The private horror of Wind Turbine Syndrome: A true story (France)
Aug 9, 2012
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Last April, I spent two nights here, at home, covered with sleep surveillance equipment. I noted what I heard or not and at what time, and what I was doing (going to sleep, how much I heard the wind turbines, or if there was perfect silence, etc.).
The debriefing took place Monday July 16, at the hospital in Saint Etienne. A certain Doctor Emilia Sforza commented on the two diagrams corresponding to each of the two nights monitored. (I had never seen her before, she was different from the head of the unit I had seen before the surveillance, a certain Dr. Roche.) She never took the notes I had given them about the noise I heard during those two nights. She had not even read them, I suspect. She never pronounced the words “wind turbines.”
She told me, on the basis of the first diagram showing the first night, that I had first gone to sleep rapidly and then slept correctly.
On the second night, I took much longer to go to sleep and my sleep was very bad. She then told me I had a psychological problem.
She never mentioned any sort of connection with anything I could have heard or not during those two nights.
I then made her take my notes out of her file, which she did reluctantly with a very sorry countenance. I had to ask her to look at my notes. She glanced at them and handed them to me disdainfully, saying she couldn’t read them, with this same sorry, nearly disgusted, countenance.
I showed her: on the first night, when I went to sleep rapidly and slept correctly, as she herself had said, my notes read, “Total silence.”
But I couldn’t go further. Her speech was ready. She knew! She told me, again, that I had a typical psychological problem and that I was “obsessed” and that I needed therapy. Urgently.
She never showed me what the diagram said about the second night when I was awakened at 5:30 by very irritating vibrations, or when I got up at 7:10 in a very unnerved state (as my notes read).
And then, she said: “You can’t go against a renewable energy.”
I was astonished when I heard this doctor actually pronounce those words: Is that a clinical judgment? Can a doctor say such things? “You can’t go against a renewable energy”?
I stayed polite. Not because I wanted to be (I was devastated). I’m used to not being believed; I know I’m on my own in this matter, in this nightmare, and I’m so tired of all this. I should write to this hospital and tell them to change jobs. I should sue that doctor Sforza for what she told me and for the despicable way she said it.
But I’m tired, my friends. I’m done. It’s no use.
To top it all, on Sunday night (two days ago), I was tired and couldn’t find the energy to drive down to my mother’s apartment to sleep there, as I usually do. So I stayed at home and slept in my house. Everything was silent at the beginning. God, it’s so nice at home when there are no vibrations! But, of course, the wind turbines started some time during the night and went on into the morning, and I left home Monday morning completely exhausted and in the weird state those vibrations left me in. My recovery time is much longer now, I’ve noticed.
I was still in a strange state Monday afternoon in Le Puy and I had a car accident there. My fault 100%. I DIDN’T SEE the car I bumped into. I didn’t SEE it! That’s frightening. I LOOKED, and I DIDN’T SEE. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. It’s as if I had aimed at that car and very consciously cut off its route. Nobody does that.
And, of course, I’m told I was tired. “Such things happen when you’re tired.”
Now I say “yes.” I just don’t try to explain any more that it’s not only tiredness. I know what I know, and I’m the only one around to know.
I’m leaving Thursday morning for a week’s rest in the Alps. My sister-in-law has an apartment there, in Briançon. No turbines there.
My house is not ready to sell. It will wait. It won’t be ready in September. I don’t know where I’ll be living then and I’ll have to work again.
I just don’t think that far anymore.
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 08/10/2012 at 1:36 am
Dear Hubert,
First, I must observe that, as a victim of WTS, it is normal that you should feel depression and anger. Your clinician, Dr. Sforza, acted in violation of the Hippocratic Oath when she brushed off your suffering as psychological, as if she had any basis for that diagnosis. Rather than addressing your symptoms, which are physiological, she exacerbated your pain, not something that a responsible medical practioner should ever do.
Her comment to you that you cannot “go against a renewable energy” earns her the title of “shill for Big Wind.” She seems to be so deeply “greenwashed” that it is probably useless to seek correction.
I shudder to think of her reaction if you attempted to describe the enormity of the conspiratorial tax shelter that the fascistic renewable energy industry has created for itself. She would flee the medical facility altogether when you explained the extent of the land grab that is the actual outcome of the colonization being perpetrated by the windpower industry in the name of clean and green energy.
That you had a driving accident is most unfortunate. Mark Cool, of Falmouth (Mass.), has written about his being rendered into an impaired state, akin to drunkenness, by his neighboring 1.65 MW windturbine. After developing a flawless record for over thirty years as a working air traffic controller, he now lives with the mortification of having a near-miss incident during one of his duty shifts. He correctly points out that if government creates unsafe and toxic living conditions with these huge machines, what can we say but that the green madness has captured this society and will be its undoing.
Dear Hubert, please stay as far away from the turbines as you can. You have already been sensitized by them. You are at an increased risk than those in the public who have not been in their presence. I am concerned for your safety.
Marsh
Comment by Andreas Marciniak on 08/10/2012 at 2:16 am
Hello Hubert, your not on your own in this,we experienced much of the same, after my daughter move in with me in Waterloo South Australia, I kept my eyes on her to see if she will get sick, as I have and a lot of others in Town, she showed signs after only one night, she was 17 years old at the time, so I told her to right down how she slept and how she feels first thing in the morning and I taken her blood pressure and Heart rate, only to find out her heart rate went through the roof and so did her blood pressure, so I had to take to the local Dr. and Taken the paper with me that she keep’t her Info , I told him that it might have something to do with the Turbines , his reaction straight away was NO it cant be that,” I go to the wind farms all the time with my Children and we don”t have any problems, He forgot to say that he is only there for a very short time”, I said to him, look at what is on the paper, it clearly shows that when we are away from the Turbines she is better and her blood pressures and Heart rate goes down , even with that said, his reply !”
If you both feel better when your away from the Turbines just move”.
so after 4 week or so, I told my daughter to go and stay in the City with her sister, and she did, after 2-3 day she got back to normal, even after she had a work out with a personal trainer (my daughter in the City),
she found that her blood pressure stayed normal.
So Hubert your not on your own, in what was my town, (Waterloo south Australia) we have between 50%-60%-70% of people have been mildly to servilely affected from the time they stared these Turbines 37 x 3mgw units.
kind regards
Andreas
Comment by gail on 08/10/2012 at 3:46 am
I’m devastated that they’re still saying these things—that so-called doctors are saying these things. A certain psychiatrist said similar things to me in 2007 and I got that person to sign a wishy washy statement of why I went to see that person (you can see the report, names changed, here on this site). “They” have become more cautious these days but you are not alone and their house of cards will collapse. Believe it!
Deepest shame on this kind of bogus “professional.”
Comment by Karen Bessey Pease on 08/10/2012 at 6:57 am
Cher Monsier de Bonneville,
Ach, mon ami . . . your story breaks my heart. I am so sorry that you have been victimized in this way. Your words bleed exhaustion and hopelessness.
You cannot know the tremendous empathy I feel for you. But I am experiencing disgust, dismay and tremendous anger at those who have imperiously decided that you can be sacrificed. That you and your neighbors are nothing more than collateral damage. That people living in Mars Hill (Maine) or Falmouth (Massachusetts) or Ontario (Canada) or Scotland or Australia or New Zealand or Italy or France do not matter!
They DO matter. YOU matter! You MUST matter, for if you don’t, nothing and no one does.
I ask, please, that you remain hopeful. That you continue to speak up for your rights as a human being. We’re on the cusp, approaching critical mass. Soon, our voices will be heard—and not only heard, but taken into account. But that will only happen if we do not give up. If we do not let the wind industry wear us down. If we do not shy away from the controversy, nor let our fear of the establishment drive us into silence and immobility.
I understand that you are tired of feeling like you are a lone voice in the wilderness. I recognize the hurt and fear you feel when your symptoms are dismissed as a “psychological” problem. But dammit, YOU are NOT crazy. The truth is, THEY’VE been brainwashed. “Green-washed.” They’ve been subjected to years of “conditioning” by the wind industry. They intuitively recognize the threat of losing their jobs if they don’t tow the “wind” line. They understand that the “establishment” will set out to ruin their reputations—–thereby signing a death warrant for their careers and their standing in the community. Others are fanatic and dogged in their belief that industrial wind will save the planet so that they and their progeny can live another day.
Sir, THEY are the ones who aren’t seeing the world clearly. Not you.
Oftentimes, those who won’t listen—–those who ignore you or disregard you or who are closed-minded on the subject of the devastating effects of wind turbine noises—are every bit as much a victim as you are. The difference is, they don’t know it. They can’t conceive that they are being used to further the agendas of powerful corporate entities. No, as much as we’d like to hate and despise and revile them, many of them just don’t understand that they are victims. You KNOW you are!
They think they are right.
But YOU are!
Please take care of yourself. You must stay healthy in order to live the full life you deserve. You must stay healthy to fight this battle—–for your sake and the sake of thousands of victims around the world.
The cold Atlantic separates us, but I am right there beside you in spirit.
Courage, mon brave.
Karen ‘Kaz’ Pease
Lexington Township, Maine, USA
Comment by sue Hobart on 08/10/2012 at 8:28 am
Well, I certainly understand what you are going through. I am in the process of abandoning my home and ripping up a little “fixer-upper” so I can simply sleep again.
You aren’t crazy and neither am I. I was hospitalized this year, though. In a “nut house.” At first they thought I was indeed crazy, but after I got some sleep they started to believe me. I was probably the sanest person there, and the best suggestion anyone gave me was, “Don’t go back there!”
So, I haven’t slept at home for 5 months and am at the mercy of a good friend and her guestroom.
My beautiful custom-built home will be available for sale, or for rent or, better yet, for medical and sleep studies as soon as I get the plumbing working in the “fixer-upper.” I offer it to any honest researcher to move on in and wire it up.
My home is the original location of the Bruce McPherson Report, so there is already a good bit of scientific data to start with. Let’s Go somebody! Get the funding and let’s prove this stuff! Sleep studies, volunteer “guinea pigs” (stressing “volunteer”) and real scientists only, please.
All I can say after 2 years of torture and disbelief is if you are in a turbine house and suffering, just save yourself and get out at any price. We may well be broke after this but as least we will be alive and somewhat coherent. This has been just toooooooo much to continue to bear!
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 08/10/2012 at 10:39 am
Dear Hubert,
WE ARE THE GLOBAL WINDTURBINE VICTIM’S SUPPORT GROUP! VOUS AVEZ RAISON! YOU ARE OUR BROTHER AND WE ARE HERE FOR YOU AND TO PROTECT YOU!
In solidarity!
Marsh
Comment by Mtumba Djibouti on 08/10/2012 at 3:18 pm
What does Marsh mean? Who is the global support group? Remind me not to call them in an emergency!
What strikes me repeatedly—dare I say, ad nauseum?—is the continuing, continual apologetic, resigned and polite tone genuine victims of this gigantic, diabolical, politically correct, tax subsidized travesty of a scam continue to hold. Where is the outrage? Where is the anger? Is this how we’d defend our children were they under threat? Is resigned sadness and regret all we can muster? It’s as if we deserve our fate at the hands of wind robber barons. We are sheep to slaughter. Our “words” are merely bleating.
Editor’s reply: Mtumba, my friend, this may be a little harsh, yes? Marshall Rosenthal risked his life in the no-holds-barred Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi and elsewhere in the 1960s. His relatives were exterminated in Hitler’s death camps. He has been a tremendous force for change in Mass. Sue Hobart has verbally mauled the Falmouth Selectmen—repeatedly. Sue and her husband have stood before the jeering mobs in Falmouth and stood their ground. Gail Atkinson Mair is responsible for translating WTS Abridged into both German and Italian. Karen Pease has organized numerous educational & community meetings in Maine, spreading the word, there, about feckless wind energy. She also runs a blog where she takes this up. She has been a mainstay of the Maine resistance, including blockading wind turbine construction. Andreas Marciniak, in Australia, was driven from his home. He now lives in a garage. He has devoted his life, now, to bringing justice to wind turbine victims; his is one of the chief voices prodding Australian Senators to rein in Big Wind
And I could go on.
What Marsh is doing, here, is extending kinship, brotherhood, and comfort to Hubert de Bonneville. We are indeed a global support group, as is this website to which I have devoted years of my life. Yes, do call us in an emergency, as many have done—and we have helped them. In a good many cases, we have given them the tools and support to beat wind turbines.
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 08/10/2012 at 7:11 pm
Mtumba, join us!
Comment by johana on 08/10/2012 at 7:21 pm
Greetings to the Global Wind Turbine Victims’ Support Group from one of the Norfolk Victims of Industrial Wind Turbines.
The tiny community of the Clear Creek/Cultus/Frogmore IWT ZONE composed of ~ 140 houses which has 18 Vestas 1.65 MW IWTS all jammed in within a 3 km radius found that ~ 70 individuals and now far fewer NVoIWTs who in the summer of 2009 reported that they were affected by those IWTS are being decimated by the relentless pounding: one successful suicide – her house bought at fire sale price
by a marijuana growing operation
one unsuccessful suicide with that individual just leaving
the house next to mine was abandoned by the couple there
and then torched by an arsonist
#s varying between 6 and 9 houses were abandoned
~ 8 vacant houses with for sale signs
~ 7 occupied houses for sale
two individuals were placed in long term care by their
families [one found wandering 15 km from home at 3 am]
one pregnant woman lost her baby in the 2nd trimester
one person died after valiant intensive care for 3 months
one person experienced a heart attack
another suffered a stroke
3 individuals had heart bypass surgery
an unknown # of families have silently folded their
belongings and moved away
Where in the world have so many adverse effects taken place in such a tiny community [3 km radius ~ 25 sq km] in such a short [45 month] period of time?
Like many others, I’m an IWT refugee looking for an affordable place to sleep, returning to an unsellable house for laundering, showering, evening meal prep, using the land telephone line and computer, always aware of the need to leave to make it to the sleeping den in a bunkhouse at a forestry camp 28 km away from the toxic house [for now].
Knowing that change is the one CONSTANT in life, I look forward to the end of the IWT insanity and a return to global rationality.
All the best to Global Wind Turbine Victims.
Stay strong.
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 08/10/2012 at 7:55 pm
Dear Johana,
We, none of us, could imagine the devastation visited upon you and your little community by the IWT monstrous nightmare. A revulsion siezes me, enflames me against this excuse for mindless plunder, disguised as the “green” savior of the planet.
Let all who read your words bear witness to the truth. Let all who read your words find the courage to resist. Let all who read your words find the means to crush this quintessential evil that foists itself upon the unsuspecting people of the world. Let all who read your words drive the liars that are the proponents of this horror into extinction!
I am your brother, dear Johana.
Marsh
Comment by Mtumba on 08/11/2012 at 4:04 pm
Calvin, of course I respect you and your efforts, and respect, empathize and grieve for and with all turbine victims worldwide. I bother to write because I believe your website is a critically important resource.
My observations are intended as a form of agitprop. I fear good people will remain perpetual victims if all they do is console one another and share commiseration.
As for Marsh, I meant no disrespect. I knew nothing of his history, though we share much in common. I never had the opportunity to meet any relative on my mother’s side of the family, as every last one of them and their fellow villagers were murdered either in loco or later in camps.
But I do dare say that simply commiserating with one another would not have saved them.
Anyway, Marsh, I am indeed one with you. I’ve spent the last four years agitating at hearings, educating neighbors and the larger community, speaking truth to power—and to the dishonest, sycophantic “academics” and “professionals” who whore-out their credentials and act as cover and enablers to the politically connected, greedy, tax grant and subsidy slurping wind “investors.”
We’ve had some successes, or appear to have, but I’m literally afraid to acknowledge it, as wind industry shills are monied and influential and our present administration is full of green fools and ideologues who ignore bird kills and energy scams while granting environmental waivers and tranches of public money to their powerful friends.
I wonder, when will it be deemed time for a different approach?
And Calvin—I, too, admire and respect Gandhi. But I often wonder, does at least half the credit of his success fairly reside with his foe? For non-violence to work, does one not need a moral and ethical adversary? If so, we are doomed with regard to the wind industry. It is clear the industry is craven, greedy, dishonest and morally bankrupt. Will they not simply hear our anguish and laugh?
Editor’s reply: Thanks for saying this. Your points are well taken. I don’t have good answers.
You ask when it will be time for a “different approach.” I think that time has come in Australia. I think the anger there is palpable and huge. Several federal senators are leading the charge. Dr. Sarah Laurie has turned herself into a whirlwind, and I fear for her life (at the hands of an assassin). ABC News (Australia) is now on board. Several key journalists for national media are also on board. And, most recently, a township has rejected a windplant proposal on the basis of Wind Turbine Syndrome, alone, and if the matter goes to court, it will be the moment we’re all looking for. Nina Pierpont has offered to fly over there and testify. I suspect Dr. Salt would do the same, along with Rick James and Rob Rand & Steve Ambrose.
If you’re thinking “violence” as a “different approach,” I recommend against it. (I believe we’ve had this conversation before.) Violence begets violence. Goals that are achieved through violence are never permanent and, frankly, never resolved. (Hence, never really achieved, unless those goals are base.) Perhaps most important, to engage in violence is dehumanizing; it strips us of our very best quality as human beings—the exercise of “grace” and “compassion.”
I realize my views are a minority. For what it’s worth, they were reached after a lifetime of being a professional historian specializing in the philosophy of history. One of my books, along the way, was titled “The Way of the Human Being,” published by Yale. As I say, I have given it much thought and study.
Comment by Mtumba on 08/11/2012 at 5:23 pm
None of us do! But we must fight on. We owe it to our Earth mother, Gaia, welt atman or whatever else one calls it. Cheers.
Comment by Jackie on 08/13/2012 at 2:51 am
I have read these stories and feel for all those who are suffering. Fortunately an installation intended near to my new home was stopped by the valiant efforts of a dairy farmer named Richard. His efforts cost him dearly. He took them to court an won. Now with our state government changing the rules, the company may be able to apply again. Democracy in South Australia has been taking hits for years and now regulations have been written by our state government allowing these companies to appeal decisions that have gone against them—but if it’s the other way round, we the citizens of this state CANNOT appeal!
I also feel very very angry to the point of wanting to physically hit out at these selfish money hungry fools. But yes they are fools and so instead I feel sorry for them.
However, I agree with Ghandi’s statement and, as has been mentioned, Australia is fighting back. We are taking them to the line and we are showing these companies and those who fawn after them for what they are—greedy liars, who consider it OK to put in planning applications that appear to have been prepared by primary school-age children. We are taking the government on and showing them for what they are.
Just heard the company at Solney Gap here in South Australia IS going to appeal. The people there need everyone’s help to let Tru Energy know they are despicable. If no one signs up to get power from them, they will go broke.
Comment by Basil on 08/14/2012 at 5:12 am
Hubert’s gives his story of a doctor who appears to have nervously avoided the clinical picture of her patient. It is as though this medical practitioner has earmarked as a public enemy because he is getting sick from the operating presence of the local gods of the wind energy religion.
This attitude unfortunately has officially manifested itself in Australia. If one is suffering from wind turbine related illness I would suggest that they first asked their doctor whether they were a member of the “Doctor’s for Environment Australia”.
This is the Doctor’s for Environment Australia submission, to the SA wind farm enquiry.
One major argument is that wind turbines are good for rural communities because unemployment is bad for the health of humans and wind energy helps to solve that problem.
The submission mentions that:
1) “To our patients we try to provide a role model in the care of the environment for this is part of a preventative health ethos”; and
2) that “we support the rapid development of renewable energy sources which do not have significant health impacts”; and
3) “DEA has the expertise to address the first three terms of reference of the Committee”;
4) “The main component of wind turbine exposure that may have adverse effects for up to about 10 per cent of people nearby is audible noise”
Just to state the obvious, if you’re unemployed and suffering from depression the DEA recommends tender loving care. If you totally incapacitated and destroyed by wind turbines then I wonder how the DEA implements its “preventative health ethos” – would they offer euthanasia as a means to prevent another day of suffering?
Comment by mtumba djibouti on 08/15/2012 at 1:11 pm
The extent of corruption in the wind industry is mind-numbing, as is the extent of collusion between greedy industry and it’s sychophantic and fawning government ideologues and enablers. Our governments are failing us on this scam technology. Were it simply a scam, it would be tragic. Unfortunately it’s also a health and environmental menace and must be stopped.
Comment by Hube (France) on 08/20/2012 at 12:17 pm
Sorry, my friends (this is Hubert), I was away for a time, I see this article (thank you, Calvin!) and your posts only now.
So, to all of you: Calvin, Marsh, Andreas, Gail, Kaz, Sue, Johana, Mtumba, Jackie and Basil: THANK YOU!
Your words are very important to me because I know they’re not just words: you are behind them, as real as all the energy they give me.
I was saying to a friend yesterday night that I am now willing to LIVE through this turbine nightmare, I won’t let it paralyse me as it has for so much time, and one of the reasons for this is the thought that, if I ever let those IWTs destroy me or my life, then I would not only destroy myself or my life, but I would also destroy everything all the people who help me are giving me: Understanding, compassion, care, shared anger, a sense of community, and then knowledge, advice, etc. All of this is REAL. It travels through words and around the world and its effects are REAL, too. Words are conveyors — but as beautiful as they may be, their writer will always be more beautiful! — and what I see in them and beyond them are the real persons who sent them.
So, thank you, my dear overseas friends, thank you so much!
Comment by mtumba djibouti on 08/24/2012 at 10:03 pm
Hubert—best to you. I weep for your horrible experience. The words probably aren’t apropos, but I think the spirit in Piaf’s magnificent song, “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” may be. Her strength is boundless and has often comforted me.
“… Non! Rien de rien …
Non! Je ne regrette rien …
Car ma vie, car mes joies
Aujourd’hui ça commence avec toi!”
We are all in this together! I hope the strength she gives me may somehow convey to you. Cheers.
Comment by Emyr Griffiths on 06/29/2013 at 9:10 pm
Dear Hubert and all other LFN sufferers,
This is a very late post to your story. I sympathise very much with your plight. My wife, Beverley, is also very sensitive to (I)LFN. It’s only a matter of time before more people become sensitized and are made ill by LFN.
People sensitive to LFN are literally being tortured by the cursed noise, yet it’s not considered torture. I quote from part of the definition of torture on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_Against_Torture
“It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”
(Part of the definition of torture)
Beverley started hearing wind “turbine” induced ILFN back in 2006 after a wind farm comprising 16 turbines started 25 miles (40 km) SE from our home. It was 2 years after the LFN started that we reached this conclusion.
In 2009 then another wind farm of 10 turbines started up 8.5 miles (13 km) W of our home. Next month (June 2013) another wind farm will start 13 miles (21 km) SSE from our home.
When Beverley first started hearing LFN, it was only during periods of stable weather with a settled high pressure system in place. As more turbines are erected, Beverley hears the LFN more regularly from most wind directions. Wherever we go out in the car, Beverley can usually hear LFN when I turn off the engine.
When the turbines here started turning, Beverley became ill with most of the symptoms of WTS (wind turbine syndrome). Although her doctor is well aware of health problems that can arise from exposure to wind turbine noise, he has diagnosed Labyrinthitis. I gave him various educational articles on LFN and recent research in ear response to LFN and wrote him a letter asking him if he would consider the possibility that Beverley’s illness might be caused by her sensitivity to LFN. He told Beverley that he is willing to consider the possibility, but for now he has to follow his medical training. (He does not like wind farms either, which is a bonus).
There is another wind farm (76 turbines) being constructed slightly further away than the wind farm Beverley first started hearing (25 miles / 40 km) away. 2 other wind farms have been approved (16 & 28 turbines) which should be completed in a few years.
When we first contacted an acoustic “expert” (I won’t mention a name), asking him if it was possible LFN emitted by wind turbine to be heard at 25 miles (40 km) he was very sceptical and suggested that the LFN Beverley was hearing might be psychosomatic. I knew it wasn’t because she didn’t hear it constantly, and when she went away on a couple of occasions she never heard the LFN at all.
To prove that the LFN exists we had an environmental health officer with spectrum analyser which was able to record noise in the frequency range from 10 Hz – 20,000 Hz
Beverley is dreading more wind turbines starting up. If her sensitivity to LFN becomes unbearable we will have to consider abandoning our home in the future – even though we love where we live (a very quiet rural off-grid place with no close neighbours). The trouble is we would not be able to find a spot in Wales, except, perhaps, in a middle of a large town or city, where Beverley might be able to escape from the LFN. Neither of us could bear to live in a town or city again.
After becoming ill Beverley is spending as much time as possible outside – even at night (weather permitting) – because the house resonates and amplifies LFN in a certain frequency range. We have yet to determine the amplified frequencies. She listens to her MP3 layer most of the time to try and drown out the LFN. At night she always sleeps with a pillow speaker plugged into her radio or MP3 player. This help cut down on the LFN she can hear.
It seems to be helping but we have not definite proof yet – conclusive results will take time. We also want to experiment by building a small straw bale house to see if this wall material helps prevent internal resonance. I’ll report back on this in due course.
If anyone else is trying experiments to combat LFN please let everyone else know so we can share the knowledge.
Emyr and Beverley
(Wales, UK)
Comment by Hube (france) on 09/04/2013 at 7:49 pm
Dear Emyr and Beverley, Dear friends,
Oh, God, I won’t make it, here. I’ve only managed to soften the nightmare.
In the long term, though, I can’t cope.
I gonna have to move. Abandon my little house. The worst is the unfinished feeling it brings: I had projects: here, I’ll do this…, there I’ll do that. I spent my time, during this year, buying materials, making sketches and imagining how I could improve my little corner on this planet. Not working, that, I can’t do any more, but still hoping things would get better, especially with the noise of the air extractor protecting me from the turbines ILFN.
Well, it worked for a time.
But not IN THE LONG TERM, it won’t.
Besides, roller-coasting permanently between the ups and downs commanded by the turbines has proved crual and so mind tiring.
My main problem, now, is I’m terrorized I won’t find a place far enough from any turbines — 30 miles, I’m afraid — , and also, even if I did find a place, I know it would take so much time for me to recover because I’m traumatized.
And where would that place be?
It’s like clothes: they won’t have my size, I’m used to that…
One thing, though, is certain: I want to live.
And I know I’ll be able to survive here until I have enough energy to move.
I’ve also discovered that 99% of the normal people, those around me here, family included, have NEVER really believed a word of what I said.
Never REALLY.
The speech is: OK, the turbines hurt you, we BELIEVE you, but you should see a shrink.
Oh, God. Fear and ignorance (lack of information), and GOOD PEOPLE will finish you up after the turbines started the business.
And THAT hurts.
If you, all of you, here on this site, had not been there for me last year and the year before and the year before, I wouldn’t be writing these words now.
I’m now fighting the temptation of SELLING absolutely EVERYTHING I have, to be free, to be freed of material worries, because my mind can’t take both the ILFN and all the actions it takes to move.
I’ve not seen any friends or family for weeks, now. They stopped visiting.
I’VE stopped visiting, too. Maybe, I started this.
I can’t stand the fact that they think, deep inside, that ‘I have problems’…, that I ‘should see someone…’
For my dear brother, I should take pills: he knows a friend who used to hear a river when depressed, and the pills cured her. ‘Was there actually a river’, I asked him. Of course not…
For my dear sister, moving won’t solve anything: wherever I go, my problem will be there.
Oh, God, that hurts. I love them, you see.
I’ve been so NAIVE for all these years.
I don’t hold it against them, though.
It just makes me even more lonely.
You were right, Calvin: If I had moved when you told me to, maybe I wouldn’t have lost SO MUCH. In fact, I tried, last year, but there were turbines around every place I tried, and then I stopped.
Tired and clinging to my house. Both.
Now, I realize that losing a house, a place, an environment you have chosen… is nothing. Losing family and friends, though…
Is that the lesson to be drawn from this mess?, that I brought all this on myself because I couldn’t react quickly enough? I’ve learned one thing for sure: the one standing on the brakes to avoid moving has been me. Pretending life could be possible here, in my house.
Well, it isn’t.
Thanks for reading, my overseas friends.
Wish there were more like you around here.
A bientôt,
Hube
Comment by Emyr Griffiths on 09/05/2013 at 7:24 am
Dear Hubert,
We are very saddened to hear that your problems with LFN are continuing. We hope you can find a place free of wind turbine noise.
Beverley has been lucky this summer. After being ill for a month through most of June 2013 the weather changed and Beverley got better over several days.
We have had quite a lot of good weather through the rest of the summer but the atmospheric conditions have not helped to transmit LFN over long distances. Beverley says that she has heard very little LFN through July & August.
I have found out some information on how LFN can be transmitted over long distances – this information have been known for a long time. Some of the information has been known about for a long time. It is NOT new science.
I have also found out that most noise impact studies assume spherical spreading of sound. This is based on the fact that the total sound energy spreads over an increasingly large sphere as a sound moves away from its source. Any doubling of distance—whether from 100m to 200m or from 1000m to 2000m—will be marked by a decrease in sound intensity of 6dB, which to our ears, is perceived as cutting the volume almost in half. Higher frequencies are reduced more than this – by atmospheric attenuation – while lower frequencies stay pretty close to this model.
While useful in some situations, or as a starting point, the topographic and atmospheric effects tend to shatter the simple picture on which these numbers are based. In attempt to account for these and other factors, manufacturers often add 2db to their manufacturer’s sound emission estimates when applying for permits.
Topographic and atmospheric effects which can affect predicted noise measurements:
1) Sloping landforms – these can create unusual sound propagation conditions, especially in conjunction with atmospheric fluctuations. (e.g. Near the Vancouver Airport, hills rising from a flat plain caused sound levels to be 20dB higher at 5500m than at 4000m, because of the way the increasing ground angles caused sounds to combine, more than nullifying what, in a standard model, would be expected to be a 3dB decrease over that distance.
Atmospheric Effects
Researchers looking more deeply into the readily apparent problems with noise that many residents are experiencing have uncovered a few possible atmospheric factors that deserve further investigation and due consideration from local authorities, as well as inclusion in noise models used to predict likely acoustic impacts of new wind farm developments. Most noise modeling is based on simplified wind speed models, and it is often assumed that higher winds will create higher ambient noise, thus hiding the increased sound of turbines.
1) Night time atmospheric stability
In the daytime, warming air rises, both carrying sound aloft and creating turbulence that scatters turbine noise, as well as creating more ground-based ambient noise that masks turbine sounds. At night, however, when the air stabilizes it appears that noise from wind turbines can carry much farther than expected. This effect can occur with light winds at turbine height and the ground, or, with light winds at turbine height and very little or no wind at ground level.
With light and steady breezes capable of spinning the turbines, but not stirring up much ambient noise, sound levels measured at homes a half mile to nearly two miles away are often 5-15dB higher than models would suggest. Making matters worse, this same atmospheric stability tends to allow multiple turbines to settle into a synchronous rhythm (in more turbulent conditions, small differences in wind between the turbines keeps them out of synch). In this case, the “whish” of the blades as they pass the
tower often turns into a more annoying rhythmic “thump;” in quantitative terms, the change in sound level creating the whish or thump can rise from 2dB to 5dB or as high as 9dB, making a clearly audible rhythmic pattern. These rhythmic pulses are likely the strongest factor in annoyance.
2) Inversion layers
While the quantitative effect of inversion layers on sound levels has not been systematically studied, many opportunistic reports suggest that when an inversion layer forms above the height of turbines, it can facilitate longer-range sound transmission by reflecting some of the sound back toward the ground, or by forming (with the ground) a channel for sound propagation. (Note: Acousticians have known for a long time that sound waves bend towards colder air.)
In many locations, temperature inversion will be a relatively rare occurrence, but in areas with frequent inversion layer formation, it should be considered.
3) Coherence (Sound wave Interference patterns):
Wind turbines are often placed in a row; the sound emanating from each one will move outward in concentric circles. There will be places where the sound waves from one turbine interact with the sound waves from another turbine; in these locations, they sound waves may be out of phase, thus reducing the perceived loudness, or in phase, thus increasing the localized sound levels. You might more easily picture this if thinking of pebbles dropped in water; the expanding circles of waves will cross each other, creating a more dynamic pattern of higher and lower waves. Note: the same factors that can disrupt the idealized spherical spreading models, as noted above, also will tend to create a more chaotic pattern of sound waves from each turbine, thus also limiting the impact, and certainly the predictability, of coherence effects.
The following links will provide more detailed information on what I have outlined above:
1) http://www.acousticecology.org/docs/AEI%20Wind%20Turbine%20Noise%20report%202009.pdf
2) http://www.areco.org/LowFreq.pdf.
3) http://www.flyoakland.com/pdf/low_frequency_noise_report.pdf