating sound waves collectively referred to as ILFN) produced by Industrial-scale Wind Turbines (IWTs) directly and predictably cause adverse human health effects.  The sonic radiation tends to be amplified within structures, and sensitivity to the impact of the resonance increases with continuing exposure.

These facts have been known to the wind industry and the US government since the 1980s when it became a ‘hot topic,’ with numerous studies presented and published by acousticians working under grants from the Departments of Energy, Defense and NASA. The wind industry response?

Deny the science.  Insist that “what you can’t hear can’t hurt you.” Claim that “neighbors will get used to it.” Measure only outside dwellings, and allow only noise measurements in the field that reflect the relative loudness perceived by the human ear, while drastically reducing sound-level readings in the lower frequencies that are known to cause problems……….

Read More: http://canadafreepress.com/article/science-deniers-in-the-wind-industry

 

Green Energy, Health effects from wind turbines, Noise, Property Rights, Turbines & Property Devalue

Wind Power is an attack on Rural America

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farm-and-turbinesBy: Robert Byrce  February 27, 2017

Urban voters may like the idea of using more wind and solar energy, but the push for large-scale renewables is creating land-use conflicts in rural regions from Maryland to California and Ontario to Loch Ness.

Since 2015, more than 120 government entities in about two dozen states have moved to reject or restrict the land-devouring, subsidy-fueled sprawl of the wind industry.

The backlash continued last month when a judge in Maryland ruled that the possible benefits of a proposed 17-turbine project did “not justify or offset subjecting the local community to the adverse impacts that will result from the wind project’s construction and operation.” The judge’s ruling probably spells the end of an eight-year battle that pitted local homeowners and Allegany County against the developer of the 60-megawatt project.

Objections to the encroachment of wind energy installations don’t fit the environmentalists’ narrative. The backlash undermines the claim – often repeated by climate activists such as 350.org founder Bill McKibben and Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson – that we can run our entire economy on nothing but energy from the wind and sun. Many of those same activists routinely demonize natural gas and hydraulic fracturing even though the physical footprint of gas production is far smaller than that of wind. Three years ago, the late David J.C. MacKay, then a professor at the University of Cambridge, calculated that wind energy requires about 700 times more land to produce the same amount of energy as a fracking site.

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Rural residents are objecting to wind projects to protect their property values and viewsheds. They don’t want to live next door to industrial-scale wind farms. They don’t want to see the red-blinking lights atop the turbines, all night, every night for the rest of their lives. Nor do they want to be subjected to the audible and inaudible noise the turbines produce.

Even in California, which has mandated that 50% of the electricity sold in the state be produced from renewable energy sources by 2030, there is resistance to wind power. In 2015, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ban wind turbines in L.A.’s unincorporated areas. At the hearing on the measure, then-Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said the skyscraper-sized turbines “create visual blight … [and] contradict the county’s rural dark skies ordinance.”

In New York, angry fishermen are suing to stop an offshore wind project that could be built in the heart of one of the best squid fisheries on the Eastern Seaboard. Three upstate counties – Erie, Orleans and Niagara – as well as the towns of Yates and Somerset, are fighting a proposed 200-megawatt project that aims to put dozens of turbines on the shores of Lake Ontario. As in California, New York has a “50 by 30” renewable-energy mandate.

Outside the U.S., about 90 towns in Ontario have declared themselves “unwilling hosts” to wind projects.In April 2016, a wind project near Scotland’s famous Loch Ness was rejected by local authorities because of its potential negative effect on tourism. Poland and the German state of Bavaria have effectively banned wind turbines by implementing a rule that allows turbines to be located no closer than 10 times their height to homes or other sensitive areas.

The defeat of the Maryland wind project came as a relief to K. Darlene Park, a resident of Frostburg and the president of Allegany Neighbors & Citizens for Home Owners Rights. “We were up against an army of suits,” she told me. “It’s like a brick has been taken off our shoulders.”Park’s tiny group relied on volunteers and a budget of about $20,000 as it fought the turbines all the way to the state’s public service commission.

Neither the communications director nor the CEO of the American Wind Energy Assn., which spends more than $20 million per year promoting wind power, would comment on the rural opposition to wind turbines. Their refusal isn’t surprising. If the wind lobby – and their myriad allies at the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups – acknowledges turbines’ negative effects on landscapes and rural quality of life, it would subvert their claims that wind energy is truly green.

Just as problematic for the industry’s future: to increase wind-energy production to the levels needed to displace significant quantities of coal, oil and natural gas will require erecting more – and taller – turbines (new models reach to 700 feet). But the more turbines that get installed, and the taller they are, the more nearby residents are likely to object.

Wind energy simply requires too much territory. That means we can’t rely on it for major cuts in emissions. Indeed, the more wind energy encroaches on small towns and suburbs, the more resistance it will face. That resistance will come from homeowners like Park who told me, “We feel this renewable energy push is an attack on rural America.”

Robert Bryce is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author, most recently, of “Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong.”

READ AT: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-bryce-backlash-against-wind-energy-20170227-story.html

Adverse Health Effects, Animals and turbines, Environment, harm to wildlife, Health, Health effects from wind turbines

Hoosac Wind- We are prisoners in our house

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hoosac-wind-turbineHoosac Wind has destroyed a wild place and created ongoing community division.  Initially supportive of wind power  Larry Lorusso shares his experience of living adjacent to the project.  His goal is to protect the environment from the dangers of wind power.  Using his talents for storytelling and photography he conveys the  negative impacts of the wind project and illustrates how noise from the wind turbines has impacted his health and that of his family.

To learn more  visit Hoosac Wind Watch  https://www.facebook.com/HoosacWindWatch/ 

By MATT LINDSEY

PARISHVILLE — A Massachusetts photographer warned about 60 St. Lawrence County residents last night about what he sees as the potential dangers and disadvantages of the North Ridge Wind Farm, which has divided the community.

Presenter Larry Lorusso, who lives about one mile from Hoosac Wind Farm, located in Massachusetts, said he was “pleasantly surprised” by the turnout last night, even though a storm dropped about a foot of snow over much of the North Country. The meeting was held at the town hall.

Avangrid, the developer of the proposed North Ridge Wind Farm between State Rts. 11B and 72 in Parishville and Hopkinton, is looking to install around 40 wind towers — as high as 500 feet tall from the bases to the blade tips. Dozens of people have signed leases to allow the windmills on their land.

The controversial wind towers have created rifts between family and friends in Hopkinton, Parishville and the surrounding areas. When he heard about the proposed product he reached out to locals and wanted to educate people, he said.

Lorusso will present a slideshow at the county Legislature’s Services Committee meeting at 5:30 p.m. tonight at the county courthouse. He has been allotted 20 minutes for his presentation.

“I have nothing to gain,” he said, about why he travelled to the North Country to speak about wind towers. “Who better to know what is going on than someone who has them in their backyard?”

Lorusso said he supported the wind towers based on what Iberdrola, an energy company based in Spain, had told him. Avangrid, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, is heading the project in Hopkinton and Parishville.

“They told us it was going to help the environment – it doesn’t,” Lorusso said. “Wind towers are not the answer to green energy.”

Based on his experience living one mile from wind turbines, Lorusso became a community activist and documented through photography and stories and is sharing that with other communities considering installing wind towers.

“These are being sold to us that they are saving the environment,” he said. “I am not anti-wind, I am pro-environment.”

Lorusso documented the land prior to the installation, the installation process and what has come of it since wind towers were installed.

He describes his land as an “enchanted forest” with “little impacts from humans.”

“There were mountain alterations of beautiful land – they wrecked it,” Lorusso said. “There used to be wildlife sign and wildlife – all gone.”

Lorusso said the noises range from ringing in ears, to the sound of a helicopter hovering or a jet engine that never takes off. But, he says the vibrations are the worst part.

“The worse is not what you see or hear, it’s what you feel,” he said. “I can feel my head pulsing — I can put my hand on my windows and feel them vibrating.”

Lorusso said he, his wife and neighbors developed several medical issues since the towers were installed near his home about four years ago. He says the issues include heart problems, high blood pressure, and sinus issues.

“They have not been able to determine the source of my wife’s sinus issues,” he said, noting that it was not a sinus infection.

He says he has sleepless nights at home, but slept well during his stay in St. Lawrence County.

“I wake up in a state of anxiety – on the edge of fear,” he said. “Yesterday and today were the first days in months that I haven’t woken up anxious.”

And then there is the ringing in the ears.

“It’s never quiet, even when it’s quiet,” he said.

Lorusso said the issues have driven some people away from their homes. “People abandoned their homes, they just left.”

Lorusso is determined to stay and fight against the wind tower company.

“We are prisoners in our own house – it’s sad,” he said.

Published in NCNowNews on February 13, 2017:  http://northcountrynow.com/news/massachusetts-photographer-travels-st-lawrence-county-warn-officials-and-locals-concerning

 

Adverse Health Effects, Health, Health effects from wind turbines, Noise

Wind Power Peril- Part 2

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By Helen Schwiesow Parker — February 8, 2017

“Imagine fighting Goliath in compromised health: lives given over to complaint protocols, sound measurements, lawyers, delays, appeals, desperate pleas for relief. For some, it becomes a life of learned helplessness.”

“How have we been brought to such an extraordinary betrayal of basic human rights and social justice – a Kafkaesque world where corporate, local and state government personnel ignore and elude victims’ pleas? It is a tale of money and power shunting aside integrity and compassion, of well-intentioned individuals who don’t do their homework, of a new industrial health crisis shunned by news media who are supposed to educate, inform and protect.”

Nina Pierpont paved the way 

This is the Wind Turbine Syndrome (WTS), a constellation of symptoms first given a name by the brilliant young MD/PhD, Nina Pierpont. She followed up her astute and compassionate observations of turbine neighbors around the world with epidemiological research, using a robust case-crossover statistical design: subjects experienced symptoms that varied with proximity to the turbines. When the same subjects were placed some distance from the turbines, their symptoms abated; returning to the scene brought the symptoms back.

Pierpont found that the 1.5-3.0-MW industrial wind turbines she studied wreak these adverse health effects on about 10% of those living within 2km (1.25 miles) or more. Later studies place the percentage of people affected at 20-40% or more. Even at “just” the 10% level, this would never be tolerated by politicians or regulators with regard to peanuts, air emissions or water pollution.

As with seasickness, not everyone is similarly affected. But for many, the experience becomes literally intolerable.  Most vulnerable are the young, the old, and those who are especially sensitive to stimuli – including the autistic, those with a prior Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and some of us who have retreated to rural areas for just that reason.

I personally remember the mother of a young, blind autistic boy. Worried about how her son might respond to IWTs proposed for installation near their rural Indiana home, she decided to explore her question by driving with him toward one of the already up-and-running Big Wind “farms” some forty miles north. This “wind factory” had been inserted in an area that for generations had been a breathtakingly open sweep of endless farmland south and east of Chicago.

When mother and son were still miles away from the turbines, which of course she could see although her son could not, he began to whimper, holding both hands to his ears. Writhing with increasing discomfort, he eventually became distraught, in a panic, shouting in his own language and careening against the confines of the front seat, pleading with her to turn back, go home, get him out of there!! Which she did that day. But she was powerless to stop the Big Wind installation coming to their backyard – and into her young son’s already severely impacted life.

Michigan State University noise engineers explain that “Inaudible components can induce resonant vibration in liquids, gases and solids, including the ground…, building structures, spaces within those structures, and bodily tissues and cavities – potentially harmful to humans.”

Pierpont hypothesized that, in addition to these bodily sensations, a significant pathway from ILFN to symptoms includes disruption to the balance mechanisms located in the inner ear.

Research results – and Big Wind response

Audiological and acoustical consultants Jerry Punch and Richard James provide an excellent review of the recent research findings linking ILFN from IWTs with effects on health and quality of life.

In particular, Punch and James describe fascinating basic research conducted at the Washington University School of Medicine by Dr. Alec Salt, Otolaryngologist, which supports the biological plausibility of Pierpont’s hypothesis.

By focusing on distinctions of anatomy and function between the inner hair cells (IHCs) and outer hair cells (OHCs) of the inner ear, Salt and colleagues found that Infrasound and low-frequency noise signals reach the brain via OHC displacement, leading to unfamiliar and disturbing sensations outside the auditory realm paralleling Wind Turbine Syndrome victim complaints. As utility-scale wind turbines increase in size and power, the blade-pass frequency goes increasingly deeper into the nauseogenic zone.

Installed turbine size is indeed trending upward, with a lot of money riding on keeping the science under wraps or under the radar of public awareness, and regulations to a minimum.

When Denmark’s environmental protection agency proposed severely tightening turbine noise regulations to protect turbine neighbors from ILFN (May 2011), the Vestas CEO wrote the DEPA Minister: Turbines send out ILFN; the bigger they are the more intensely they do so.  It isn’t technically possible to curtail the ILFN output. Not only would your new standards serve as an unfortunate model which might be copied by other countries.

More simply, “Increased distance requirements cannot be met whilst maintaining a satisfactory business outcome for the investor.” DEPA folded, in fact turning instead to looser standards, “likely to be copied by other countries,” to the detriment of thousands of people.

The European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW) and the North-American Platform Against Windpower (NA-PAW) – representing a total of nearly 600 associations from 26 countries – then put out a press release citing the exchange and criticizing DEPA’s manipulation of noise measurements to advance wind industry interests, to the detriment of people’s health. 

But the potentially increased endangerment of tens of thousands of turbine victims around the world was somehow deemed unworthy of widespread media attention, and Big Wind’s central players ramped up their game plan undeterred.

Shadow Flicker

While turbine health impacts due to ILFN radiation may be the least intuitively obvious, another frequently disturbing and often-minimized assailant is Turbine “Flicker” – a strobe-like effect caused by turbine blades alternately blocking and allowing sunlight to sweep the land after sunrise and before sunset. It can “pull your attention in the direction it’s moving, making you dizzy, even sick to your stomach.”

Environmental impact statements will tell you that “Shadow Flicker only impacts objects within 1400 meters of the turbine” – but 1400 meters is 0.87 mile, greater than 15 football fields placed end to end!

The common reassurance that “any issue pertaining to flicker is easily remedied” is at-best poorly thought out, at-worst deliberately false and misleading, and in any case dead wrong.

At a public forum in Fairhaven, MA, where an established neighborhood of some 6,000 people would soon host two 1.5 MW turbines, to be erected within ecologically sensitive salt marshes surrounding a quiet estuary, wind developer Sumul Shah brushed aside a question about Flicker saying: “Not to worry.  It occurs mostly before 7am.”

What!? “Shadow Strobing” results from rotating blades passing between the sun and any object which the sun would otherwise illuminate. When the sun is directly behind them, the blades of 40-story-tall wind turbines throw extensive shadows that skim rhythmically and repeatedly across buildings, trees, roadways, lawns, meadows, ponds – and people.

The direct impact extends to nearly a mile from the turbine – long after sunrise, and again long before sunset – during those magical early and late hours that photographers love, when low light washes the landscape. Jerking flashes ricochet yet further when the blade shadow strikes anywhere within view shed – strobing rock faces across the valley, lakes and ponds in between, or trees across the park.

Sleep disturbance and stress-related illness

Alongside the less familiar ILFN and landscape-strobing turbine assaults, sleep deprivation and stress-related symptoms are the most common health complaints of IWT neighbors. This is not due solely to the turbine sound volume (as some might expect), but also to its characteristics: constantly fluctuating with “swishing” or “thumping” sounds, akin to low-flying jets or the rumble of helicopters, “freakish, screeching sound sludge,” rhythmic, repetitive, throbbing and percussive. It is unnatural. People say the noise gets into your head, and you can’t get it out.

Sleep may be disturbed from yet another non-intuitive angle. In their “McPherson Study,” Ambrose and Rand note that the 22.9 Hz tone considered part of the signature IWT acoustic profile “lies in the brain’s ‘high Beta’ wave range (associated with alert state, anxiety, and ‘fight or flight’ stress reactions). The brain’s ‘frequency following response (FFR)’ could be involved in maintaining an alert state during sleeping hours….”

As enormous industrial wind turbines spread around the world, World Health Organization (WHO) 2009 Noise Guidelines emphasized that any investigation into health impacts must include the equally significant indirect effects. 

Advising the Falmouth, MA Board of Health, Dr. William Hallstein wrote: “All varieties of illnesses are destabilized secondary to inadequate sleep: diabetic blood sugars, cardiac rhythms, migraines, tissue healing. Psychiatric problems intensify… all in the ‘normal’ brain. Errors in judgment and accident rates increase.” 

Imagine bombarding a hypersensitive autistic child with strident, unpredictable, unnatural noise. Imagine our veterans struggling with PTSD, the throbbing drone of the turbines re-igniting anxiety and terror – endlessly through the years once they are back home. Imagine what happens when being “safely” back home instead predictably brings physiological destabilization: nausea, ringing in the ears, vertigo, panic attacks, memory and concentration loss, incapacity.

Imagine fighting Goliath in compromised health: lives given over to complaint protocols, sound measurements, lawyers, delays, appeals, desperate pleas for relief. At best, it becomes a challenge to re-frame every encounter, either to educate a potential ally, or to pretend this isn’t the center of your life.

For some, it becomes a life of learned helplessness: having accepted that nothing will bring relief, they give up trying. With nowhere to go, the dog sits back down on the tack. Other families and individuals … devastated, having lost their health, jobs or farms … return their keys to the bank, sell their homes at a fire-sale price, or simply pack up and flee.

How have we been brought to such an extraordinary betrayal of basic human rights and social justice – a Kafkaesque world where corporate, local and state government personnel ignore and elude victims’ pleas? It is a tale of money and power shunting aside integrity and compassion, of well-intentioned individuals who don’t do their homework, of a new industrial health crisis shunned by news media who are supposed to educate, inform and protect.

In November 2014, after a four-year investigation, the Brown County, Wisconsin board of health declared that the preponderance of evidence showed the Shirley Wind Project is a human health hazard. The news went worldwide, but the local Green Bay Press Gazette ignored it for almost two weeks.

Physician and BOH member Jay Tibbetts said, “I don’t think the average person in the United States hears anything about this issue. For some reason the news media doesn’t seem to want to cover it.

___________

Helen Schwiesow Parker, PhD, is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and a Past Clinical Supervisory Faculty member at the University of Virginia Medical School.  Her career includes practical experience in the fields of autism, sensory perception, memory and learning, attention deficit and anxiety disorders, including panic disorder and PTSD. Part I of this three-post series was posted yesterday.

Adverse Health Effects, Health, Health effects from wind turbines, Noise

Wind Power Peril

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wind-refugee

The Secret, Silent Wind Power Peril (Part I: The General Problem)

By Helen Schwiesow Parker — February 7, 2017

“From a distance, many view the massive turbines as majestic – as a clean, seemingly quiet and free source of endless energy. To numerous residents clustered within 2km (1.25 miles) or more of the pulsing machines, however, the Industrial-scale Wind Turbines (IWT) bring strangely debilitating illness – incapacitating for some, yet scoffed at by the Big Wind industry.”

“Common sense tells us that a forty-story-tall metal structure with blades as long as football fields moving at 180 mph at their tips would negatively impact quiet neighborhoods, pastoral and wilderness areas. But the extent and severity of the IWT’s effect on body, mind and spirit comes as a surprise to most people.”

Schools and airlines have become highly responsive to people with peanut sensitivities – going so far as to ban peanuts, peanut butter, peanut oil and related items. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and many state agencies have implemented regulations that set allowable power plant, factory, vehicle and other emissions as close to zero as possible, hoping to prevent any potential adverse effects on people thought to be the most sensitive to air and water pollutants.

But with wind power, nearly all federal, state and local authorities gloss over, ignore or bury increasing evidence that wind turbines affect numerous people living in proximity to them.

Legislators and regulators appear unwilling even to consider the possibility that some segments of our population might be extremely sensitive to infrasound, flicker, and other “emissions” from these turbines – and wind energy companies and advocates are working hard to ensure that this approach remains in effect.

Indeed, even those who seek increasing scrutiny of the wind industry generally speak of mandates, subsidies, bird and bat deaths, and impacts on wildlife habitats. Few pay attention to, or even acknowledge, the often devastating and long-lasting health impacts suffered by human wind turbine neighbors, even though clear evidence of the hazard has been available for decades.

Proper attention to this serious and widespread problem is long overdue. It is hoped that this review of available knowledge will accelerate that process.

Disregard for Turbine Health Impacts: A Longstanding Problem

Neil Kelley was principal scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Wind Technology Center from 1980 until 2011.  During the Windpower ’87 Conference, he presented one of many similar studies published in this decade by acousticians working under grants from the Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DOD), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Their findings quickly became a hot topic. Infrasound (inaudible) and low-frequency (audible) noise (collectively referred to as ILFN) produced by Industrial-scale Wind Turbines (IWTs) directly causes adverse health effects, experts stated. The disturbance from the turbines is often worse indoors than outside. “Far from becoming inured to the disturbance, people become increasingly sensitive to it over time,” they noted.

The wind industry response was immediate. Any regulatory standards will reference only A-weighted measurements, they insisted, which exclude the ILFN that are known to cause problems. We will measure only outside, not inside dwellings, insist that neighbors “will get used to it,” and deny that the victims’ suffering has any basis in reality, let alone science.

NOTE: A-weighted noise measurements reflect the relative loudness perceived by the human ear, but drastically reduce sound-level readings in the lower frequencies: the slow periodic vibrations that were found to directly impact human health and wellbeing. Noise meters in common use can present measurements in both A- and C-weighted figures, using built-in electronic filters to adjust the way in which the instruments measure noise.  Clearly, the C-weighted measurement, which more fairly represents the low frequencies, must be included in any regulatory standards that address the impact of sound from wind turbines.

With billions of dollars at stake, the wind lobby overpowered any community or organization that tried to raise concerns or slow its advance. Big Wind expanded rapidly around the globe, devastating wilderness areas and agrarian and shoreside communities, while forming fraternities with other powerful interests to advance and protect its agenda.

From a distance, many view the massive turbines as majestic – as a clean, seemingly quiet and free source of endless energy. To numerous residents clustered within 2km (1.25 miles) or more of the pulsing machines, however, the IWTs bring strangely debilitating illness – incapacitating for some, yet scoffed at by the Big Wind industry.

“When I’m at home I’m usually sick with headaches, nausea, vertigo, tinnitis, anxiety, hopelessness, depression. My ears pop a lot and I hardly ever sleep…. My husband and I are trying desperately to find a cheap little house we can afford away from here…. We own six acres and a beautiful home, but it’s now toxic and unsellable.… Suicide looks to be my only relief.  Land of the FREE Home of the BULLSHIT! … Million to one odds anybody contacts me back.”  

The Surprising Extent and Severity of Problems

Common sense tells us that a forty-story-tall metal structure with blades as long as football fields moving at 180 mph at their tips would negatively impact quiet neighborhoods, pastoral and wilderness areas. But the extent and severity of the IWT’s effect on body, mind and spirit comes as a surprise to most people:

“We reside in what used to be a wonderful home. After just two weeks of this machine running full tilt, I was a physical and emotional wreck!  So tired. Headaches that do not go away. Dizzy and nauseous.  Body functions go haywire – I start dropping things (can’t seem to make my hand close all the way) and fall down basement stairs. Heart palpitations. Go to ear specialist: along with Vertigo, Anger, Teeth grinding – break a tooth. Crying – no more sanctuary of home. Depression. Suicide plans. Call suicide hotline. How do you explain that you are being abused every day by a wind turbine!” 

The primary pathway of turbine assault on human health and wellbeing is no mystery. The Israeli army has used low-frequency sound pulse as high-tech crowd control for years. Low-frequency noise at high intensities creates discrepancies in the brain, producing disorientation in the body: “The knees buckle, the brain aches, the stomach turns. And suddenly, nobody feels like protesting anymore.… It has no adverse effects, unless someone is exposed to the sound for hours and hours.”

But indeed, thousands of IWT neighbors around the world are subjected night and day, some now for decades, to these sub-audible (slowly vibrating) sound waves sent out as turbine blades spin past the shaft, setting up vibrations within body cavities: ears, eye sockets, skull, lungs, and belly.

People are made nauseous and confused, with blurred vision, vertigo, headaches, tachycardia, heightened blood pressure, pain and ringing in the ears, difficulties with memory and concentration, anxiety, depression, irritability, and panic attacks arising when awake or asleep.

“The effects of the turbines run from annoyance with the audible sound and shadow flicker to downright anguish from panic attacks which can feel like a death/dying episode of extreme pain. These are brought on by first a bit of nausea and upset stomach, extreme light headedness, and then the bad part: constriction and wringing of my insides. Sometimes I try to hang by a doorframe, other times I just lie on the ground if I can’t make it to the house. It is truly an inner body disturbance.” 

___________

Helen Schwiesow Parker, PhD, is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and a Past Clinical Supervisory Faculty member at the University of Virginia Medical School.  Her career includes practical experience in the fields of autism, sensory perception, memory and learning, attention deficit and anxiety disorders, including panic disorder and PTSD.

READ AT: https://www.masterresource.org/windpower-health-effects/secret-silent-wind-power-peril-1/

Adverse Health Effects, fighting big wind., Green Energy, Health, Health effects from wind turbines, Noise

Kafkaesque world of windmill neighbors

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despair-400.jpgThe definition of “Kafkaesque”: “Describing something that is horribly complicated for no reason, usually in reference to bureaucracy.” Neighbors of operating and proposed wind projects are watching in disbelief as they witness the Public Service Board (PSB) issue Orders affirming the rights of the wind industry while putting neighbors through expensive, time-consuming legal processes that tramples neighbors’ rights and provide no relief.

Paul Brouha of Sutton lives 6,385 feet from the nearest turbine in the Sheffield Wind plant. He filed his first noise complaint on Dec. 24, 2011, after the wind turbines began operating in October. The PSB dismissed his complaint.

Brouha hired a noise expert who conducted testing and found that instead of the 15 decibels (dBA) noise attenuation between outside and inside projected by wind company experts, the home attenuated 1 dBA.  The expert’s measurements showed “multiple and frequent violations of the CPG noise criteria.”  The PSB ordered the Department of Public Service (DPS) to investigate the complaint early in 2014. DPS hired a consultant who conducted the same test on July 1, 2014.

In January 2015, Brouha filed a nuisance lawsuit in Superior Court in Vermont.

In Sept. 2015, DPS reported to the PSB that Sheffield Wind exceeded interior noise standards 10-14% of the time.

At the end of 2015, the PSB opened an investigation. Sheffield Wind moved to stay Brouha’s nuisance lawsuit which they had moved from Superior to Federal Court.  The Federal judge approved the stay request until the PSB ruled on the complaint.

Brouha’s nuisance complaint has been held hostage by the PSB’s laborious investigation and enforcement process for a year, during which Sheffield Wind, DPS, and Brouha filed written arguments about whether or not a violation occurred.  Brouha argued that the project is in violation.  Sheffield Wind vigorously argued that new monitoring must take place.  The PSB Hearing Officer agreed.  Brouha filed a Motion to Reconsider six months ago.  The Hearing Officer has not ruled.

The parties agreed to have their noise experts meet to try to agree on a new monitoring plan.  They did not come to agreement.

On Jan. 25, 2017, the Hearing Officer held a daylong technical hearing in Brouha’s noise complaint case.  Each expert’s noise monitoring plan was presented.  Sheffield Wind wants an entirely new protocol.  DPS argues for a protocol that would change the noise standard.  Brouha asks to use the protocol originally approved by the PSB.  The hearing did not finish, so three PSB staff, five attorneys and their experts will return to the PSB for another hearing.

Brouha has spent nearly $350,000 so far attempting to get his noise complaint addressed.  No end is in sight.

Melodie and Scott McLane live 3800 feet from the Georgia Mountain Wind turbines. After they filed more than 30 noise complaints, the PSB opened an investigation in Nov. 2015.  In March 2016 the McLanes filed a complaint about the turbines operating under icing conditions.  The PSB opened another investigation.

Attorneys for GMW (same attorneys representing Sheffield Wind), DPS and the McLanes argued on paper about whether an attenuation test at the McLane home should be conducted, and whether the winter operating protocol required the turbines be curtailed under icing conditions.  GMW vigorously argued against testing at the McLane home.

The McLanes also filed a noise complaint along with the icing complaint, because they experienced the loudest noise for the longest period of time since the turbines began operating in 2013.  In every filing in the icing docket, the McLanes reminded the PSB that they also were filing a noise complaint.

Recently, the PSB issued an Order[1] finding GMW violated its CPG by operating its wind turbines under icing conditions in March 2016, and issued a negligible $2000 fine.  The same day, the PSB fined a solar company[2] $17,000 for failing to comply with a condition involving a fire lane.  No one was harmed by the failure of the solar company.  The McLanes sleep is regularly disrupted by the wind turbine noise.  The PSB declined to address the accompanying noise complaint.

In response to the McLane’s 2015 noise complaint, both the PSB Hearing Officer and DPS recommended testing to determine the attenuation of the noise from inside to outside. The Board denied[3] the testing but gave the McLanes and DPS ten days to file paperwork asking to engage in further discovery and cross-examination of GMW’s expert to decide if outside to inside testing should be done.

The McLanes also filed a Motion for Relief in Nov. 2015.  In denying that motion[4], the PSB said, “Nothing in our Order today prevents the McLanes from seeking any individual relief that may be available to them in a forum that has the requisite authority to review their personal circumstances and to take action as may be warranted.”  In other words, they can file a nuisance lawsuit in court and follow Paul Brouha down the path that leads back to – the PSB.

The legislature says it’s the PSB fault.  The PSB says it’s the legislatures fault.   Vermonters are victimized while the wind industry profits.

Annette Smith is Executive Director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, Inc.  She is the Burlington Free Press’s 2016 Vermonter of the Year.

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Published: January 30, 2017  http://vermontbiz.com/news/january/annette-smith-kafkaesque-world-windmill-neighbors?utm_source=VBM+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=4405d9e165-Enews_2017_01_30&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_85838110bc-4405d9e165-285543701 

Adverse Health Effects, Green Energy, Health effects from wind turbines, Noise

Public makes noise on wind regulations; PSB hosts discussion of sound limits

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sally
Sally Collopy attends 1st PSB meeting on IWT noise limits

Credit:  By Tom Benton, Messenger Staff Writer | St. Albans Messenger | Jan. 12, 2017 |

MONTPELIER – The Public Service Board (PSB) held its second workshop to gather information regarding industrial wind sound limits in Montpelier on Jan. 9. This time, members of the public dominated the proceeding.

The Vermont legislature has tasked the PSB with creating sound regulations for industrial wind facilities by July 1. The PSB held an initial information-gathering workshop on Dec. 2, at which government agencies, specifically the Department of Public Service, dominated the proceedings. Members of the public in attendance criticized the PSB for not allowing the public due time, so the board established a follow-up workshop session.

The last workshop took several hours, from mid-morning until the early evening. The second workshop took only two-and-a-half. There were just two presentations, by Les Blomberg, director of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse, a Montpelier-based national non-profit devoted to combating “noise pollution,” and by Olivia Campbell Anderson, the executive director of Renewable Energy Vermont, another Montpelier-based nonprofit, in this case supporting industrial efforts to increase renewable energy.

It was an even split between those advocating for tighter restrictions on industrial wind, arguing higher wind sound levels damage human health, and those advocating for less-harsh regulation, arguing strict restrictions on wind projects damage the economic prospects for renewable energy in Vermont. But those tighter-regulation advocates dominated the floor, with almost a dozen members of the public present to support them and voice their own concerns, sitting around the small conference room adorned in their trademark lime-green reflective vests.

Blomberg listed frequently used international wind sound regulatory tools. He said 89 percent of wind sound ordinances are based on public nuisance reports, 82 percent specific to the time of day and 70 percent based on zoning regulations. Blomberg did not share specific citations during his presentation, and members of the PSB consistently pressed him for more specificity. Blomberg spoke in favor of constant, 24/7 monitoring of wind facilities’ sound output, prompting the board to ask how that could feasibly be accomplished, a question for which Blomberg did not have a specific response.

Blomberg’s presentation was most clear when it was most simple, never more so than when he presented a list of six problems with industrial wind noise and six ostensibly simple solutions. Blomberg’s list stated regulatory techniques for wind turbine sound are too complicated, and suggested using setbacks, a mandatory distance between any industrial wind project and a homeowner’s house or even property line, and metrics based on maximum sound outputs rather than average sound outputs. But as with the rest of his presentation, Blomberg struggled when pressed by members of the PSB for specifics.

Anderson’s presentation was a brief reiteration of statements made during the last workshop: a 45 decibel (dB) average-based monitoring model is sufficient to protect the public health. She referred to many of the reports cited by the public opposition as “outlier studies” too constraining for project feasibility, advocating for limits “beyond what’s necessary for public health.” She said long-term monitoring of industrial wind projects is “onerous,” and threatens the economics of the industry without any benefits to the public.

Annette Smith, the director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, the state’s foremost industrial wind opposition group, pressed Anderson. “Are you a noise expert?” Smith asked.

“No. Are you, Annette?” Anderson retorted.

Anderson presented a vast and specific list of international wind sound limits. But when Smith asked if Anderson had investigated the success of those limits, a question members of the PSB echoed, Anderson said no. “We’d have to reach out to those jurisdictions,” she said.

Members of the public in attendance frequently raised questions or concerns throughout both presentations. Fairfield resident Sally Collopy summarized public disdain after Anderson’s presentation, in which Anderson, like state and industry representatives during the last workshop, used the term “in reality” to contest assertions made by members of the public.

“We keep hearing ‘in reality,’” Collopy said. “The ‘reality’ is the people living with it.” She said the board faced “complete disagreement” from each side of the argument on sound monitoring. “You’ll never get the answers you want – and it is desperately needed – unless you can secure an independent party,” Collopy said.

Republican House Representative Marianna Gamache represents the town of Swanton, the proposed site for the controversial Swanton Wind project. Gamache was a member of the House Energy Committee, where the bill requiring the PSB to create a sound rule began. She said the House bill set a Jan. 2018 deadline for the rule’s creation. The Senate changed the deadline to Sept. 2017, and the bill finally passed with its current July 2017 deadline.

Gamache suggested the PSB request an extension “given the amount of material you have to sort through.”

“There was a general agreement in our committee that if you needed more time, all you have to do is request ii,” Gamache told the board.

The PSB’s workshops were not official hearings. Those will follow the creation of a preliminary sound rule. However, anyone can submit comments regarding any potential wind sound regulation to the PSB at psb.clerk@vermont. gov.

READ AT: http://www.samessenger.com/public-makes-noise-wind-regulations/

Adverse Health Effects, Direct Effects, fighting big wind., Green Energy, Health effects from wind turbines, Ireland fights big wind., Noise, Unite the Fight!

It’s Official- wind farms are a Damned Nuisance

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lady-noiseThe link to the posting on The Law is My Oyster seems to be broken- so we have copied and pasted the posting.

The tort of Nuisance – basic principles

The law of (private) nuisance has been around for a long time but it has always been a poor neighbour to the more commonly litigated torts of negligence and trespass.

In a nutshell, a nuisance is “any continuous activity or state of affairs causing a substantial and unreasonable interference with a [claimant’s] land or his use or enjoyment of that land”(Bamford v Turnley [1860] 3 B&S 62).  Private nuisance is a tort or civil wrong, unlike public nuisance, which is a crime.

Something that farmers leasing their land to wind farms might not know is that a landlord can be liable where the lease is granted for a purpose which constitutes a nuisance, as in Tetley v Chitty [1986] 1 All ER 663.

For there to be a claim in private nuisance, the claimant must show that the defendant’s actions caused damage. This can be physical damage, or discomfort and inconvenience. The test for remoteness of damage in nuisance is reasonable foreseeability. In other words, was it foreseeable that a wind turbine will cause discomfort and inconvenience to nearby dwellings?  The test is an objective one: was the nuisance reasonably foreseeable? If it was, the defendant is expected to avoid it.

It is impossible to specifically define what is or what is not unreasonable but factors that are taken into account include the nature of the locality where the nuisance took place, the time and duration of the interference and the conduct of the defendant.

The plaintiff must show that the defendant’s actions have caused an interference with their use or enjoyment of their land or home/property. These interferences are indirect, and almost always the result of continuing events rather than a one-off incident. The courts have allowed cases where the interference causes emotional distress, like continuous noise / infrasound for example.

The granting of planning permission does not constitute immunity from a claim in nuisance.

The families of Shivnen, Whelan/Walsh, Sexton, Sheehan, Duggan, McSweeney and O’Connor, versus Enercon Wind Farm Services  Ireland Limited and Carraigcannon Wind Farm Limited

It was with considerable interest then that we waited for the outcome of the action in nuisance brought by the seven families from Cork who were impacted by noise pollution from a nearby Enercon wind farm. A number of the families had to abandon their homes because of the severity of the noise and some lived up to a full kilometre from the wind farm.

A judgment against the wind farm would have constituted a powerful precedent to be used against the wind industry given the multitude of examples of Irish families living in misery due to unwelcome turbine neighbours. It was for that reason that the defendant settled the matter (probably at the instance of, and financial assistance from, IWEA). Although settlements are always better for the parties concerned as it avoids the huge emotional and financial cost of litigation, it does mean that we do not have that precedent in Irish law (although there are a number of foreign precedents – see https://the-law-is-my-oyster.com/2014/11/16/are-windfarms-torture-farms/).

Although the defendant wind farm admitted liability (nuisance-order-dec-2016) the wind industry will seek to minimise this by arguing that this was a “one-off” situation for any fallacious reason that they can think of: “the unique terrain; the extraordinary sensitivity of the plaintiffs; etc etc.” Expect a carefully worded press release soon in your nearest rag.

There is still one more opportunity to achieve a damning precedent though. The case is listed for ten days in the High Court commencing 25th April 2017 to deal with damages and costs. If the High Court was to make a massive award of damages (i.e. in the millions of euros) that would send a very strong message to the wind industry that Ireland is simply not suitable to build wind farms, due to the scattered population leaving very little wide open spaces, and in they insist on building them next to people’s homes, they must be prepared to pay a lot of money, which is what the wind industry is all about anyway – money. Don’t believe all the “green” rhetoric – if you hit them hard in the pocket, they will leave, our subsidies notwithstanding.

It is for that reason that there will very likely be a financial settlement. Good news for the family involved – they can avoid the ten days of litigation and get on with their lives. Bad news for the Irish rural population, as again there will be no precedent and it is guaranteed that the settlement will come with a gag order that will prohibit any of the families disclosing the details of the financial settlement. One would almost pray for a wealthy benefactor to compensate the families up front so that the ten days’ litigation could continue (assuming that the notoriously conservative High Court would hand down a decent damages award in the millions). Any friendly millionaires out there willing to step up to the plate?

https://the-law-is-my-oyster.com/2017/01/07/its-official-wind-farms-are-a-damned-nuisance