June 26, 2012
Guam

Mangilao couple concerned about wind turbines

by Ken Quintanilla | KUAM News | www.kuam.com 26 June 2012

Guam – Standing on the roof of their Mangilao home, Philip and Jan McCormick don’t even want to envision what two wind turbines will sound like – let alone how it will dominate their landscape and home. “This isn’t the way we want to live our life here in our home,” said Philip.

He refers to several negative consequences that would come about through a project intended for educational purposes along with reducing the carbon footprint at the University of Guam. It’s in Mangilao where the McCormicks have lived for over 25 years and are 300 feet away from an area that has been designated as an installation site for the twin turbines. Jan says in the short period of time they’ve had to study the turbines such as researching the wind turbine’s manufacturers, what they’ve learned about the effects is quite disturbing including, Wind Turbine Generator Syndrome.

“It’s an assortment of all various different physiological and emotional affects that can continuous droning of noise can cause,” she said.

The acoustic data has shown that people within distance would hear anywhere from 35 to 50 decibels on a fluctuating level – a sound they says isn’t simply like a car driving by with its radio on as officials have described it. “So where we’re at, we’re going to hear it the most,” Philip added.

And while the couple is concerned about other issues such as the loss of property value to even how the sound would impact UOG students and staff, they feel that officials haven’t well-researched the issue nor have offered full disclosure. “They say in their report we don’t know what the sound levels are going to be so we’re going to put it up and then test, we don’t want to be guinea pigs here,” he said.

Ultimately for the McCormicks, their plan was to live the rest of their lives in the area as shared by members of the neighborhood as well. “And to imagine that our forever is going to always have a droning background of a turbine always influenced by the affect the air so ever changing. It will absolutely destroy the peaceful sanctuary that we and our neighborhood experiences,” Jan noted.

UOG president Dr. Robert Underwood meanwhile told KUAM News that he is not only aware of the concerns but taking them very seriously. He adds while UOG has thought about the project methodically even having campus hearings on the case, he will be requesting for the Guam Land Use Commission to allay consideration for another month offering more time to address concerns.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/06/26/mangilao-couple-concerned-about-wind-turbines/