Green energy must be properly planned
The Courier, www.thecourier.com.au 9 January 2012
I am most concerned of the wind turbines’ ill effects to residents at Leonards Hill and Korweinguboora.
I am also most concerned regarding the regular advertisement in the local paper by Hepburn Wind, who are working very hard on diminishing this problem.
In The Advocate (December 14), Hepburn Wind had claimed that “an Australian study found that low frequency sound levels near the beach and in the city were similar to levels just 100 metres from the wind turbines”.
There was no mention of who conducted the study and when it was done.
Additionally, what is the p-value of that study? So far as I know there has been done no comprehensive scientific study in Australia to evaluate audible and sub-audible noises from wind turbines on people.
Furthermore, if you look at the preliminary sound report for the Hepburn Wind Farm, which you can find on their website, it has some interesting maps and images.
Clearly the primary problem with the sound monitoring is it doesn’t take account of infranoise and current standards do not require this.
There also appears to be issues with the monitoring of audible noise. It appears to me that many of consultants’ models and inferences are highly dubious. Furthermore, the consultants make no effort to identify other variables that could affect their models, for example wind direction, effect of landscape features on acoustics, time of day.
Page 17 section 4.8.2 subjective assessment is particularly interesting as this mentions how consultants undertook a subjective assessment using listening test.
The consultants thought that the Hepburn Wind Farm had audible “characteristics typical of normally operating wind turbines” even though the Hepburn Wind Farm was running at reduced capacity.
My family has been affected since the turbines have been operating and we are forced to travel to Melbourne to have some rest. We are getting sick and so are our neighbours and Hepburn Wind is planning to counter our concerns and influence others that there are no problems with their industrial turbines as per their advertisement in The Advocate (December 14).
There are so many non-answered questions. Do they have a right to continue to harm our health? Who gave them permission to do that? How can Hepburn Wind advise and educate public through their advertisements on a regular base, without proof?
We are no against green energy but it has to be properly planned.
If this problem continues to be ignored it will be a very expensive lesson for the whole country. Some of these companies have high disregard for people and the environment.
DR ANDJA MITRIC-ANDJIC
Korweinguboora
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/01/09/green-energy-must-be-properly-planned/