Mass. resident admits he now has Wind Turbine Syndrome
Aug 27, 2012
Print Article“I was a member of the ignorant majority, but now it is a different story”
Editor’s note: The following is a Letter to the Editor of the Boston Globe (8/26/12), written by a civil engineer and registered land surveyor in Scituate, MA.
—David M. Dardi (Scituate, MA), 8/26/12
In a letter to the Globe South on Aug. 19 (“Scituate majority favors windmill”), Allan Greenberg’s assertion that I should have expressed my views about the wind turbine prior to its construction is overly simplistic.
Since none of us have ever lived near a windmill, we didn’t know what to expect and relied on our community leaders to protect us. One resident whose house is only a few hundred feet from the windmill distributed printed information about the adverse effects to the Scituate Planning Board at their Feb. 12, 2009, meeting and voiced his concerns again at the July 12, 2010, meeting. He was told that he would not experience any negative effects. We now know that to be false.
Since the Aug. 9 article in Globe South (“Winds of discontent in Scituate”), many people have contacted both the Globe writer and myself with their own stories of shadow flicker, noise disturbance, and sleep deprivation. I have urged them to make their complaints to the Board of Health, since they have the power to mitigate the situation.
Mr. Greenberg has portrayed me as anti-windmill, and I am not. I am for any alternate source of energy that does not present public health issues. If I had been aware of the wind turbine before it was built, I would not have had any views to bring forward since I have had no experience with them. At that time, I was a member of the ignorant majority, but now it is a different story.
I have been awakened many times and have been forced to shut the windows and take doctor-prescribed sleeping pills. The closest involvement most people will ever have with a windmill is seeing it when they drive by it. It is very easy to support something that you only read about and go to visit, but they should try sleeping under it.
Comment by Andreas Marciniak on 08/27/2012 at 10:25 pm
Welcome to reality, David, your now in the same place as we are.
We didn’t believe it here in Waterloo, and I was all for them, boy was I wrong, and I believe that there are thousands of people affected and don’t even know that there Ill because of the Turbines around them, they just put it down “just having a bad Day” again, and again. In your words,
” It is very easy to support something that you only read about and go to visit, but they should try sleeping under it.” so true ! and that is why most people are all for Wind Turbines , they just don’t know !and we have to let more people know, how bad this Industry really is !!
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 08/28/2012 at 12:14 am
David, we live in a very cruel society. You are now experiencing, first hand, the outrage that many others around the world have been subjected to. When that gala parade celebrating the erection of the wind turbine was held in your town of Scituate, I was sickened by the hubris of that throng, knowing that someone would have to pay with their health for the ignorance of the crowd.
This society worships money, wealth, and profit. If the ordinary Joe is given the opportunity to have the fantasy of being a part a great scheme to make money from nothing, believing it’s for some “great good”, a saving of the planet, he will not only ignore the suffering of the few, he will even scorn the victims as weaklings and malingerers.
Our job is a very daunting one. Our voices are still not heard over the din of self congratulation and business as usual by corporate media and self-aggrandizing politicians. They rarely relate to real pain and suffering.
What will it take to gain the proper attention that will recognize the windpower folly for the false panacea that it is? I think the size of the awards that wind turbine victims win in future court decisions will tell directly on this parasitic industry that is among the greatest swindles hatched upon an unsuspecting world.
The wind is changing direction. Already, subsidies for windpower are disappearing in Europe. The windpower carpetbaggers have found fresh ground on the American shores, mountains and prairies. We must all exert every effort to bring to an end ALL energy subsidies. Only then will this vile assault on reason and humanity vanish.
Find the ways to be heard. Find strength in the truth. Never give up.
Comment by kate wilson on 09/06/2012 at 4:30 pm
Just read a notice to an approved renwable energy project named PORT DOVER AND NANTICOKE WIND PROJECT. This project will include up to 58 wind turbines located within kms from my mother’s front door. How does this sort of huge project get approved and announced before the public is even made aware?
I Googled “side effects” of wind turbines and within 3 minutes I am horrified by what I have seen already. My mother’s little piece of heaven on Lake Erie seems now doomed to become a nice view from hell.
Comment by sue Hobart on 10/20/2012 at 9:16 am
I feel for you… Me too, and we have cashed in everything and are moving out. There seems no recourse that will happen soon enough to save our quality of life.
Then comes the legal bills… ah yes it gets better and better.
To all those disbelievers…I have a beautiful house for sale so put your money where your mouth is.