“‘I’ve been a complete mess,’ Mrs Renner said. The sound was ‘like an airport’ on bad nights, Lynne Carter said.
“Haydon Miller said Meridian had promised the wind farm would not be noisy. ‘Either they misled us, or they got it terribly wrong.'”
Courtesy of Chittka L. Brockmann (with adaptations by WTS.com)
Barbara Ashbee-Lormand and Dennis Lormand
335498 7th Line Amaranth
RR #1
Shelburne, Ontario, L0N 1S5
Wind Concerns Ontario, a coalition of grass-root, citizen organizations, has been doing the job of Health Canada. (Mr. Prime Minister, are you reading this?) WCO has been conducting a self-reporting survey, asking people living near industrial wind turbines how (or if) their health has been impacted.
Click here for the latest results.
“Noel Dean owns a farm at Waubra that he says is surrounded by wind turbines owned by Acciona Energy. He says he and his wife Janine started experiencing health problems when the turbines were switched on. ‘I was waking up with headaches, so I said to Janine, “we’re getting out of here.” So we came to Ballarat,’ he said.”
“The developer … assured Mr. Graham [a leaseholder] and his wife they would not hear anything louder than the sound of a refrigerator 900 feet away, he said. Instead, the noise makes the windows on his house rattle and he hears some turbines a mile away in his living room. ‘They never intended for us to have the peace and quiet they promised,’ he said…. [They] told stories of neighbors and residents who have difficulties because of seizure disorders, or developed anxiety attacks, learning disorders or other ailments after the turbines started turning.
“When the turbines started spinning in December, he [Mr. Trude] began hearing and feeling that turbine and three others across a ridge in front of his house. Low-frequency noise creates a vibration he can feel in his chest, he said.”
With thanks to plataformahorta.org
Eighty-six sculpted hands have appeared on Wolfe Island (Ontario, Canada). In the night, like a fairy ring.
“The noise also penetrates into the house. On many nights, as soon as you turn off the TV or stereo you immediately hear them. At least four to eight times a month they are very loud. The night noise can be especially disturbing. Some nights there is a loud pulsating noise that lasts right into the morning. On those days we get discouraged. We think that this can’t be good for our health and we might as well give up and sell out….Victims of poorly planned wind turbine developments from Mars Hill, Maine to the Midwest are not believed. I have heard people say, ‘You’ll get used to it.’ You don’t.”
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The global uproar over badly sited wind turbines. To be released August 2009 in the U.K. Filmed and directed by Nigel Spence, Tan House Films. (With appreciation to National Wind Watch.)
“‘It’s a roaring grinding,’ Carolyn Stilling says. ‘The turbines make a pulsed noise. We’re just out here all the time. That’s part of the problem.’
“Helen Corlew is bothered not only by the noise, but also by a vibration that she feels throughout her body under certain conditions. ‘Days when the wind is more easterly and/or with moisture in the air, the turbine reminds you that it is present,’ she says in written testimony presented to the commission protesting the Luverne project. ‘It is very loud with the whooshing of the blades and it is felt through you body.'”
Farm & turbine, Wisconsin (with appreciation to BetterPlan Wisconsin)
“More than 20 percent of about 100 neighbors also complain of similar physical disorders. They said their symptoms become less severe when the windmills stop due to mechanical troubles and other reasons.”
“‘The sensation we feel from the turbine…[is] that rumbling feeling you get when someone with a loud speaker system in their car drives by. You feel that in your body.’ And it keeps his whole family awake at night. They’ve tried sleeping pills, white noise machines, doctor’s visits—anything and everything—but when the wind blows there is no peace, very little quiet. ‘We are not allowed to get to that dream state, when those turbines are spinning and producing energy.'”
With appreciation to Bossco
“‘When people talk about noise from turbines, it is really hard to explain what turbine noise is like. Many of the residents are struggling to understand how the government could allow these turbines to be put so close to people’s homes.’ Todd said many of the homeowners complaining about the wind turbines live between 3000 to 3500 feet away from the 1.5-megawatt units. Todd said if wind turbine setbacks were increased, the negative effects on nearby landowners would be greatly reduced, if not eliminated.”
“Johnston, 78, can see 18 turbines from the end of her driveway. She’s suffered insomnia since they arrived, as well as mysterious aches and pains, mild confusion and impaired hearing. The group decided to act after the McGuinty government invited responses to its proposed setback. ‘That’s exactly what we’re saying in our letter,’ Johnston said yesterday. ‘Where are the health studies to show that the kind of arrangement they’ve allowed in this part of Norfolk will not have adverse health impacts?'”
“Last December he [Glen Wild] and his wife moved out of the house while tests were conducted. They returned a month later, but there was no improvement. In fact, he developed more symptoms. He said his doctor told him to leave the house. ‘Once we leave the farm we recover quickly,’ he said. ‘I’m not a scientist. I don’t know what is going on. The only thing we can tell you is that when we’re not there we feel fine and when we’re there we get sick,’ he said.”
With appreciation to SuperStock.com. (The original drawing has been altered.)
