Woman suffers from Wind Turbine Syndrome from her workplace, not her home (Mass.)
Jan 10, 2012
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“Scene from the top, looking NW over Buzzards Bay”
(from the NOTUS Clean Energy website)
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From: Donna Benevides, Harwich, MA
To: David Carignan, Health Agent, Town of Falmouth Health Dept (click here for an editorial on this gang)
Date: December 27, 2011
Regarding: The NOTUS wind turbine at Technology Park, Falmouth, MA
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Dear Mr. Carignan:
I work full time at 81 Technology Park Drive in Falmouth in a building that is approximately 650 feet from the NOTUS wind turbine [scroll down to see a satellite view—Editor]. Since this turbine went into full operation, I’ve been suffering from vertigo, dizziness, tinnitus, and a feeling of pressure in my ears.
The pressure can best be described as the feeling you get when driving up a mountain; except that yawning or chewing gum doesn’t ease the pressure as it does when driving up a mountain.
The vertigo is constant, even when I’m at home in Harwich (MA). If I look up, down, or turn my head quickly, the room seems like it’s spinning rapidly and I have to hold onto something so I don’t fall down. When I lay down in my bed at night, the room spins, and the same thing happens if I turn over in bed. This sometimes causes nausea.
I also have trouble concentrating at work, but not at home.
I am in perfect health, with no history of motion sickness, ear problems, or vertigo. I do not take any prescription medications and have normal blood pressure, etc.
I was excited when the turbine was being constructed, because clean energy and reducing our dependence on foreign oil is important. My opinion on wind power has not changed. However, I have learned these turbines need to be placed far away from where people live and work.
I was home in Harwich for four days during the Christmas holiday, and my vertigo lessened so much that I could move my head with only minor dizziness, rather than needing to grab onto something to keep from falling. The blocked feeling in my ears cleared up, as well.
Today, I returned to work and my ears feel blocked and the vertigo is worsening.
Since I do not own property in Falmouth, this is not a case of “not in my backyard” [NIMBYism]. My symptoms are not caused by lack of sleep, because I sleep in Harwich, and generally get a good night’s sleep, except for when I roll over and the vertigo wakes me up, but I am able to go back to sleep after it passes.
I do not know any of the people who live near these turbines, but my heart goes out to them.
Feel free to contact me with any questions.
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Click here for a copy of Donna’s letter
Donna Benevides
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Editor’s note: Here is a satellite map of the location of the NOTUS (Webb) turbine, Donna Benevides’s workplace, and the home and business of Sue Hobart (Hobart’s Fine Florals). Click here and here for the Hobarts’ experience with Dan Webb’s “NOTUS” turbine. Click here for an interview of Sue & Ed Hobart by Dr. Pierpont.
Compare the Hobarts’ description of their Wind Turbine Syndrome with Donna Benevides’s.
While you’re listening to Dr. Pierpont’s interviews with Falmouth WTS victims, be sure to listen to Pierpont’s interview with noise engineers Robert Rand and Stephen Ambrose, who describe their WTS experience while doing NOTUS wind turbine noise & vibration & pressure measurements at the Hobart home. Read the peer-reviewed Rand & Ambrose report here.
Notice that many ignorant people, including clinicians who should know better, maintain that wind turbines affect only sleep—and that it is the sleep deprivation issue which causes all the other host of symptoms. Dr. Pierpont has repeatedly demonstrated that this is erroneous. Donna Benevides’s letter confirms this, as does the Rand & Ambrose report.
In a week or two, the State of Mass. will deliver itself of a health report on wind turbines. The report will be total and utter horseshit. Guaranteed.
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Comment by sue Hobart on 01/10/2012 at 5:31 pm
Well, the Board of Health suggested she might have a brain tumor at their meeting last night… It MUST be that, not the turbines….
They are the most sophomoric and least compassionate group of so-called public servants I have ever encountered… Spineless, heartless know-it-alls… Not talking to them anymore, either… Bless you, Ms. Benevides, for speaking up and trying, anyway…
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 01/10/2012 at 10:00 pm
To the operators of the Notus wind turbine, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turnit off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, for God’s sake turn it off!
Comment by sue Hobart on 01/10/2012 at 10:53 pm
That will not happen Marsh….but it was off a few hours today. Apparently Vestas is in town to turn on Wind 2, and did a service call to tune er up first…
Yep… here we go again…
I totally hate this place…which is unfortunately also my home….!
Comment by Marsh Rosenthal on 01/11/2012 at 12:23 pm
Gandhi
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GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE PEOPLE
We the people, the residents of every nation across the world that are being made victims of the erection of giant industrial wind turbines, must now speak out. Local governments have again and again succumbed to the wind developer’s siren songs and promises of chunks of money, if only they would ignore the misery of a few residents and workers who might be impacted by the inconvenient and unfortunate health consequeces of having to spend day or night time near the machines.
These unlucky persons are to be sacrificed “for the greater good” of hosting the machines, which are supposed to alleviate our ravenous appetite for power and end our “dependency on foreign oil.” They are hawked to us as a “green alternative” to nasty coal and nukes.
Apparently none of these premises is true: Windpower produces miniscule amounts of power intermittently, the USA is now a petroleum exporter, according to a recent news article in the Wall Street Journal, and a recent Dutch scientific study has shown that the required gas-fired back-up generation plants actually pump more noxious effluent into the air than if the wind machines were never there.
So, why are these monstrosities even considered?
Money, money, money, money, money, taxpayer and ratepayer money…
People, wake up! Rise up! As free people you have the right to make insurrection when your lives are threatened. Just ask the Africans who were stolen from their homes and brought in chains to Cuba on the slave ship Amistad. They rose up. They committed acts of insurrection!
Even after US President Martin Van Buren rejected their legal appeal, they triumphed in the Supreme Court of the United States. Their right to rebel as free men was upheld!
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I call to free men and women, in every land around the world, to come to the aid of your suffering sisters and brothers. Stop the windpower farce and madness. Take back your stolen humanity!
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Comment by Bill Heller on 01/11/2012 at 7:25 pm
“If you live in or near Falmouth and are suffering symptoms related to living close to the industrial wind turbines there—such as hypertension, nausea, sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, tinnitus, severe headaches or cloudy thinking—then call our legal professionals at 1-800-TUR-BINE. If your home is unsaleable or a recent appraisal shows a sharp decline in value, call 1-800-TUR-BINE. Our legal staff is there to help you 24 hours-a-day.”
We need a few lawyers to do something along these lines. Town governments who don’t believe the risks to humans need to know there’s another financial liability to consider.
Comment by Mark Cool on 01/16/2012 at 4:03 pm
THE MASSACHUSETTS CLEAN ENERGY CENTER: HELP OR HINDERANCE?
Falmouth assistant town manager received a letter December 19, 2011 regarding the assistance MassCEC would provide in seeking solutions to town turbine mitigation analysis. A phrase repeated throughout the correspondence is “to identify additional useful areas of investigation.”
In addition to the services outlined in the letter, MassCEC boasts to have contracted with DNV Renewables (USA) and Acentech to provide wind technology and acoustic services to the Town of Falmouth. It’s claimed these firms could help in a third-party review capacity of the mitigation analysis “and may further collaborate with the Town and other parties to identify additional useful areas of investigation.” There’s that phrase again – “to identify additional useful areas of investigation!”
At first glance, it seems reasonable that technological and acoustic services should be availed when attempting to “identify additional useful areas of investigation.” The more information, the more stakeholder participants in the consensus building process; the better, right?
I’m still stuck, however, on that damn phrase, “to identify additional useful areas of investigation.” In the letter, the MassCEC denotes the “scope of work” to be performed. Two items – to “serve as facilitator for the process to review and act upon the Mitigation Analysis”, and to “assist the Falmouth Board to weigh technical data and stakeholder input to identify an appropriate mitigation option.” Sounds reasonable, right?
In other words, the facilitator will help selectmen identify the right mitigation option and help selectmen formulate a decision. This will be achieved by facilitating a review, and subsequent action, from the mitigation analysis. Sounds Great – pinch Me!
It is therefore, reasonable to expect an equally vigorous third-party review of the mitigation analysis, scrutinized under the lens of health professionals, rather than services only concentrating on noise compliance. This approach would be in keeping “to identify an especially useful area of investigation.” An area of the Falmouth investigation, by the way, that unfortunately, has seen little town, to say nothing of state, action.
As evidenced by the objections, concerns and complaints to the Falmouth Board of Health, this address identifies the more accurate issue being raised by neighbors.
So, the question of whether the MassCEC is providing help or hinderance in Falmouth’s mitigation reckoning rests directly upon “identifying” and then examining all “useful areas of investigation.”
The MassCEC, as well as the chosen facilitator, cannot successfully achieve a thorough review, to say nothing of suggesting meaningful actions, if the resource of data is limited to those qualifying bits of noise level information having no correlative value to health impact upon those affected.
Help or Hinderance… Is it that difficult to figure?
Comment by Mark Cool on 01/16/2012 at 5:10 pm
It can absolutely not be “a help” Why? The MassCEC’s scope of work, it’s sole mission – is to implement, with ever increasing numbers and scale, the full installation of as many wind turbines that will meet or exceed the 2008 Green Community Act’s 2000MW by 2020 wind energy agenda. The public’s health and welfare is inconsequential, according to the agency’s primary objective.
Town government critical thinking remains cloistered in Falmouth!