Resource Library Category: Michigan (12 items)
Documents presented here are not the product of nor are they necessarily endorsed by National Wind Watch. This resource library is provided to assist anyone wishing to research the issue of industrial wind power and the impacts of its development. The information should be evaluated by each reader to come to their own conclusions about the many areas of debate.
Letter to Riga Township Planning Commission
On request of interested parties in Riga Township, I am writing to provide important information about siting wind turbines to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety. I am a Member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering with over thirty years of experience in acoustics including many years working in industrial power generation noise control. I have conducted independent studies of wind turbine noise including actual field measurements of operating wind turbines in the State of Maine over the last year, where significant community reaction has occurred near wind turbine facilities equipped with smaller wind turbines than proposed for the Riga Township.
I understand that there have been suggestions of using a wind turbine noise limit of 45 dBA at a distance of 1300 feet or so in Riga Township. Experience in New England has proven that these noise levels at these distances for wind turbines sited in rural areas are associated with significant adverse community reactions, widespread complaints, appeals to stop the noise, and legal action. When siting large industrial wind turbines in quiet rural areas, lower maximum noise levels and farther distances are recommended to prevent adverse community reaction and protect public health and welfare with an adequate margin of safety.
This letter presents a discussion of community reactions to noise, guidelines for appropriate maximum permissible noise limits in rural areas, measured noise levels versus distance and observed community responses. I appreciate your consideration of this letter and believe you will find this information useful in your determinations of how to protect the health and welfare of Riga Township.
Download original document: “Letter to Riga Township Planning Commission”
FWS letter against Garden Peninsula wind energy development
Source: Hicks, Scott
… Based on the data currently available, we must once again recommend that you not construct a commercial wind energy development on the Garden Peninsula, because of the high potential for avian mortalities and violations of Federal wildlife laws. Since 2007, our office has expressed significant concerns with this project. Our concerns are based on several factors, including the proximity of the project to a Great Lakes shoreline and Big Bay de Noc, the proximity of the project to adjacent wetland habitats, and the fact that this peninsula will tend to funnel avian migrants and serve as a point of departure or arrival for birds crossing Lake Michigan. These factors are all likely to lead to a high level of avian use on the Garden Peninsula that could result in high levels of avian mortality by wind turbines at the proposed project site.
Because of our concerns, in our early project correspondence with Dr. Paul Kerlinger on December 18, 2007, we recommended that no turbines be constructed within three miles of a Great Lakes shoreline. On June 25, 2009, in a letter to Mr. Rick Wilson, we again recommended that no turbines be sited within three miles of the shoreline and further recognized that it would be very difficult to achieve this three-mile distance at any place within the Garden Peninsula. In 2011, Heritage presented our office with data collected specifically for this project site and this data … has validated our wildlife related concerns for this proposed project.
We were in the process of finalizing additional information that you had requested concerning our bald eagle risk assessment, when we received your October 18, 2011, letter transmitting a “Comprehensive Avian Risk Assessment for the Garden Peninsula Wind Energy Project, Delta County, Michigan” (September 2011, Curry & Kerlinger, LLC-9-27-11). Your letter indicated that you accepted the conclusions of the Curry & Kerlinger Risk Assessment and intended to move forward with construction of the wind energy development, regardless of our previous recommendations and wildlife concerns.
First, we strongly disagree with the conclusions presented in the Curry & Kerlinger Risk Assessment. The data available suggests that construction of a commercial wind energy development on Garden Peninsula is likely to pose a very high risk for avian mortalities, including a high risk for bald eagle mortalities. The Service will provide you with a more detailed response related to our concerns about the Curry & Kerlinger Risk Assessment in the near future.
Second, although we have appreciated your periodic efforts to coordinate with our office as your project planning has progressed, you have failed to sufficiently collect and analyze comprehensive information concerning avian use of the project area prior to construction. The Service recommends that this information is collected and analyzed well in advance of project construction so that it is available to inform project siting. Additionally, you do not appear to be adequately considering the limited data you have collected. The proposed turbine locations are in areas where you have documented high avian use and thus are not adequately set back from the Great lakes shoreline or other important wildlife habitats. Therefore, we continue to recommend that the project be substantially reevaluated or abandoned. …
Scott Hicks
Field Supervisor
Fish and Wildlife Service
East Lansing Field Office (ES)
2651 Coolidge Road, Suite 101
East Lansing, Michigan 48823-6316
[November 4, 2011, to Ms. Xio Cordoba, Heritage Sustainable Energy, 121 East Front Street, Traverse City, MI 49684-2570]
Dynamic measurements of wind turbine acoustic signals, employing sound quality engineering methods considering the time and frequency sensitivities of human perception
Source: Bray, Wade; and James, Richard
A set of binaural time-recordings and analyses of wind turbine noise outside and inside a residence in Huron County, Michigan, made over two days and the intervening night in December 2009, is presented, centering on analysis at the time-frequency resolutions of human hearing according to the well-established practices of sound quality engineering and soundscaping.
The purpose of this paper is to present wind turbine acoustic measurements at these time-frequency scalings and to suggest that such consideration, frequently neglected in favor of frequency resolution and long-term level averages, could augment the perceptually inappropriate averages (often A-weighted) typically taken over much longer intervals. The authors maintain that most measurements of wind turbines up to now have not considered, or not adequately considered, these signals’ very complex and varying behaviors at the time-bandwidth scalings of human perception. Although treating wind turbine noise aspects at all relevant frequencies, this paper will concentrate on low-frequency information.
What this paper adds to the discussion of wind turbine noise and potential adverse health effects
The reason the wind industry experts could claim that wind turbines produced insignificant levels of infra and low frequency sound is not because there isn’t any, but instead, because the instruments/methods they used could not detect it. They went hunting for a needle in the haystack using a magnet when the needle was made out of plastic.
When analyzed using a tool that can detect it, we find that it is there and at SPL’s much higher than previously considered likely. The infrasound from wind turbines rises and falls in sound pressure level (amplitude modulation) at a very rapid rate (approximately 60 msec peak to peak or so) and with a high dynamic range, phenomena too fast to be ‘noticed’ when standard acoustical filters are used to isolate this region of acoustic energy (a 1 Hz ANSI S1.11 1/3-octave filter has an impulse response of about 5 seconds). The understatement of the true peaks that occurs during analysis using standard acoustical instruments/methods flattened and stretched out the dynamic modulation (crest factor) leading to a misconception that the levels were insignificant.
This study shows that when analyzed according to the time response of the human transducer, the peaks of the energy waves can be above 90 dB SPL. Combined with the findings of Dr. Salt’s research this analysis shows that the dynamically modulated infrasound can be perceived by the auditory system at levels that are below the conventionally-determined threshold of audibility.
It is the short duration and extent of the change in sound pressure that is stimulating the vestibular system, not the overall energy level. This is not about the average energy but instead about the short duration, peak values and extent of change in energy assuming that some lower threshold like Dr. Salt’s 60 dBG for OHC activity has been reached.
Presented at NOISE-CON 2011, Portland, Oregon, July 25-27, 2011
Wade Bray
HEAD Acoustics, Inc.
Brighton, Mich.
Richard James
E-Coustic Solutions
Okemos, Mich.
Recommended Update of Sample Zoning for Wind Energy Systems
Source: MacMillan, William; Punch, Jerry; and Rosenman, Kenneth
On April 16, 2008, a document titled Sample Zoning for Wind Energy Systems was published by the state of Michigan. That document is attached as an appendix. Recent contacts with Michigan state government offices revealed that the state has no current plans to update the guideline. Consequently, we prepared this report in an attempt to inform the public and assist municipalities and counties that are responsible for developing zoning for wind energy systems. We strongly recommend that the state of Michigan consider our recommendations in adopting an official revision of its earlier guideline on the siting of onshore, utility-scale wind turbines. …
The proposed revisions were developed through regular meetings, consultation with experts in acoustics and wind turbine design, reviews of the existing scientific literature and the review of currently adopted siting guidelines of states and foreign countries.
Download original document: “Recommended Update of Sample Zoning for Wind Energy Systems”
