Alerts
These postings are provided to help publicize the efforts of affiliated groups and individuals related to industrial wind energy development. Most of the notices posted here are not the product of nor are they necessarily endorsed by National Wind Watch.
Australia, Health, Law, Newsletters, Noise, Property values •
Source: Stockyardhill Community Guardians
Stockyardhill Industrial Wind Development Update
- Origin Energy has increased the turbine size by 75% without any community consultation and no new background noise monitoring or modeling being undertaken. The original permit approval for the turbine size was 2MW, now Origin is installing 3-3.5MW turbines – currently the biggest in the world. Neither the State or Federal Government, nor the Pyrenees Shire have insisted on a new Noise Impact Assessment to take into account the increase in size which will lead to more infrasound, noise and adverse health issues.
- Origin’s public liaisons, Paul Duboudin and Catherine Mansfield refuse to answer questions from concerned community members regarding this. Why?
- Fact: 157 turbines approved, each turbine the equivalent of a 747 jumbo jet on top of a 20-storey skyscraper. All the turbines are located within 1-10km of houses.
- Stockyardhill Community Guardians have fundraised and purchased state of the art, world-class noise monitoring equipment that will soon be available to hire at a small rate to undertake private, independent, pre-construction noise monitoring on your property. Data analysis and a report will be provided by a trained and qualified sound expert. This information can then be used in any future litigation cases and as proof of increased infrasound and noise in your home.
- Origin has not yet signed off and finalised signatures from landholders south of Skipton, for access to install the power line route that will join the wind development to the sub station south of Lismore. Desperate for these signatures, Origin is using bullying techniques and has threatened legal action and compulsory acquisition of land. The Skipton Power line group has maintained their united approach, which insists on underground cabling on the roadside.
- Origin is going ahead with plans to quarry the side of Mount Monmot for construction materials. Again, without community consultation.
- Property values around Stockyard Hill have already seen a decrease, in particular those neighbouring the turbine hosts, now more commonly known as ‘the buffer zone for an industrial site’. Evidence of decreased shire rates has already been confirmed in Victoria (South Gippsland).
- Fact: Origin has already threatened serious legal action against landholders wishing to get out of contracts to host turbines.
- The Pyrenees Shire continues to bury its head in the sand and handball the hard questions concerning Stockyardhill Industrial Wind Development to the State Government. They are not equipped nor have the financial backing to challenge, question or independently assess any Wind development in this shire.
Stockyardhill Community Guardians Newsletter #1 March 2013 [part 1]
syhcg@bigpond.com
PO BOX 55, SKIPTON 3361
www.stopthesethings.com.au
Stockyardhill Community Guardians is a volunteer group representing over 100 local members that share grave concerns regarding the Stockyardhill Wind Farm development. Established 6 years ago, the group focuses on empowering people with independent information that is not wind industry funded, in order to be able to make educated decisions and remain community orientated. The Stockyardhill Community Guardians joins the global network that is fighting for justice, independent health research and fairer outcomes for rural people regarding wind industrialisation of regional areas.
Download original document: “Stockyardhill Community Guardians Newsletter #1 March 2013″
Australia, Health, Newsletters, Noise •
Source: Stockyardhill Community Guardians
What we know already but the Wind industry are trying to hide
- We know wind turbines generate audible, low frequency and infrasound noise and vibration. This has been measured inside and outside of sufferers’ homes.
- We know health problems (totally new, or old afflictions aggravated) start to appear around wind projects sited in most rural settings with turbines of 0.6MW or larger, co-incident with the start up of operations.
- We know that the health problems continue to emerge in more people and intensify as time exposure increases.
- We know that increasing turbine blade length and power generating capacity increases both total noise emitted and the percentage of that noise present as low frequency noise and infrasound; which makes problems such as sleep disturbance more likely to occur in more households out to greater distances from the turbine (refer to Dr. Laurie’s Annexure 10, “Low Frequency Noise from Large Turbines”, Møller and Pedersen, 2011)
- We know that the appearance and intensity of symptoms diminish with distance from turbines, a crude but consistent indicator of a dose response effect in the few studies with systematic data collection.
- We know that similar effects or symptom clusters have been identified in many projects in Australia and overseas, and around other sources of infrasound and low frequency noise.
- We know sleep disturbance followed by sleep deprivation is the most common problem reported by wind project neighbours, with devastating effects on long term health and well-being and productivity.
- We know that the symptoms can be extremely serious. We know there is an increased risk of permanent damage to mental and physical health from the clinical cases we have observed.
- We know there is an increased risk of certain life threatening events, including heart attack, stroke and suicide from severe sleep deprivation, which is supported by recent and longstanding current knowledge within the peer reviewed medical literature.
- We know that some 40 families have abandoned their houses or sold to developers in Victoria, NSW and South Australia, because they, or their families, became so ill whilst living in their homes. We have interviewed well over 100 sufferers, and the pattern of their suffering is identical, even if the specific cluster of symptoms experienced may differ in detail between sufferers.
- We know, from reports at Glenthompson and Mt Bryan, if turbines are shut down at night, peoples’ health and sleep improves.
- We know if sufferers move away almost all the symptoms fade and disappear. If sufferers move back and the turbines are operating, the symptoms recur.
- We know that neither sleeping pills nor tranquilisers nor earplugs nor double glazing nor house insulation is of help with reducing episodes of sleep disturbance; an indicator of the presence of low frequency noise and infrasound.
- We have formed a professional view that the sufferers are neither hypochondriacs, nor casual of the truth, nor terrified; but are typical farmers; enduring of hardship and injury, uncomplaining and patient. Their suffering and symptoms are real and in no way do they exaggerate their pain. Sufferers are both turbine hosts and non-participating neighbours to wind farms.
Stockyardhill Community Guardians Newsletter #1 March 2013 [part 2]
syhcg@bigpond.com
PO BOX 55, SKIPTON 3361
www.stopthesethings.com.au
Stockyardhill Community Guardians is a volunteer group representing over 100 local members that share grave concerns regarding the Stockyardhill Wind Farm development. Established 6 years ago, the group focuses on empowering people with independent information that is not wind industry funded, in order to be able to make educated decisions and remain community orientated. The Stockyardhill Community Guardians joins the global network that is fighting for justice, independent health research and fairer outcomes for rural people regarding wind industrialisation of regional areas.
Download original document: “Stockyardhill Community Guardians Newsletter #1 March 2013″
Australia, Health, Newsletters, Noise •
Source: Stockyardhill Community Guardians
Recent developments on wind turbine noise and health
Our understanding of the clinical patterns of illness and the acoustics of wind turbine noise has increased significantly over the last year.
We now understand that much of the pathology being reported by residents is related to chronic sleep deprivation and chronic physiological stress, in addition to the vestibular disorder symptoms which have been called “wind turbine syndrome” and include nausea, vertigo, balance disorders, ear pressure, and headaches.
Recent work by Professor Con Doolan at Waterloo wind development in South Australia has shown that episodes of “annoyance” which included some of the symptoms above, are DIRECTLY correlating with particular low frequencies at certain “doses” of sound energy. This is evidence of a direct causal relationship.
Unfortunately despite the residents in these acoustic surveys being very clear that these symptoms were correlating with operating wind turbines, because the wind developer TRU Energy (now Energy Australia) refused to cooperate with Professor Con Doolan he could not definitively determine that the noise frequencies being measured came from the wind turbines and not from some other source.
A recent literature review conducted by two public health medical practitioners in Ontario has found that not one of the peer reviewed published studies showed NO effect from the wind turbines – in other words, all the studies showed there WAS an effect on “human distress” which included sleep deprivation. Three of the studies showed a dose response effect, and the studies by Dr Michael Nissenbaum and Dr Daniel Shepherd were both described as being of excellent or robust quality.
In the Australian Cherry Tree case currently before VCAT, the two commissioners made some remarks on Wednesday 6th March, 2013, which included the following:
“The Tribunal finds itself in a position where there is some direct evidence and much anecdotal evidence that people living in proximity to wind farms experience deleterious health effects, and those effects are of the same type, being sleep disturbance, increased anxiety, headaches, and pressure at the base of the neck. There is clearly an association between wind farms and the symptoms that have been described. The question is whether there is a causal link.”
Professor Con Doolan’s unique research has shown evidence of a direct causal link, between sound energies and symptoms, and it is research of this type, directly in the field measuring the sound energy present at the same time as symptoms are being recorded, which is so desperately needed to identify why some people out to 10km from larger wind turbines are getting the characteristic body vibrations and distressing sleep disturbance, which we know is so damaging for long term health.
Stockyardhill Community Guardians Newsletter #1 March 2013 [part 3]
syhcg@bigpond.com
PO BOX 55, SKIPTON 3361
www.stopthesethings.com.au
Stockyardhill Community Guardians is a volunteer group representing over 100 local members that share grave concerns regarding the Stockyardhill Wind Farm development. Established 6 years ago, the group focuses on empowering people with independent information that is not wind industry funded, in order to be able to make educated decisions and remain community orientated. The Stockyardhill Community Guardians joins the global network that is fighting for justice, independent health research and fairer outcomes for rural people regarding wind industrialisation of regional areas.
Download original document: “Stockyardhill Community Guardians Newsletter #1 March 2013″
Ten Ways to Kill Big Wind
Despite many victories, communities around the world are still facing a plague of industrial wind projects that like hideous War of the Worlds steel monsters are destroying communities, mountains, and wildlands, slaughtering birds and bats, sickening people and driving them from their homes.
Even though these wind projects do not reduce greenhouse gases or fossil fuel use, they have dreadful environmental, social and economic impacts on whole regions. But they are a tool for energy companies and investment banks to make billions in taxpayer subsidies that get added to our national debt.
The good news is that communities worldwide are learning how to defeat these dreadful projects. More and more laws and moratoriums are being passed against them, while other projects are defeated on legal grounds or by overwhelming public opposition.
In Hawaii, an industrial wind project that would have constructed ninety 42-story turbine towers across seventeen square miles of Molokai has been defeated by a determined two-year effort of the island’s residents. In the process we learned many tactics, which I’ve tried to summarize below and are further described in Saving Paradise:
- Show wind projects for what they are: industrial. Not environmental, not green, not renewable, and cause no reductions in greenhouse gases or fossil fuel use, no long-term jobs and few short-term ones.
- Don’t be nice. These wind developers are your enemies: they want to destroy where you live, steal your money (property values), and are quite happy to literally drive you from your homes. They will lie, cheat, bribe, buy politicians, and do whatever else they can to win. They won’t be fair and you can’t trust them.
- Create a group and get your community behind you. Point out property value loss, human health issues, environmental destruction, tourism impacts, and all the other dreadful results of industrial wind. If you have a homeowners’ associations, make them aware of the danger so they can join the fight.
- Publicize your case. In the newspapers, TV and radio, on blogs and in nationwide petitions. Use good graphics. Go viral, worldwide. Develop a good professional website with lots of information and ways for viewers to participate. Community members should write op-eds and letters to the editor. A very powerful tool is frequent press releases that pass on news reports from National Wind Watch and other groups about the devastating impacts of industrial wind. These press releases should be sent to all relevant media outlets and local, state and national legislators.
- Do mailings to everyone. In Molokai we sent two mailings to all the island’s 2,700 addresses. The first mailer described the dangers of the project and included a survey with a stamped return envelope. We had a massive response, with 97% of responses against the project, and our group gained hundreds of new members. A year later we sent a second mailer with photo mockups showing how the turbines would tower over homes and landscapes. This mailer also included a bumper sticker which many residents then put on their cars.
- Be visible. Put up lots of signs, both homemade and professionally done. Put up billboards if you can. Professional signs show you mean business, and are taken more seriously.
- Find legislators who will help you. On the state level, Republicans are often more responsive and more concerned about the environment than traditionalist Democrats who have bought the idea that wind is environmental (or who are receiving contributions from wind companies).
- Litigate. Find every avenue to impair or slow the wind developers. Once the Washington industrial welfare subsidies are removed, industrial wind companies will vanish overnight.
- Get property value loss appraisals. Average losses of 40% or more are being reported; in Molokai, one of the reasons the landowner planning the project cancelled it was they estimated a 75% property value loss on their lands near the project. Publicize the loss of assessed value at county level, and how that will reduce tax revenues. In most cases, property value loss far exceeds any revenue the county might receive from the project.
- Civil disobedience. Politicians and energy companies are terrified of this. Don’t be afraid to go to jail to protect the land and homes you love. On Molokai we planned if necessary to start a hunger strike on the island, and there were people ready to starve to death to protect our island. The level of your commitment is equal to the level of your success.
—Posted on March 8, 2013, by Mike Bond, mikebondbooks.com
Wind Turbine Noise 2013
28-30 August 2013
Marriott City Centre Hotel, Denver, USA
This will be the 5th in a series of international conferences which will once again provide a venue for all those with an interest in wind turbine noise, and its effects on people, to meet together and also meet with those who design wind turbine installations, both in industry and in the planning process. This conference is organised by INCE/Europe in co-operation with the Institute of Noise Control Engineering–USA whose Noise Con 2013 conference will be held in the same venue on 26-28 August. There will be an arrangement for reduced fees for delegates attending both conferences.
Offers of papers are invited and prospective authors should submit an abstract of around 200 words by 15 April 2013 to organiser/windturbinenoise2013.org.
Website: http://www.windturbinenoise2013.org
Likely Topics
- Sources of noise in wind turbines and dependence on atmospheric conditions
- Wind turbine noise modelling
- Microturbines including machines for urban projects
- Interactions of wind turbines in wind farms
- Design for low noise
- Propagation of wind turbine noise over land and water
- Wind turbines offshore
- Vibration from wind turbines
- Standards and regulations
- Effects of wind turbine noise on individuals and collective behaviour
- Planning requirements and decision-making
- Acoustic monitoring and surveillance
- Condition Monitoring
- Future prospects
And any other topic related to wind turbine noise and vibration – their generation, propagation, effects.
There is also an introductory course on noise on the afternoon prior to the conference which has proven very popular in previous years. There will be a table-top exhibition and further detail of this are available on the Noise Con 2013 website: http://inceusa.org/nc13/
CD-Roms of the Proceedings of the previous conferences are available from the INCE/Europe office.
Further information from:
Cathy Mackenzie
Conference Secretary, INCE/Europe
Riverside House
4 Oakland Vale, New Brighton,
Merseyside
CH45 1LQ, UK
Tel: +44 (0)151 638 0281
Fax:+44 (0)151 639 5212
email: cathy/cmmsoffice.demon.co.uk
Airriequhillart Wind Farm Protest
We oppose the Scottish Government’s destruction of Scotland’s scenery by forcing through Industrial Turbine Sites (wind farms) against the wishes of local people. In particular we oppose the proposed EDF‐Airriequhillart project in Dumfries and Galloway. It is too close to existing homes and has poor road access. It will destroy a beautiful wooded, lowland valley, rich in wildlife, to produce an insignificant amount of electricity. Many millions of pounds will go to absentee landlords and the French Economy. We must save this beautiful valley, its wildlife and the health and well-being of the people who live there.
Sign: https://www.change.org/en-GB/organizations/airriequhillartwindfarmprotest
More information: http://www.airriequhillartwindfarmprotest.com
WIND RUSH: A Look at the Wind Turbine Controversy
On CBC TV’s Doc Zone, Thursday, February 7, 9PM and (CBC News Network) Saturday, February 9, 11PM
[See video clips below.]
Driving by a wind farm, looking at the rural houses, it’s easy to be skeptical about the talk of wind turbines making people sick. We’re told that wind turbines are good and green. So how could those people living by them have an issue?
But there is a problem — and it’s there because some governments and wind companies didn’t do their homework before installing megawatt after megawatt of huge industrial machines. And as a result there are people living among the turbines who are suffering.
In the new documentary film WIND RUSH, produced for CBC Doc Zone by Toronto’s 90th Parallel Productions, the battleground for the pro and anti wind forces is southern Ontario. The government there pledged to wean the province off coal fired generation plants and replace them with green wind energy. WIND RUSH will be broadcast on Thursday, February 7 at 9PM (9:30PM NT).
But as soon as the turbines went up in places like Wolfe Island, Amaranth and Bruce County, people realized they could hear them. Sometimes it was like a whisper, but other times it sounded more like a jet taking off.
And then it got worse.
New turbines started coming in at two and three times the size of the old ones. And they were even louder. It led to chronic sleeplessness for many people living close by — and that can lead to diabetes, depression and heart disease. Others were affected in their inner ears by low-level sounds that set off their equilibrium. Doctors started seeing patient after patient complaining of the same sets of symptoms. And then people started to realize that no one had done any significant human health studies before giving the green light to the turbine farms.
WIND RUSH takes viewers to southwestern Alberta, where wind has been an energy staple for more than twenty years. There is plenty of room for humans and windmills to coexist — a stark contrast to Ontario, where the same prairie technology was installed in a dramatically different landscape. The film then moves to Denmark, a country long considered the poster-child for the wind energy movement. But as WIND RUSH reveals, the relationship between the Danes and turbines has soured.
WIND RUSH talks to people on either side of the turbine divide, and then turns to scientists to try and determine what has gone wrong. In the next several years the turbines will double in size again — bigger, louder and more powerful. But without sufficient research have the people who live among the wind farms been forgotten?
WIND RUSH is produced by 90th Parallel Productions of Toronto. Gordon Henderson is Executive Producer. WIND RUSH is produced, written and directed by Andrew Gregg.
For further information, etc. please contact:
David McCaughna,
Publicist, WIND RUSH
David.mccaughna@cbc.ca
416-250-3030
What does a wind turbine sound like? This footage was shot at Enbridge Wind Farm at Underwood, Ontario. There are 110 Vestas V82 turbines there, each one with an output of 1.65 MW. The height of the hub is approximately 70m and the the blades have a diameter of 82m. Wind turbines make different noises at different times under different weather conditions and this was just an average sunny day. Retired nurse Norma Schmidt lives nearby – and she says she isn’t getting much sleep.
