In interviews with 10 families living 1,000 feet to 4,900 feet away from recently built industrial-size wind turbines, a “cluster” of symptoms was revealed: from sleep disturbance, which affected almost everyone, to headache to tinnitus, vertigo, nausea, irritability, memory and concentration problems, and panic episodes. Industrial wind turbines have a total height of 300 feet to 400 feet or more, with blades of 125 feet to 150 feet that sweep 1.5 acres to 2 acres of vertical airspace.

The book includes supportive reviews and notices by several noted physicians in related disciplines. Although primarily directed towards medical professionals, it also is suitable for the lay audience.

The individuals affected by Wind Turbine Syndrome noticed that they developed symptoms after the turbines near their homes started turning. Symptoms were relieved when they left the area and resumed on their return. Eight of the 10 families eventually moved away from their homes because of the severity of the symptoms.

Although not everyone living near turbines is subject to these symptoms, the data Pierpont presents is a concern, considering the current political drive to construct more and ever larger industrial wind turbines close to people’s homes, as well as in the habitats of other equally or more sensitive animals.

Pierpont’s sample size was large enough to show that individuals with pre-existing migraines, motion sensitivity or inner ear damage are particularly vulnerable. People with anxiety or other mental health problems are not particularly susceptible, she says, contradicting the common claim of industry developers that “it’s all in their head.”

“This report is a public health wake-up call that our elected officials and administrators need to take very seriously,” said Eric Rosenbloom, president of National Wind Watch, a clearinghouse for information about the adverse effects of industrial wind energy development.

Pierpont and other health and noise experts agree that at a minimum, large wind turbines should be 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) from any residence, according to an article on the national Wind Watch Web site (www.wind-watch.org/ww-noise-health.php).

According to Pierpont, low-frequency noise or vibration from the wind turbines acts on the balance organs of the inner ear to make the body think it is moving. And this misperception of motion affects other brain functions, including physical reflexes, spatial processing and memory and physiological fear responses (such as pounding heart and nausea).

For more information: www.windturbinesyndrome.com, www.wind-watch.org

Dec. 1, 2009–Wind Turbine Syndrome: Study of Adverse Health Effects Published
Posted on: December 1, 2009
Source: http://audiology.advanceweb.com/Article/Wind-Turbine-Syndrome-Study-of-Adverse-Health-Effects-Published.aspx

Jess Dancer, EdD, is professor emeritus of audiology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Recently I received an e-mail with an attached article on noise pollution and its many effects. My correspondent commented that she had run across articles about possible health problems, including tinnitus, associated with wind turbines and wind farms. “Some of them,” she wrote, “are scary and really make you think twice about the safety of this alternate energy source.”

My curiosity aroused, I downloaded the article on noise pollution entitled, interestingly, “Noise leads birds to unfaithfulness,” authored by Anne Outwater, a columnist for the Tanzania Standard.1

Noise effects on humans are well known, and Outwater’s listing includes hearing loss, tinnitus, insomnia, hypertension, stress, and coronary artery disease. Less known are the effects of noise on animals; Outwater gives us two striking examples:

* “. beached whales are responding to the loud sound of military sonar; they are trying to get away from or they are disoriented by the severe noise. When submarine detectors are on, whales’ songs become longer–they are speaking louder in responses to the noise. Their songs are their language, and they may be warning other whales or searching for food–these tasks of daily living become masked by human introduced noises in the ocean.”
* “On land, birds have been found to sing louder, and less melodiously, when they live in cities. This means that mating songs and danger warnings if unheard by their fellows go unheeded. It decreases the usable habitat. In the case of Zebra Finches, and probably many other species, it is found that they become less faithful to their mates when exposed to traffic noise.”

Wind Turbines

One noise source may produce up to 20 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030. The source? Wind turbines. Even now, thousands of wind turbines crank out power throughout the country. These massive windmills, up to 80 feet tall, capture the energy in wind and convert it into electricity for residential and commercial use.

According to environmentalist blogger Michelle Bennett, “Wind turbines are a fast efficient way to produce renewable energy. They’re good for the environment, the power grid and local communities. But some residents who live closest to the turbines complain about the noise, and limited data suggests it might be more than a nuisance.”2

The blade tips of a wind turbine can spin at speeds of up to 180 miles per hour in high winds. This rapid spinning produces noise and vibration that contribute to health complaints known collectively as Wind Turbine Syndrome. The syndrome includes headaches, sleep problems, night terrors or learning disabilities in children, tinnitus, irritability, anxiety, concentration and memory problems, disequilibrium, dizziness, and nausea.

Audible sounds from wind turbines have been described by nearby residents as “humming.whooshing.swishing.rumbling of an endless train.thumping.a distant pile driver.” Most concerning are the production of infrasounds, which are below 20 Hz and generally inaudible to the human ear but at intense levels are linked to nausea, imbalance, impaired equilibrium, immobilization, and disorientation.

Most of the information on the purported health effects of wind turbines are anecdotal and/or based on small sample sizes. One larger 2007 questionnaire study carried out by Swedish researchers included 754 subjects living in seven areas in Sweden across dissimililar terrain and different degrees of urbanization.3

Researchers found that the odds of being annoyed by wind turbine noise increased with increasing SPLs [sound pressure levels], rural areas and hilly or rocky terrains. Annoyance was associated with both objective and subjective factors of wind turbine visibility and was further associated with lowered sleep quality and negative emotions. They conclude, “There is a need to take the unique environment into account when planning a new wind farm so that adverse health effects are avoided. The influence of area-related factors should also be considered in future community noise research.”

Further evidence-based research is needed to confirm health problems associated with wind turbines and to devise effective buffer-zone regulations and sound-cancelling technologies. Until then, I say NIMBY!

References

1. Outwater, A. (2009). Noise leads birds to unfaithfulness. Tanzania Standard. Accessed online at http://dailynews.habarileo.co.tz/magazine/?id-9811
2. Bennett, M. (2008). Wind Turbines and. Health? CleanTechnica.com. Accessed online at http://cleantechnica.com-2008/18/wind-turbines-and-health/.
3. Pederson. E, Pearson Waye K. (2007). Wind turbine noise, annoyance and self-reported health and well-being in different living environments. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 64(7): 480-6.

By Jess Dancer, EdD
Posted on: September 1, 2009
Source: http://audiology.advanceweb.com/Article/Wind-Turbine-Syndrome.aspx
Jess Dancer, EdD, is professor emeritus of audiology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and can be contacted at jedancer@ualr.edu.

Video: 3-3-2010

Indeed, recent academic research shows that wind power may actually increase greenhouse gas emissions in some cases, depending on the carbon-intensity of back-up generation required because of its intermittent character. On the negative side of the environmental ledger are adverse impacts of industrial wind turbines on birdlife and other forms of wildlife, farm animals, wetlands and viewsheds.

Industrial wind power is not a viable economic alternative to other energy conservation options. Again, the Danish experience is instructive. Its electricity generation costs are the highest in Europe (15¢/kwh compared to Ontario’s current rate of about 6¢). Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries says, “windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense.” Aase Madsen , the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it “a terribly expensive disaster.”

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in 2008, on a dollar per MWh basis, the U.S. government subsidizes wind at $23.34 — compared to reliable energy sources: natural gas at 25¢; coal at 44¢; hydro at 67¢; and nuclear at $1.59, leading to what some U.S. commentators call “a huge corporate welfare feeding frenzy.” The Wall Street Journal advises that “wind generation is the prime example of what can go wrong when the government decides to pick winners.”

The Economist magazine notes in a recent editorial, “Wasting Money on Climate Change,” that each tonne of emissions avoided due to subsidies to renewable energy such as wind power would cost somewhere between $69 and $137, whereas under a cap-and-trade scheme the price would be less than $15.

Either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system creates incentives for consumers and producers on a myriad of margins to reduce energy use and emissions that, as these numbers show, completely overwhelm subsidies to renewables in terms of cost effectiveness.

The Ontario Power Authority advises that wind producers will be paid 13.5¢/kwh (more than twice what consumers are currently paying), even without accounting for the additional costs of interconnection, transmission and back-up generation. As the European experience confirms, this will inevitably lead to a dramatic increase in electricity costs with consequent detrimental effects on business and employment. From this perspective, the government’s promise of 55,000 new jobs is a cruel delusion.

A recent detailed analysis (focusing mainly on Spain) finds that for every job created by state-funded support of renewables, particularly wind energy, 2.2 jobs are lost. Each wind industry job created cost almost $2-million in subsidies. Why will the Ontario experience be different?

In debates over climate change, and in particular subsidies to renewable energy, there are two kinds of green. First there are some environmental greens who view the problem as so urgent that all measures that may have some impact on greenhouse gas emissions, whatever their cost or their impact on the economy and employment, should be undertaken immediately.

Then there are the fiscal greens, who, being cool to carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems that make polluters pay, favour massive public subsidies to themselves for renewable energy projects, whatever their relative impact on greenhouse gas emissions. These two groups are motivated by different kinds of green. The only point of convergence between them is their support for massive subsidies to renewable energy (such as wind turbines).

This unholy alliance of these two kinds of greens (doomsdayers and rent seekers) makes for very effective, if opportunistic, politics (as reflected in the Ontario government’s Green Energy Act), just as it makes for lousy public policy: Politicians attempt to pick winners at our expense in a fast-moving technological landscape, instead of creating a socially efficient set of incentives to which we can all respond.

Financial Post
Michael J. Trebilcock is Professor of Law and Economics, University of Toronto. These comments were excerpted from a submission last night to the Ontario government’s legislative committee On Bill 150.

Posted: April 08, 2009, 7:29 PM by NP Editor
wind power, Michael J. Trebilcock

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com

Now substitute wind for oil and gas and consider the noise complaints being lodged against wind projects around the world.

The Obama administration has made the increased use of wind power to generate electricity a top priority. In 2009 alone, U.S. wind generation capacity increased by 39%. But more wind power means more giant turbines closer to more people. And if current trends continue, that spells trouble.

In 2007, a phalanx of wind turbines were built around Charlie Porter’s property in rural northern Missouri. Soon, Mr. Porter began to have trouble sleeping. So did his wife and daughter. The noise, he told me, made sleeping almost impossible. “We tried everything—earplugs, leaving the TV station on all night.” Nothing worked. Late last year he moved his family off their 20-acre farm.

Mr. Porter’s story is no isolated event. Rural residents in Texas, Maine, Pennsylvania, Oregon, New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, France and England have been complaining about the noise from wind turbines, particularly about sleep deprivation. Dozens of news stories—most of them published in rural newspapers—have documented the problem.

I’ve spoken to nine other people in New York, Wisconsin, Ontario, New Zealand, Nova Scotia and England who live, or lived, near wind turbines. All complained of the noise, with sleep deprivation being the most common complaint. For example, Janet Warren, who raises sheep near Makara, New Zealand, told me via email that the turbines near her home emit “continuous noise and vibration,” which disturb her sleep and are causing “loss of concentration, irritability, and short-term memory effects.”

Complaints about sleep disruption—as well as the deleterious health effects caused by the pulsing, low-frequency noise emitted by the giant turbines—are a central element of an emerging citizen backlash against the booming global wind industry.

Lawsuits that focus on noise pollution are now pending in Maine, Pennsylvania and New Zealand. In New Zealand, more than 750 complaints have been lodged against a large wind project near Makara since it began operating last April. The European Platform Against Windfarms lists 388 groups in 20 European countries. Canada has more than two dozen antiwind groups. In the U.S. there are about 100 such groups, and state legislators in Vermont recently introduced a bill that will require wind turbines be located no closer than 1.25 miles from any residence.

In theory, big wind projects should only be built in desolate areas. But the reality is that many turbines are being installed close to homes. Wind developers put a turbine within 550 meters of Mr. Porter’s house. Hal Graham, a retired office manager in Cohocton, N.Y., complains about the noise pollution caused by a turbine 300 meters from his home. Tony Moyer, a plumbing superintendent in Eden, Wis., grumbles about the noise generated by three turbines built within 425 meters of his house.

Doctors and acoustics experts from the U.S. to Australia report a raft of symptoms that they blame on wind turbine noise, including sleep disturbance, headaches and vertigo. Dr. Nina Pierpont, a pediatrician in Malone, N.Y., has studied 36 people affected by wind turbine noise since 2004 at her own expense. The people she interviewed were widely dispersed; they lived in the U.S., Canada, England, Ireland and Italy. She found that the collection of symptoms she calls “wind turbine syndrome” disappeared as soon as people moved out of their noise-affected homes and into new locations at least five miles from any turbines.

Across the border, Ontario-based orthopedic surgeon Dr. Robert McMurtry has been researching wind turbine noise for the past 18 months. Dr. McMurtry, a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, counts more than 100 people in Ontario he believes are experiencing adverse effects from turbine noise. “It has compromised their health,” he says.

The wind lobby has publicly rejected these claims. In December, the American Wind Energy Association in conjunction with the Canadian Wind Energy Association, issued a report titled “Wind Turbine Sound and Health Effects: An Expert Review Panel.” It declared: “There is no evidence that the audible or sub-audible sounds emitted by wind turbines have any direct adverse physiological effects.” It also suggested that some of the symptoms being attributed to wind turbine noise were likely psychosomatic and asserted that the vibrations from the turbines are “too weak to be detected by, or to affect, humans.”

Yet the report also noted that in “the area of wind turbine health effects, no case-control or cohort studies have been conducted as of this date.” True enough—but it means there are no studies to prove or disprove the case. It also says that “a small number of sensitive people” may be “stressed” by wind turbine noise and suffer sleep deprivation. But who gets to define “sensitive” and “small number”? And if turbine noise and sleep disturbance aren’t problems, then why are people in so many different locations complaining in almost identical ways? Such questions are only going to be pressed with more urgency in the future.

By 2030, environmental and lobby groups are pushing for the U.S. to produce 20% of its electricity from wind. According to the Department of Energy, meeting that goal will require the U.S. to have about 300,000 megawatts of wind capacity, an eightfold increase over current levels. Installing tens of thousands of new turbines inevitably means they’ll be located closer to populated areas.

The health effects of low-frequency noise on humans are not well understood. The noise in question often occurs at, or below, decibel levels that are commonly considered a public nuisance. And detecting low-frequency noise requires sophisticated acoustic gear. For all of these reasons, this issue should be investigated. If policy makers are serious about considering all of the impacts of “green” energy, then an impartial, international study of the effects of wind turbine noise should be undertaken without delay.

Mr. Bryce is the managing editor of Energy Tribune. His fourth book, “Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green’ Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future,” will be published in April by PublicAffairs.

Source: http://www.djreprints.com
MARCH 1, 2010, 6:44 P.M. ET

Video: 2/24/2010 Property Value Guarantees Panel:
Ruth Anne Tobias – Presentation/Q&A

Video: 2/24/2010 Property Value Guarantees Panel:
Ruth Anne Tobias & others – Q&A

So, what are we to believe? Let’s take a look at what Tobias has to say.

According to the NortherStar interview on 1/29/10 by Demarcus Robinson:
“DeKalb County negotiated a property value guarantee within 1.5 to .75 of a mile to a turbine,” Tobias said.

Let’s refer to Tobias’ presentation on 2/24/2010.

Take a look at Slide 2 on Page 134:
” Homeowners within 3/4 mile of a turbine ”
” lower price than expected in 3 mos – FPL pays difference… ”

Take a look at Page 137:
” http://dekalbcounty.org/PLanning/windfarm.html ”
” Look for ‘Ordinance’ with conditions (#14) and PVG details within ‘Exhibit D’ ”

Compare the information Tobias presents against the actual document, and you now have a different story. Follow Tobias’ link to the document and you end up looking at a map, not PVG details. So you will need to look at an authentic “Property Value Guarantee Agreement” document.

In this document there is no mention of mos, it’s all in days, either 30 or 180. 30 days regarding notification and 180 days in relation to the property. Here are the facts:

Section 7: “that the Property will be so listed until the occurrence of either the (i) sale of the Property or (ii) expiration of a period of 180 days;”

Section 8: “for a period of 180 days, not to accept any offer below the ASKING PRICE without the express and written approval of the Guarantor.”

Section 10: “within 180 days of listing the Property for sale,”

Section 11.b: “after 180 days of listing the Property for sale,”

Section 12: “during the 180 days of the property being on the market,”

This kind of gross error is inexcusable. How could Tobias, DeKalb County Board Chair and noted conference speaker be so irresponsible and misleading? It makes you wonder if she ever looked at the document and seriously question anything else she has to say.

Video:

JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA, PRESENTER: It’s the biggest wind farm operating in Victoria and it’s putting the tiny town of Waubra on the map in ways the locals never predicted. It’s been dubbed the ‘Waubra Disease’, the health effects of living surrounded by wind turbines and it’s now becoming known around the world. As the State Government approves more wind farms, there are growing demands for serious investigation and for standards to be reviewed. Cheryl Hall reports.

DONALD THOMAS, WAUBRA FARMER: I thought it was probably the greatest thing to ever happen to the area. Visited wind farm up at Ararat and was quite impressed and came home thinking well, yeah, it’s a good thing. It’s not until the windmills started turning that we started to experience a few problems.

CHERYL HALL, REPORTER: And what sort of problems have you had?

DONALD THOMAS: We’ve had troubles, ear pressure, headaches, rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure.

CHERYL HALL: 20 families living around Waubra’s wind turbines have reported similar symptoms, but not everyone can talk about it. Those with turbines on their properties have signed agreements not to speak publicly.

DONALD THOMAS: In the yard here you can feel the ones on the hill there. They get into sync and every minute or two you’ll get this – there may be three or four big whooshes that you can actually feel.

CHERYL HALL: The most high-profile case of so-called “Waubra Disease” was Trish Godfrey, who spoke to Stateline last year.

TRISH GODFREY, WAUBRA RESIDENT (Sept. 2009): Basically, the best way I can describe it is that you feel that you’ve got motion sickness, but it’s not just for a little while, it’s all the time in varying degrees. It feels like my head is in a vice. I can’t remember the last night that I had a full night’s sleep. Usually we wake up at least five or six times during the night.

CHERYL HALL: Last week she won her battle when the wind farm company Acciona bought her property, but it came at a price.

Trish and Victor Godfrey have signed a confidentiality agreement and can’t speak publicly, but the company Acciona has issued a statement denying they suffered health effects from the turbines.

BRETT THOMAS, ACCIONA: No, that certainly wasn’t the issue that they contacted us about. As I said, their concern when they contacted us was about the visual impacts.

CATHY RUSSELL, WESTERN PLAINS LANDSCAPE GUARDIANS: Absolutely ridiculous, because we all know, and as well as the media knows, as well as the greater community who reads the papers knows, Trish was very much suffering. And there’s no question of a doubt it would open the floodgates effectively with regards to liability.

CHERYL HALL: Just down the road from Donald Thomas’s house this property is deserted. The Deans haven’t lived here for 10 months.

NOEL DEAN, WAUBRA FARMER: I won’t go out there while the turbines are there. I can’t afford to. I just get too ill.

CHERYL HALL: Noel Dean has moved to Ballarat. His son works on the farm but won’t live there.

NOEL DEAN: It’s cost us approximately $400,000, of buying this shed, relocating and expenses occurred in the monitoring and investigation of the problem, which the wind farm won’t do. I’ve asked compliance from the State Government for at least six months and they won’t give any confirmation that they’ve complied with their duty.

BRETT THOMAS: We’re carrying out all of the compliance obligations that we are required to carry out at that wind farm.

CHERYL HALL: The responsibility of enforcing the permit conditions has been transferred from the Planning Minister Justin Madden to the local council. But the Pyrenees Shire Council has been unable to do its job. It says it has neither the technical skills or the financial resources to enforce the conditions. The council has received many complaints and wants the State Government to investigate them.

DAVID CLARK, PYRENEES SHIRE MAYOR: I honestly don’t know, and again all the official evidence says that no, there isn’t an impact. My personal view is very simple. My personal view is I’ve known these people all my life and a lot of them I’ve gone to school with and I trust ‘em with my life. And they’re saying to me they’ve got an issue and to me that issue needs to be investigated.

CHERYL HALL: The Planning Minister Justin Madden declined a request for an interview, but he issued a statement saying complaints regarding noise levels at the Waubra wind farm have been investigated and no breach of the conditions has been found. The Health Department says it has reviewed current research and believes there is no direct evidence that wind farms cause health problems. The Clean Energy Council agrees.

MATTHEW WARREN, CLEAN ENERGY COUNCIL: The issue of infrasound comes up in these debate, but after 20 years of wind farm development round the world and 100,000 turbines erected and studied around the world, there is no medical evidence of infrasound causing illness.

CHERYL HALL: Noel Dean has commissioned an independent report on noise levels at his property.

NOEL DEAN: I’m waiting for an independent, peer-reviewed report which at the moment indicates that there’s non-compliance at our property several times over 10 days. There is pulsing of low frequency, highly suspected of causing the illnesses we are getting.

CHERYL HALL: The report will be presented to a court case in New Zealand next week to demonstrate widespread complaints about health effects. It will include information on Waubra as well as complaints from 750 people who live near a wind farm in Makara in New Zealand.

CATHY RUSSELL: I’ve got information effectively from Makara Windfarm in New Zealand, the affidavits from the people who live near that particular wind farm, and similarly, questionnaires of a similar nature with regard to health from Waubra that back up – the same people in the same situations.

CHERYL HALL: Donald Thomas fears his problems are about to get worse. There are plans to make the Waubra wind farm even bigger, with more turbines to the north.

DONALD THOMAS: There’s no way known we can allow Waubra north to go ahead, having lived next to the biggest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere.

CHERYL HALL: But the Waubra wind farm will be dwarfed by the Stockyard Hill proposal, west of Ballarat, of more than 200 turbines. Like Waubra, the communities of Beaufort and Skipton are divided over the wind farm. 300 public submissions have been received about the plan.

CASSIE FRANZOSE, WESTERN PLAINS LANDSCAPE GUARDIANS: The lack of information, the refusal to have a public meeting. There is no chance that this will not be approved. I mean, it is an absolute given. This process is – absolutely favours the deployment and widespread deployment of inappropriate wind farms across Victoria.

CHERYL HALL: Victoria currently has 10 operating wind farms, but another 27 are under development. One of those at Bald Hills in Gippsland was this week granted approval by Planning Minister Justin Madden to increase the height of its turbines by 20 per cent to 135 metres.

CATHY RUSSELL: It’s like a new frontier, effectively, because turbines, when the noise standards were set for example, were based on turbines that were around 36 metres high and now they’re 136 metres high and reaching into parts of the atmosphere never chartered before.

CHERYL HALL: But Environment Minister Peter Garrett laid the responsibility firmly with the State Government.

PETER GARRETT, FEDERAL ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: Wind farms, there are a broader range of issues, sitting issues, amenity issues, noise issues and the like, and I certainly think that it’s important that they are taken into account by local authorities and state governments in any of the states of the Commonwealth when they’re actually approving wind farms.

CHERYL HALL: Cathy Russell and Noel Dean met with Peter Garrett last night. They asked him to take their health issues seriously and fund an independent investigation.

CATHY RUSSELL: We’ve told them repeatedly, and so ultimately, he’s ignoring that advice at his peril, as he has done with insulation and solar. It’s just a minefield and it’s a time bomb waiting to happen, especially with the deployment of so many of these things throughout western Victoria.

Source: Stateline Victoria
Published: Friday, February 19, 2010 8:34 AEDT

Barbara Ashbee-Lormand traveled from central Ontario to central Vermont in late October to a discussion of an industrial wind turbine development proposed for the town of Ira, organized by Vermonters for a Clean Environment.

She’s a rare figure in the debate over the effects big wind towers have on people. She’s one of only two homeowners that a major wind company, Canadian Hydro Developers, has conceded it bought out because of their complaints that the huge gadgets proved to be impossible to live with.

Ms. Ashbee-Lormand has an important story to tell, but she didn’t tell it at that October meeting in West Rutland. Nor did she tell it during an interview in her real estate office in Orangeville, a town of about 15,000 that sits 50 miles north and a little west of Toronto.

That was part of the deal, when Canadian Hydro bought her home.

“I cannot talk about my personal experience,” she said at the outset of a brief interview. “If you want to call it a gag order, so be it.”

Ms. Ashbee-Lormand clearly believes that wind towers pose a threat to human health, but she can’t say why. It might have been that frustration that briefly reduced the crisply tailored businesswoman to tears during the meeting in her office.

But she could refer this reporter to a colleague, retired pharmacist Carmen Krogh, who is under no such constraint. Ms. Krogh was a featured speaker at the West Rutland meeting. She says that Ms. Ashbee-Lormand and her husband found the wind towers so intolerable that they moved out of their house and slept in a tent in the backyard.

They lived in Amaranth, a rural township north of Orangeville that is host to 22 industrial wind turbines. After Canadian Hydro bought them out, they moved to the nearby township of Mono. Moving out of a house into a tent makes little sense, unless the effects of low-frequency sound from the turbines are taken into account.

“Low-frequency noise can be more disturbing inside a house,” Ms. Krogh said in a recent interview. “The house can act as a receptor.” In the tent, Ms. Krogh suggested, the couple coped with the noise of the turbines, “but the other component was reduced.”

Ms. Krogh says that Ms. Ashbee-Lormand is just one of more than a hundred Ontario residents who, in response to her questionnaire, have reported that nearby wind turbines do them harm.

That’s enough, she argues, to justify a thorough-going, well funded study of the effects wind turbines have on some of their human neighbors.

“My personal position is that we really need to pause until we do some very good studies,” she said. She compares such a study to the search for side effects that is undertaken before a potent new drug is released for general use.

In the field of wind energy, she notes, “it has been a very difficult situation, because a lot of investment has already taken place.”

Ontario alone, she estimates, has between 500 and 600 working turbines.

Absent the sort of study, the wind power industry is free to make statements like this one from the Canadian Wind Energy Association, to the Orangeville Banner: “We say it’s quite conclusively demonstrated in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that there’s no causal linkage that’s been found between sounds from wind turbines and human health.”

The industry’s stand on the matter, and its apparent determination to tie financial settlements to gag orders, isolates people who do suffer side effects.

In Amaranth, Ms. Ashbee-Lormand recalls, “We were experiencing problems, and being told we were the only people in the wind farm who were having problems. They really do try and keep it quiet.” Then Ms. Ashbee-Lormand saw Helen Fraser on television, talking about the problems that led her and her husband, Bruce, to sell their home.

The Frasers lived in the neighboring township of Melancthon, which hosts the majority of the 133 towers in Canadian Hydro’s “Eco-Power Center.” They are the other family whose home, the utility acknowledged utility to Banner reporter Richard Vivian, it purchased as a result of the residents’ health complaints.

The four other homes it bought, Canadian Hydro told the Banner, were needed for storage and to house construction workers.

Ms. Fraser disputes that vigorously. All the purchases, she insists, were due to residents’ complaints of health problems. One of them was a dairy farmer, she says, who complained that his cows stopped calving, and their milk production suffered accordingly. “He moved to Saskatchewan,” Ms. Fraser said.

Unlike Ms. Ashbee-Lormand, Ms. Fraser said she is barred only from discussing the terms of the purchase agreement, and can talk freely about what led to it.

The couple broke ground for their new home on County Road 17 on their second wedding anniversary in 1975. Built to their specifications, the five-bedroom home went up on a one-acre lot on the back corner of a farm that was then owned by Bruce’s parents. The stone facing on the front of the house came from the nearby farm of Helen’s parents.

They raised their four children in the house, planted scores of trees, grew bushels of potatoes in their vegetable garden.

When construction started on the wind turbines in 2005 the Frasers were interested and, Ms. Fraser insists, sympathetic witnesses.

Mr. Fraser, a retired crops expert for the province of Ontario, clocked a big gravel truck rumbling by the house every 30 seconds, hauling materials for the network of roads that crisscross the flat farmland around their former house.

He marveled at the scale of the project, the deep holes, 60 feet across, for turbine foundations that each absorbed truckloads of concrete and a tractor trailer load of rebar. The towers rise 256 feet, he said, and the turbine blades extend their height to 386 feet.

The closest tower is 1,410 feet from the house – “Much too close,” Mr. Fraser said on a recent visit to the site.

But before the turbines started turning in March 2006, Ms. Fraser insists, “I was still for them. I’m for green. We compost and recycle. I’m totally for green.”

Once the big blades began to turn, Ms. Fraser said, “I started to get headaches, then body aches, and a feeling like something was crawling out of my ear.”

Her problems varied with the direction of the wind, Ms. Fraser recalled. “If the blades were facing the house, I wrote the day off. I couldn’t concentrate. My heart would beat to the pulse of the turbines. We’d have to keep the windows closed.”

When the couple took a vacation to a beach on Lake Huron, she said, “all my symptoms, within 24 hours, cleared up.” When they came home, she said, the symptoms returned.

“If the blades were facing the northeast I wouldn’t sleep at all,” Ms. Fraser said. The family dog couldn’t sleep either, she said, “and nine times out of ten she’d pee on the floor.”

That August a 25-day trip to Canada’s east coast provided quick relief. “I never had aches, no ringing in my ears, nothing crawling out of them,” Ms. Fraser said. “Bruce’s blood sugar went back to normal.” Mr. Fraser is a diabetic, and at home his blood sugar levels had been all over the map.

“Back home we come and the symptoms started all over again,” Ms. Fraser said. “I started realizing this has to be the turbines. I started looking on the Net and found that this is a common problem. I said, ‘Okay, I’m not nuts.’”

Things got even worse with the arrival of winter, Ms. Fraser said. Coming from a lower angle, the sun shone through the wind turbines and cast their flickering shadows into the house.

The strobe effect gave her a pounding headache, Ms. Fraser said. “One day after 45 minutes I went to the basement – the dog beat me there. I thought the top was coming off my head. I was holding the sides of my head, my eyes were running, I was sick to my stomach.”

Beyond the physical symptoms, Ms. Fraser recalls a feeling of uneasiness. “You can’t get that anxious feeling out of yourself; feeling like you’re in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It upsets your equilibrium.”

In 2007, on their thirty-fourth wedding anniversary, the Frasers moved into a house in the nearby town of Shelburne.

The company had made them an offer and, after talking to the grown children, all living in Toronto, the couple decided to take it.

“If we decided to keep the house, we wouldn’t be able to sell it,” Ms. Fraser said. “Basically I call it shut up money.”

Though she is free to discuss her experience with the turbines, and frequently does so, Ms. Fraser said she did agree not to testify in person at hearings on wind power that the Ontario Municipal Board was holding at the time.

“It was heartbreaking when we sold that house,” Ms. Fraser said. “Just heartbreaking.”

There were two years of extensive renovation before the Frasers stopped calling the Shelburne residence a house. With 25 friends and family sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner this fall, Ms. Fraser said, “we officially called it a home. It was a hard two years.”

Meanwhile an employee of Canadian Hydro lives in the couple’s old house.

It’s listed for sale in the Orangeville Banner, though the wind turbine that sits so prominently behind the house is somehow missing from the small photo in the newspaper ad. Though she can’t discuss the details of the original sale, Ms. Fraser noted that the asking price has, over time, drifted down from $298,000 to its present level of $284,900.

“If I had advice for any municipality,” Ms. Fraser said, “it would be ‘Please, please, please do the research on the health effects before you consider destroying people’s lives.’”

Video:

Video: 8:42 AM

The turbines are operational now, and we have experienced first hand shadow flicker. I’m an optimistic realist, but no longer optimistic regarding shadow flicker. This is a small portion of over 45 minutes of shadow flicker that occurred in our home this morning.

Video: 8:42 AM

FPL Energy Illinois Wind, in the lawsuit it filed Friday, says the Lee Village Board “arbitrarily” denied their request for permits to build six wind turbines within the one-and-a-half miles around the village that municipalities have control over under state law. The company wants a judge to order Lee to grant the permits.

But attorney Keith Foster with Foster and Buick Law Group, which represents the village, says the Board’s denial was based on input it received from the wind farm company and after hearing potential reasons for denying the request during two public hearings. He says the Board’s reasons met the requirement for denying the permits.

“The reason would have to have a reasonable basis so any reason at all that is considered rational by an ordinary person would be a basis for denial,” says Foster.

The Village Board’s reasons for the denials included feeling the 450-foot tall turbines would be too close to homes.

The Village also wants a judge to examine how the company’s lawsuit was filed, with the village’s lawyers saying an unidentified, “badge-waving” agent filed the suit and an unidentified person served summons to village board members while demanding they appear in court this week. The law firm says it has serious questions about the tactics of the wind farm company and its attorneys.

“And we are going to monitor that closely and we are going to raise objections with any tactics that are used, any procedures that are employed, that are outside of the rules that we all have to follow that are given to us by the Supreme Court,” says Foster.

An official for the wind farm project calls the claims misinterpretations and misunderstandings.

http://www.1360wlbk.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=559%3Alee-wants-suit-by-wind-farm-company-dismissed&catid=1%3Alatest-news&Itemid=65

“We believe the Village of Lee acted well within its authority in rejecting the sitting request,” attorney John Countryman said in a written statement Wednesday. “I have serious questions about the tactics of this Florida outfit and their Chicago attorneys.”

The document filed Wednesday asks a judge to investigate who was involved in filing the lawsuit and serving the summons. The document also asks a judge to throw the lawsuit out because it was filed improperly.

FPL Energy Illinois Wind LLC filed the lawsuit Friday in DeKalb County Court, claiming the Lee Village Board improperly denied the company’s application for permits to build six wind turbines. The turbines would not be within village limits, but they fall within the village’s jurisdiction, according to state law.

Anthony Pedroni, project manager of the DeKalb-Lee wind farm project, said any problems raised by lawyers for Lee are “misinterpretations or misunderstandings.” He said he was certain the law firm hired by FPL followed the letter of the law in having summons served to Lee Village Board members.

“It’s a well-respected firm, and they know how to properly go about this process,” Pedroni said.

FPL’s lawsuit demands a judge compel approval of the permits – allowing construction to move forward – and to award at least $200,000 in damages for time and resources lost while the project sits idle.

The six turbines involved in this lawsuit are part of a 151-turbine wind farm that straddles the DeKalb-Lee county line. Turbines in the non-municipal portions of the project – which will be home to most of the turbines – are under construction.

Another legal action is pending; a citizens group filed a lawsuit in July, claiming the DeKalb County Board improperly granted construction permits and is seeking a halt to the project.

By Kristen Schmidt

Daily Chronicle

23 September 2009