The following was written by nurse-midwife Jane Davis (Lincolnshire, UK) to a woman in Australia inquiring about life next to a windplant—Editor.

How far should turbines be from one’s home?  How far away is a bit like a piece of string, but at least 1.5 miles (2km) , although I do know of some victims in valleys with a windfarm 10 miles away that have problems. As with many things, it’s all down to size and location.

Our rented house is 5 miles away and we are noise and symptom free at night anyway. For Julian, my husband, who still has to farm the arable land on our farm, there is still daily exposure, so some symptoms persist and there does seem to be a dose response mechanism at play, too. So 7 hours downwind is OK, and 10 hours not.

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Thank you for visiting our blog. Our home in rural DeKalb County, IL is where we wanted to stay for good. We have put so much into our home to make it a place where we would love to live and raise our children, and unfortunately we are being forced to live differently.

We have been bullied by a large industrial wind company (NextEra Energy, a subsidiary of Florida Power and Light [FPL]) and sold-out by the DeKalb County Board. FPL told residents that these wind turbines only “sound like a refrigerator.” Well, we have found that this is not the case. Oftentimes our yard sounds like an airport. We hear and feel the low frequency sound on our property as well as in our home. We are bothered by the noise, whistling, contant swirling movement, and shadow flicker.

Complaining is not something that our family is known for doing and we teach our children to look for the positive aspects of life, but this has gone too far with the turbines. Someone needs to speak up.

These industrial wind turbines should not be built close to homes. They should be at least a mile away to avoid these issues. We have 13 within a mile. The closest 2 are 1,400 feet away.

This man’s family often can’t sleep.  They get nauseous, they get headaches, and they’ve been forced to rent an apartment in town.  They and their neighbors are suing the wind company.

Click on yellow triangle, below.

The following is quoted from a newspaper article describing the terms of the lawsuit.  It’s worth reading—Editor.

Count I: Private nuisance

In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim they have property rights and privileges with respect to the use and enjoyment of their property, and the defendants interfered with those rights by creating, through the operation of the wind farm, “significant and material intrusions upon the plaintiffs’ property.”

Intrusions detailed in the lawsuit include:

• Low frequency noise and subaudible infrasound and/or impulse noise created by and emitted from the wind turbines, which range as close as 1,100 and 1,700 feet away from each plaintiff’s home.

• Sustained and highly disturbing audible noise created by the wind turbines.

• Amplitude modulation in both audible and sub-audible frequency ranges emitted from the turbines.

• A flicker/strobe light effect that covers the plaintiffs’ properties when sunlight passes through the rotating turbine blades.

The lawsuit states the interference and invasions caused by the conduct of the wind energy companies was either intentional and unreasonable, or unintentional and negligent conduct.

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“Planners say wind farm is too noisy”

Commission gives Willow Creek six months to comply

—Erin Mills, The East Oregonian 5/26/10

After hours of testimony and months of deliberation and delay, the Morrow County Planning Commission decided the Willow Creek wind farm is in violation of state noise standards at nearby homes.

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Stephana Johnston and her neighbor canvassed 15 square km of their neighborhood, now known as the Clear Creek/Cultus/Frogmore Industrial Wind Turbine Zone in southwest Norfolk, bristling with 18 densely sited Vestas 1.65 MW turbines within a 3 km radius (from Johnston to Martin 5/27/10).  They discovered:

• 8 abandoned houses
• 11 vacant houses for sale
• 9 occupied homes for sale, and
• 3 residents — including herself — who live at their properties during the day but sleep elsewhere at night.

Johnston also said there has been:

• 1 successful suicide, and
• 1 suicide attempt within this radius.

The question, of course, is how many abandoned houses were there before the windfarm was installed?  Vacant houses for sale?  Occupied homes for sale?  Suicides?—Editor.

Andrew Wyeth, “Helga”

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—L. Sam De Long, Cape Vincent, NY (Watertown Times 5/26/10)

Several months ago, a neighbor and I drove through the industrial wind complex in Lewis County. While doing so, I experienced a severe case of vertigo and my passenger became nauseous. This definitely caused me concern as the only other time this had happened was when I had driven through another turbine complex in the Southwest.

I was therefore drawn to the article in the Sunday edition of the Watertown Daily Times exclaiming “Hospital shows off balance center.” [See Hospital opens Balance Center next door to windfarm, Watertown, NY.] Was the need for a balance center at Lewis County General Hospital generated by the installation of industrial turbines spinning in all directions for miles while drivers were trying to navigate the roads? (more…)

—Dr. Brian L. Horejsi, Dr. Barrie K. Gilbert, George Wuerthner, Canada Free Press (7/28/08)

People are barking up the wrong tree by promoting, or succumbing to, wind turbine construction regardless of where it is proposed and how many there might be. Many North Americans are infected with tunnel vision and erroneously appear to believe that turbine generated energy is somehow linked to reversing the growth in and impact of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.

There exists no evidence anywhere that turbine energy is substituting for or displacing fossil fuel dependence, nor is there any evidence that it is in any material way slowing the rate of GHG emission growth. Turbine energy is a non factor in the never ending growth agenda of the fossil fuel industry, and it is not a factor in the agenda of governments promoting growth in and dependence on oil and gas consumption. There can be no better example than North America of the failure of turbine energy to slow growth in anything.

People have been hoodwinked into promoting wind turbine energy as some sort of Nirvana all while human population growth and per capita energy consumption continue to spiral upward. Turbine energy generation is fueling growth in human population and energy consumption and growth in a false “economy.” It is not doing the opposite.

Matching the folly of the energy replacement misunderstanding is denial by governments and promoters of the ecological impacts and health effects of turbines. The ugly reality is that they are a serious addition to the industrialization of quiet rural landscapes that people have long valued for quality of life, retirement, and recreation.

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Worthwhile introduction to the subject by American physicist John Droz. It puts into perspective the absurdity of exposing people, wildlife, and sealife to documented illness from wind turbine low frequency noise and infrasound. Over and over, Droz demonstrates that wind energy is not a solution to anything meaningful—except corporate profits.

With appreciation to Jefferson’s Leaning Left

—Calvin Luther Martin, PhD

Lewis County General Hospital, tucked within the sleepy hamlet of Lowville, NY, pop. 3500, would hardly be considered a major medical center. Watertown, nearby and closer to the Tenth Mountain Division’s Fort Drum, has a much more comprehensive and sophisticated hospital.

Google satellite map of Upstate New York

What distinguishes Lewis County Hospital is that it’s in the shadow of Horizon Energy’s Maple Ridge Wind Farm—195, 1.65 MW V82 Vestas, infrasonically pounding away on the Tug Hill Plateau next door—the largest wind farm east of the Mississippi. The turbines went online January 2006.

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—Yuki Tsuruta Oike (4/30/10)

The Japanese Conference against Big Wind was held on April 30 in Tokyo. Victims of low frequency noise from wind turbines and protesters against additional wind turbines gathered from all over Japan. More than 100 people came and 6 people gave speeches.

1. OKAWA, Tsuyoshi (Tahara-city, Aichi-prefecture)

He is a farmer living on Atsumi Peninsula. His house is near a wind turbine (1.5 MW), which was built in July 2007. There are three houses (including his) within 350m of the turbine.

He has been suffering from the turbine’s low frequency noise since it began turning. He had never been told about the noise by the wind power company (M & D Green Energy). He asked the company and Tahara-city to measure the noise level. The conclusion of the measurement was, “there is no problem.”

He and his family had to sleep at a hotel far from the turbine. Now they stay in their house in the daytime and sleep in an apartment far from turbine at night.

There is no regulation on low frequency noise in Japan.

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With appreciation to edepression.net

—notes by Gerry Meyer, Brownsville, Wisconsin (5/14/10)

About a month ago I received a phone call from a woman in great distress. She was calling about the serious health effects she is experiencing from living near the turbines.

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5/1/10

Dear Dr. Pierpont,

I am writing to you as a result of having read an article in the Independent that quotes your research into the adverse health effects of wind turbines. I am extremely interested in this, as I have experienced such effects.

I was talking to a friend who mentioned such effects, so got on the Internet and found this particular article.

I quite often travel to the Greek island of Naxos to “get away from it all.” However, the last time I was there, it was for longer than the usual few days, and I was quite ill with most of the symptoms you describe in the article. I have been wondering why, and as there are a few wind turbines there, about 1.5 km from where I was staying, I realise they were the problem.

I was about to go back there again when I found all this interesting material—thank goodness!

I have done a lot of work researching and writing in the area of electromagnetic radiation and health, so am interested in widening my work to wind farms.

If you have an email list, or any other forum of discussion, I would be most interested to be part of it, however I will keep reading whatever I can find.

Many thanks, and best wishes,

Sarah Benson
Australia

German windplant. No, this was not Photoshopped. This is the real thing. Click here for the full effect.

“Wake-Up Call!”

Dear friends and “headwinders” all over the world,

On May 15th at 1:30 pm we are going to meet at Brandenburger Tor in the middle of Berlin, to start the first public rally at 2:00 pm.

In a country like Germany, where energy produced by wind turbines is called environmental and wind turbines are holy, this is exceptionally remarkable.

People who are living beside, between, and surrounded by more than 25,000 wind turbines in this country—some of them for 20 years and more—suffering from WTS (Wind Turbine Syndrome), or may rest assured that they will find themselves falling ill in between the next generation of another 25,000 projected and approved turbines, these people are starting their first protest against this sanctuary.

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d’Entremont home, Nova Scotia, Canada

“With wind farms working to capture nature’s energy, nearby residents are suffering”

—Jessica B. Mulholland, March 2010

Click here for original text in Governing Magazine: Connecting America’s Leaders. The images presented on this website were not included in the original article—Editor.

Wind energy is blowing hot right now. Nationwide, wind farms are bringing renewable energy and jobs, such as in Montana, as detailed in Propelling Growth, p20. Overall, wind turbines in the United States generated 52 billion kilowatt hours in 2008, which is enough to serve 4.6 million households, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). And demand is growing: The number of wind turbines in the U.S. nearly doubled between 2006 and 2008, according to the DOE.

But it isn’t all good, according to Dr. Nina Pierpont, who has studied families living near wind turbines. Pierpont found that there are enough negative effects to warrant calling them “Wind Turbine Syndrome,” because the symptoms form a consistent pattern from person to person, she says. ”A syndrome really means the description of signs and symptoms that occur together and are not yet tied together as a clear disease.”

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