A recent letter in this newspaper by a writer who visited an Illinois wind factory reported that it wasn’t noisy or annoying in any way.
It would serve readers well to consider that this was an industry-sponsored bus trip. The group saw and heard what the industry wanted it to. The industry doesn’t take its guests to noisy places.
Visitors did not experience the changing diurnal and seasonal noise levels, or flashing lights 24/7 and flickering blades for the rest of their lives.
Others have made private trips to interview people who suffer from headaches, insomnia or depression, or those who live shut away inside their homes with heavy drapes over their windows to shut out flicker and flashing lights.
We rural people were advised to just shut out the noise and ignore it. But there are many whose physical or mental health depends on a peaceful environment. We thought we were safe here; but no more.
The writer said she lives beside a noisy U.S. highway that doesn’t bother her. It’s different on the escarpment. Heavy trucks passing on the road several hundred feet away shake our house. The bedrock carries the vibrations to the house foundation. That is the difference between low-frequency noise and ordinary ambient noise of wind and trees.
Wind turbines are reported to generate much low-frequency noise. That wind factory they visited wasn’t on the escarpment either. Most of Calumet County is on the ledge. City people probably don’t have to drink manure-contaminated water, either. Turbines rooted in bedrock could increase this already serious problem.
Was the writer’s opinion really unbiased? No. Her information came from industry spokespeople as presented on an industry-sponsored bus trip.
Carroll Rudy,
Brothertown
23 December 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/12/25/letter-on-wind-factory-trip-didnt-include-health-effects/