Wind Turbine Health Links

 

Brownsville WI Family Diary

The Brownsville Diary: Entries of a noise log kept by a Brownsville, Wisconsin family living 3/4 miles east of South Byron in Fond Du Lac County, Wisconsin. The new wind turbines have just gone on line there. This log covers the time period from Apr 28, 2008 to May 13, 2008.

Gail Mair Diary Italy

This 12-month diary (January 2007 through December 2007) was compiled by Gail Mair. Mrs. Mair lives with her husband Walter in Tuscany, Italy. Gail (fluent in English, German, and Italian) and Walter (a native of Italy) bought this piece of property some years ago and, in October 2006, moved into the (modest) dream house they had just built. It was to be their retirement home. As construction on their new home was coming to an end, wind developer, Gamesa, was completing construction on its windfarm nearby. In November 2006, the turbines were turned on and the problems of noise were started -- Day after day, relentless, unending. Gail and Walter have asked that their diary be circulated widely, in the hope of saving other communities and individuals from the misery they are living through.

Life with a Turbine 1300 Feet Away- the Wirtz Family

Better Plan WI presents the following story from a family living in a PSC approved wind farm with a wind turbine less than 1300 feet from their door.

Jane Davis Wind Turbine Noise Log

Jane Davis of the UK tracked problems with noise from a wind farm located 930 meters from her home. Her daily log, accessed by clicking on the link below, covers the period from summer 2006 to summer 2007. She and her family have since abandoned their home due to health issues related to the noise.

Malone and Johnsburg WI Radio Interview

Click above to listen: Interview of Malone and Johnsburg residents, KFIX, March 2, 2009

Wind Turbines Shadow Flicker and Noise, Byron Wi

This video shows what happens when wind turbines are irresponsibly sited. The nation is slowly waking up to the downside of wind energy. Developers are not truthful to residents about the impacts these machines will have on the landowners and neighbor's lives.

Industrial Wind Shadow Flicker in Wisconsin

In Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, in spite of what wind developers and wind lobbyists say, the 1000 foot setback is not a sufficient distance between homes and wind turbines that are 40 stories tall.

The Society for Wind Vigilance

Advocates for Authoritive Wind Turbine Guidelines in Ontario.

Claims of Windfarm Illness

Victoria's largest wind farm operation is attracting attention as the residents of Waubra, north-west of Ballarat, claim the turbines are causing health problems.

Public Health Impacts of Wind Turbines

In early March 2009, MDH agreed to evaluate health impacts from wind turbine noise and low frequency vibrations. In discussion with OES, MDH also proposed to examine experiences and policies of other states and countries. MDH staff appeared at a hearing before the PUC on March 19, 2009, and explained the purpose and use of the health evaluation. The Commissioner replied to the citizen letter, affirming that MDH would perform the requested review.

Wind Farm Noise: 2009 in Review
Research, Public concerns, and industry trends

Introduction

During 2009, the Acoustic Ecology Institute has been tracking public concerns about wind farm noise, while also studying new research papers and industry trade journals and reports in order to get up to speed on this emerging controversy. AEI’s approach has been the same as we’ve taken to ocean noise issues since 2004: to do our best to cut through the rhetoric and hyperbole from advocates on both sides of the issue and get a clearer sense of the state of understanding of these noise impacts, in order to help inform emerging public policy choices. With wind farm noise, as with ocean noise, the more we learn, the more obvious it is that there is much we still do not know. And, it’s not nearly as simple as either side in this increasingly rancorous debate appears to think it is.

Johnsburg, WI Wind Farm Resident Survey

Residents of the Johnsburg, WI area who live within one half mile of at least one wind turbine were asked to complete a written survey. Forty six per cent returned the survey, many with additional comments. Here is a summary of the 219 responses that were received. Note: residents live in the midst of the Blue Sky/Green Field Wind Farm in east central Wisconsin – 88 Industrial Wind Turbines scattered across 10,600 acres of rolling farmland in Fond du Lac County.

A Primer on Adverse Health Effects

“Health Canada advises…that there are peer-reviewed scientific articles indicating that wind turbines may have an adverse impact on human health.” 

The Society for Wind Vigilance has compiled a short primer of references which indicate that industrial wind turbines may have an adverse impact on human health. 

This primer may be downloaded and distributed to assist in educating and informing those who are not aware of the potential adverse human health effects of placing industrial wind turbines close to humans.

Summary of Recent Research on Adverse Health Effects of Wind Turbines

Contrary to the claims of the industry, there is a growing body of peer-reviewed research substantiating these health claims. This report attempts to catalogue the most recent.
A generally acknowledged major concern about wind turbine disturbance centres around the low frequency noise projected from this heavy industrial machinery. Until recently measurements of this type of noise have seldom been carried out near wind turbines.

Wind Turbine Noise Sleep and Health

This paper is based on proofs of evidence produced for several UK Planning
Inquiries. As such, it concentrates on the regulatory system in the UK. Other jurisdictions will have different systems. The aim is to inform those seeking to regulate the siting of wind turbines close to human habitation.
It will be updated regularly as new information comes to hand. Users are encouraged to check the Society for Wind Vigilance Website for the
latest updates No copyright is asserted for this document but acknowledgement as to source is requested.
CD Hanning
April 2010

An Analysis of the Epidemiology and Related Evidence on the Health Effects
of Wind Turbines on Local Residents

In summary, there is substantial evidence to support the hypothesis that wind turbines have important health effects on local residents. If forced to draw a conclusion based on existing evidence alone, it would seem defensible to conclude that there is a problem. It would certainly make little sense to conclude that there is definitely no problem, and those who make this claim offer arguments that are fundamentally unscientific. But there is simply no reason to draw a conclusion based on existing evidence alone; it is quite possible to quickly gather much more useful information than we have.

Carl V. Phillips, MPP PhD July 2010

Siting of Wind Turbines With Respect to Noise Emissions and their Health and Welfare Effects on Humans

Under conditions of uncertainty where the stakes of human heath and welfare are high, it would seem prudent to use the best available information available at the moment. Lacking sophisticated epidemiological studies, laboratory listening tests and the like, well-reasoned interpretations of anecdotal information allowing for an adequate margin of safety may have to be used to make these important decisions so that sufficient protections are put in place.

Richard D. Horonjeff July 2010

Health Impact and Setback Guidelines for Wind Siting Council

As Wind Energy projects continue to expand across Wisconsin and as the need for energy independence becomes more
urgent, controversy over siting regulations has become a dividing point in communities across the state. The recent
applications for projects in northeast Wisconsin make safe siting guidelines the center of the argument. In local townships such
as ours in Wrightstown, Holland, Morrison, and Glenmore, hours of emotionally charged meetings and conflicted town
supervisors have lead to only more controversy. A vote of town’s members as slanted as 245-18 overwhelmingly does not
support the Ledge Wind project. These same conflicts are seen world wide as wind energy projects develop. It is clear that
studies are presented both supporting and refuting to notion that wind turbines harm people’s health. It is my opinion as a
physician that the best evidence support that building large wind energy turbines in close proximity to humans has a negative
impact on the health.

Author: Herbert S. Coussons, MD July 2010

First international symposium on adverse
health effects and industrial wind turbines

Picton, Ontario, July 17, 2010 — The First International
Symposium on the adverse health effects of industrial wind
turbines will be held October 29-31, 2010 in Picton, Prince
Edward County, Ontario, Canada.

http://windvigilance.com/page002.aspx

The Dean Report

Mr and Mrs Noel Dean requested a Report providing an assessment of the potential for adverse effects due to activity from the Waubra wind farm while living in their residences and while working on their farms. Dr. Robert Thorne undertook the study.

"It is concluded, from the information presented, that Mr Dean has been and is currently adversely affected by the presence and activity of the Waubra wind farm. The effects stated by Mr Dean as affecting his health and statutory declarations from his family and residents in the vicinity of the wind farm attest to adverse health effects. Adverse health effects such as sleep disturbance, anxiety, stress and headaches are, in my view, a health nuisance and are objectionable and unreasonable."

http://www.windaction.org/?module=uploads&func=download&fileId=2052

Dr. Sarah Laurie on Wind Turbines

Dr. Sarah Laurie, Medical Director of the Waubra Foundation in Australia discussed the adverse health effects of wind turbines

Green-Ribnick-Report

"After traveling to Australia and meeting with and interviewing dozens of people who have been profoundly adversely impacted by industrial wind turbines or are fighting the construction of wind turbines in their communities, we now understand with certainty that the very dramatic and real problems with wind energy are much, much worse than we had previously imagined.”

Wind Energy- A Review of Human Health & Safety Concerns

John Droz was asked to give a quickie overview of wind development possible human health and safety affects to the head of the North Carolina Health Department. To share this as a reference, he had it published in Master Resource. http://www.masterresource.org/2011/07/wind-energy-health-safety/

Value in the Wind: A Hedonic Analysis of Wind Power Facilities

Abstract:     
The siting of wind facilities is extremely controversial. This paper uses data on 11,369 property transactions over 9 years in Northern New York to explore the effects of new wind facilities on property values. We use a repeat-sales framework to control for omitted variables and endogeneity biases. We find that nearby wind facilities significantly reduce property values. Decreasing the distance to the nearest turbine to 1 mile results in a decline in price of between 7.73% and 14.87%. These results indicate that there remains a need to compensate local homeowners/communities for allowing wind development within their borders.

Proposed Case Definition: Adverse Health Effects and Industrial Wind Turbines

People are reporting adverse health effects associated with the onset of industrial wind turbine operations. The symptoms described are consistent globally. The complexities of adverse health effects and industrial wind turbines and the methodological problems associated with its study indicate the need for a comprehensive, systematic, and integrated study of populations and victims. Epidemiological and clinical evaluation is required including sleep studies of victims. The Society for Wind Vigilance proposes this case definition to assist clinicians in the assessment of patients presenting with a complex set of symptoms related to industrial wind turbine operations. As more knowledge is gained, this case definition will be modified.

Summary of New Evidence August 2011

The purpose of this document is to inform authorities and decision makers of new evidence, including articles published in peer reviewed scientific journals which advance knowledge on the topic of adverse health effects of IWTs.

Low Frequency Noise and Large Turbines

As wind turbines get larger, worries have emerged that the turbine noise would move down in frequency and that the low-frequency noise would cause annoyance for the neighbors. The noise emission from 48 wind turbines with nominal electric power up to 3.6 MW is analyzed and discussed. The relative amount of low-frequency noise is higher for large turbines (2.3–3.6 MW) than for small turbines ( 2 MW), and the difference is statistically significant. The difference can also expressed as a downward shift of the spectrum of approximately one-third of an octave. A further shift of similar size is suggested for future turbines in the 10-MW range. Due to the air absorption, the higher low-frequency content becomes even more pronounced, when sound pressure levels in relevant neighbor distances are considered. Even when A-weighted levels are considered, a substantial part of the noise is at low frequencies, and for several of the investigated large turbines, the one-third-octave band with the highest level is at or below 250 Hz. It is thus beyond any doubt that the low-frequency part of the spectrum plays an important role in the noise at the neighbors.
VC 2011 Acoustical Society of America. [DOI: 10.1121/1.3543957]

Properly Interpeting the Epidemiologic Evidence About the Health Effects of Industrial Wind Turbines on Nearby Residents

Peer-reviewed study by Carl V. Phillips

There is overwhelming evidence that wind turbines cause serious health problems in nearby residents, usually stress-disorder type diseases, at a nontrivial rate. The bulk of the evidence takes the form of thousands of adverse event reports. There is also a small amount of systematically-gathered data. The adverse event reports provide compelling evidence of the seriousness of the problems and of causation in this case because of their volume, the ease of observing exposure and outcome incidence, and case-crossover data. Proponents of turbines have sought to deny these problems by making a collection of contradictory claims including that the evidence does not "count", the outcomes are not "real" diseases, the outcomes are the victims' own fault, and that acoustical models cannot explain why there are health problems so theproblems must not exist. These claims appeared to have swayed many non-expert observers, though they are easily debunked. Moreover, though the failure of models to explain the observed problems does not deny the problems, it does mean that we do not know what, other than kilometers of distance, could sufficiently mitigate the effects. There has been no policy analysis that justifies imposing these effects on local residents. The attempts to deny the evidence cannot be seen as honest scientific disagreement, and represent either gross incompetence or intentional bias.

Iowa State University Wind Energy Production: Legal Issues and Related Liabliltiy Concerns for Landowners

Farmers have long used the wind. Beginning in the 1800’s, farmers in the United States installed several million windmills across the Midwest and Plains to pump water and (later) generate power for lights and radios. Those windmills fit nicely into the existing landscape and generally did not create problems for others. Today, however, the wind energy industry is using the wind in a different manner by virtue of largescale aerogenerators that have a tremendous impact on the visual landscape and the rural culture. In some communities, wind energy development has raised issues between neighbors, between private landowners and wind energy development companies, and between local officials and development companies.

Environmental Review Tribunal Decision: Erickson v. Director Ministry of the Environment July 18, 2011 by Environmental Review Tribunal

Summary:
Ontario's Environmental Review Tribunal ruled that the Appellants of Suncor’s Kent Breeze wind energy facility failed to show that the project, as approved, would cause serious harm to human health. However, the tribunal also found that the evidence demonstrated that there are risks and uncertainties associated with wind turbines which merit further research. In that regard, the Tribunal asserted that future debate should focus on the most appropriate standards rather than “yes or no” arguments about whether turbines can cause harm. The Tribunal’s 223-page ruling provides an in-depth look at the state of current wind farm science and policy. Pages of the decision are devoted to the testimony of each of the witnesses.

Adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines: a preliminary report by Michael Nissenbaum et al

DISCUSSION
This study, which is the first controlled study of the effects of IWT noise on sleep and health, shows that those living within 1.4 km of IWT have suffered sleep disruption which is sufficiently severe as to affect their daytime functioning and mental health. Both the ESS and PSQI are averaged measures, i.e. they ask the subject to assess their
daytime sleepiness and sleep quality respectively, over a period of several weeks leading up to the present. For the ESS to increase, sleep must have been shortened or
fragmented to a sufficient degree on sufficient nights for normal compensatory mechanisms to have been overcome. The effects of sleep loss and daytime sleepiness on cognitive
function, accident rate and mental health are well established (WHO 2009) and it must be concluded that at least some of the residents living near the Vinalhaven and
Mars Hill IWT installations have suffered serious harm to their sleep and health.

Wind Turbine Syndrome Interview Questions

Interview for wind turbine victims
Note: This is designed to be an interview, providing guiding questions to a person being audio- or videotaped.
It is not meant to be a questionnaire that a person fills out about him- or herself.

“Dynamic measurements of wind turbine acoustic signals, employing sound quality engineering methods considering the time and frequency sensitivities of human perception.”

The reason the wind industry experts can claim that wind turbines produce insignificant levels of infrasound and low frequency sound is not because there isn’t any, but because the instruments and methods they use cannot detect it. In effect, they go hunting for a needle in the haystack using a magnet, when the problem is the needle is made of plastic. When analyzed using a tool that can detect it, we find that infrasound and low frequency noise are there and they are there at Sound Pressure Levels (SPL’s) much higher than previously considered likely.

“The Bruce-McPherson-ILFN-Study”

This study was commissioned through a private philanthropic grant created to determine why there were so many strong complaints about the loss of well-being and hardships experienced by people living near large industrial wind turbines operating in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The
purpose of this study was to investigate and confirm or deny the presence of infrasonic and low frequency noise emissions (ILFN) from the “WIND 1”, a municipally-owned Vestas V82 industrial wind turbine. In March of 2011, after many months of vigorous neighborhood complaints and strong appeals to the town, selectmen voluntarily decided to curtail WIND 1
operations when hub height wind speed exceeded 10 m/s. This required that this study focus on noise emissions from the nearby “NOTUS” wind turbine, an identical make and model.

“Letter from Vestas_Low-frequency noise and wind turbines.”

December 16, 2011 by Engel, Ditlev
Summary:
This important letter written by the CEO of Vestas Wind complains that proposed regulations in
Denmark to address low-frequency noise will force larger setback distances. In his letter he admits:
"Why it is that Vestas does not just make changes to the wind turbines so that they produce less noise?
The simple answer is that at the moment it is not technically possible to do so ..."

Wind Turbines and Proximity to Homes: The impact of wind turbine noise on health

Wind Turbines and Proximity to Homes: The impact of wind turbine noise on health December 31, 2011 by Barbara J Frey BA MA and Peter J Hadden, BSc, FRics This paper addresses the issues of wind energy policy where it violates the basic living environment of families and the adverse health effects of wind turbine noise. It also assesses the considerable number of anecdotal reports from people living with wind turbine noise. Although there are many who dismiss anecdotal reports as inconsequential or meaningless, these reports are from real people, living with real problems, often with no recourse: They put 'the human face on science'. The authors examine how this translates into a human rights issue, as government policy assigns more credibility to acousticians' reports than to medical evidence, and assigns more importance to renewable energy policy than to the individual lives injured by that policy. This paper begins with a review of the acoustic impact of wind turbine noise reported by families and communities in the UK as well as similar cases in Japan, Australia, the United States, Canada and throughout Europe.