I do not know the source of the WMN headline “Wind turbine noise ‘not an issue’ – report” in an article on August 4, but find this statement is highly misleading.
First, it conveniently refers to “Noise” and not to the actual segment of noise that was considered by the report and was so clearly stipulated in the title i.e. Research into Aerodynamic Modulation of Wind Turbine Noise: Final report.
Second, even in the Government’s own press statement they did not go so far as to make that comment, indeed they said inter alia: “It will continue to keep the issue under review.”
Third, nowhere in that official 58-page University of Salford report was such a statement unequivocally written.
Indeed, the final paragraph of the summary of the report says: “The low incidence of AM and the low numbers of people adversely affected make it difficult to justify further research funding in preference to other more widespread noise issues. On the other hand, since AM cannot be fully predicted at present, and its causes are not fully understood, we consider it might be prudent to carry out further research to improve understanding in this area.”
In normal circumstances, if 20% of a product released in the public domain was found to be faulty it would be withdrawn.
If one in five manufactured items might be harmful and they were not instantly recalled it might even be regarded as wanton negligence.
Not so when this government-commissioned report finds that 27 out of 133 wind farm sites operational across the UK had attracted noise complaints at some point.
The fact remains that until a wind farm is built and operational even the “experts” cannot predict what, if any, type of noise will actually affect the occupants of nearby homes.
If that is not an issue I don’t know what is.
Ivan Buxton
Ashwater
21 August 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/08/21/wind-turbine-noise-is-an-issue/