Editor’s note: Australia’s feckless National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC), with CEO Warwick Anderson at the controls, is engaged in an all-out war on (a) common sense, (b) innumerable first-hand reports from around the world, and (c) an abundance of reliable clinical evidence & research confirming that wind turbines do, indeed, “directly” cause illness — the illness known to everyone as Wind Turbine Syndrome (WTS).

Open the video, below, and watch Anderson and his lieutenants get hammered by federal Senator John Madigan over the NHMRC’s latest phony WTS report. (Note how Anderson et al. take pains not to use the term, Wind Turbine Syndrome.)  Sit back, relax, and listen to 17 minutes of jaw-droppingly evasive answers to the obviously frustrated senator.  (Senator Madigan has frequently appeared in these pages.)

Click here for the text of Senator Madigan grilling the NHMRC.

The other individual questioning Prof. Anderson, Senator Richard Di Natale, is a wind energy zealot preaching the Gospel of Big Wind up and down Australia while smiting infidels like Dr. Sarah Laurie hip and thigh.  Surprisingly, Di Natale is a physician.  Unsurprisingly, like most physicians he substitutes his medical credential for common sense and doing his homework on the subject at hand.  In any event, in his exchange with the NHMRC brass, Di Natele is struggling to maneuver Prof. Anderson into conceding that WTS is such rubbish that further research is a waste of good tax dollars.

Such is the state of government — and medicine? — in that truly astonishing land called Australia.  Watching Warwick and his henchmen, followed by Di Natale, is like watching burlesque minus the entertainment. (Truth be told, it’s really really depressing.)

Why do Australians tolerate these fools? (Is it their business suits?  The white hair?  The glasses?  The titles?)  Are Aussies not aware that their NHMRC and shills like Di Natale are a mockery of medical and scholarly research — and about 50 years behind the curve? (Is there something goofy about the “air” in Australia? The water?  Too many kangaroos?  I swear these NHMRC guys & Di Natale are the caliber of a small-town health board somewhere in Bible Belt Tennessee.)

Editor’s note:  A Polish study published in an academic journal demonstrates that barnyard geese are fucked up by wind turbine infrasound.  (No, I don’t apologize for my language.  It’s time to get even more blunt with the morons who support this bullshit known as wind turbines.)  We offer this article for those of you suffering from Wind Turbine Syndrome; it’s not intended for the morons who pretend there are no health effects.  These people are ideological dead-enders — hopeless.

Those of you suffering from WTS:  Your symptoms are real.  Keep up the fight.  Keep up the pressure.  Wind energy is finally crumbling under the weight of its own illogic and the now deafening roar of WTS sufferers — globally.

Abstract (click here for the entire article)

Wind farms produce electricity without causing air pollution and environmental degradation. Unfortunately, wind turbines are a source of infrasound, which may cause a number of physiological effects, such as an increase in cortisol and catecholamine secretion. The impact of infrasound noise, emitted by wind turbines, on the health of geese and other farm animals has not previously been evaluated. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effect of noise, generated by wind turbines, on the stress parameters (cortisol) and the weight gain of geese kept in surrounding areas. The study consisted of 40 individuals of 5- week- old domestic geese Anser anser f domestica, divided into 2 equal groups. The first experimental gaggle (I) remained within 50 m from turbine and the second one (II) within 500 m. During the 12 weeks of the study, noise measurements were also taken. Weight gain and the concentration of cortisol in blood were assessed and significant differences in both cases were found. Geese from gaggle I gained less weight and had a higher concentration of cortisol in blood, compared to individuals from gaggle II. Lower activity and some disturbing changes in behavior of animals from group I were noted. Results of the study suggest a negative effect of the immediate vicinity of a wind turbine on the stress parameters of geese and their productivity.

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“German Government Advisers Call For Abolition Of Renewables Subsidies”

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— Press release, Global Warming Policy Foundation (2/26/14)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel won’t like to hear this advice from her advisers: While her government is working hard to reform renewable energy laws, a commission of experts appointed by the Bundestag is recommending to completely abolish the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). In its annual report, the the Expert Commission on Research and Innovation concludes that the Green Energy Law is neither a cost-effective tool for climate protection nor does it have any measurable impact on innovation. “For both reasons, therefore, there is no justification for the continuation of the EEG ,” concludes the report which will be presented to the Chancellor on Wednesday — Andreas Mihm, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2/25/14).

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Click here to read more.

The recent discovery of a 2004 PowerPoint presentation by Vestas employee Erik Sloth to the former Australian Wind Energy Association (now the Clean Energy Council) demonstrating Vestas knew a decade ago that safer buffers are required to protect neighbours from noise, their pre-construction noise models are not accurate and that “we know that noise from wind turbines sometimes annoys people even if the noise is below noise limits” is a disturbing contradiction to their rhetoric and the ideals of their campaign.  It is also confirmation the global wind industry have in fact been peddling misinformation rather than facts.

— Max Rheese

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“What Vestas knew, and when”

— Max Rheese, Executive Director, Australian Environment Foundation.  Article published in OnLine Opinion:  Australia’s e-Journal of Social & Political Debate (2/17/14)

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This is a story about the wind industry and turbine manufacturer, Vestas and the global campaign to counter dissent about the adverse impacts caused by their product to an often ignored minority of people living in rural communities worldwide.

It is also about the useful idiots co-opted to help sell its message.  A term used for those who are seen to unwittingly support an objectionable cause which they naïvely believe to be a force for good.

For a decade individuals and community groups have been calling for studies into the adverse health impacts of wind turbine noise both in Australia and overseas.

This relatively recent phenomenon coincides remarkably with the growth in size of wind turbines from 50m in height to over 150m, taller than the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  Noise from these massively larger turbines has increased correspondingly with low-frequency noise broadcast over a much larger area according to Danish experts Professors Moeller and Pedersen who said “It must be anticipated that problems with low-frequency noise will increase with even larger turbines.”

The common refrain from wind energy companies and their supporters is that there is no evidence of adverse health impacts to nearby residents.  To be factually correct they should have been saying there was no published evidence, which is why those affected want an independent properly constituted health study acceptable to all parties.  Despite these claims by the wind industry as of late 2012 there were over a dozen peer-reviewed published papers linking wind turbine noise with health impacts.

Supporters point to 20 reviews, mainly of existing literature, held in various countries that have found no conclusive evidence linking turbine operations with poor health.

Literature reviews of previous studies serve a purpose as do the plethora of separate studies by acousticians, sleep experts and physicians, many of which draw the conclusion there is a strong prima facie case that low-frequency noise generated by wind turbines causes chronic sleep deprivation in some people which then degenerates to adverse health impacts.

Global wind turbine supplier, the Danish company Vestas, launched their Act on Facts campaign in Melbourne during 2013 to counter the “success” of community groups, the Waubra Foundation and the Australian Environment Foundation in convincing parliamentarians of the need for a study.

The Act on Facts campaign, as the name implies, is to quash ‘myths’ and counter ‘misinformation’ by those who have concerns about the uncritical acceptance of wind energy.

Therefore the recent discovery of a 2004 PowerPoint presentation by Vestas employee Erik Sloth to the former Australian Wind Energy Association (now the Clean Energy Council) demonstrating Vestas knew a decade ago that safer buffers are required to protect neighbours from noise, their pre-construction noise models are not accurate and that “we know that noise from wind turbines sometimes annoys people even if the noise is below noise limits” is a disturbing contradiction to their rhetoric and the ideals of their campaign.  It is also confirmation the global wind industry have in fact been peddling misinformation rather than facts.

Issues referred to in the Vestas presentation were commented on in the previously mentioned peer-reviewed paper by Professors Moeller and Pedersen published six years after the Vestas presentation, where they stated “that minimum distances to dwellings are often calculated from noise data that lack an appropriate safety margin.  Using data without a safety margin, such as mean values for a given turbine model, measurements from a single turbine, or ‘best guess’ for future turbines gives in principle a probability of 50 per cent that the actual erected turbines will emit more noise than assumed and that noise limits will be exceeded.”

This statement no doubt accounts for some of the known instances of wind farms exceeding noise guidelines as detailed in a Supreme Court case in South Australia.  The level of angst in rural communities from disruption to their lives through intrusive noise and wind industry resistance to long-held community concerns has driven more than one expensive court proceedings.

The numerous instances of wind farm operators refusing to release noise data, not keeping accurate records of complaints and buying out some neighbours to silence them with gag clauses is well known and also indicative of an industry desperate to suppress damning information.

The Act on Facts campaign is acknowledgement by the wind industry that they have not been able to successfully control the dissemination of information that is detrimental to their very existence.  Community support is vital for the wind industry as they cannot profitably survive in any country in which they operate without continued generous public subsidies.

This is what makes the Vestas Act on Facts campaign nothing more than corporate spin as outlined in The Guardian: ‘Ken McAlpine, public affairs director for Vestas in Australia, said the highly-unconventional corporate campaign was being launched here because anti-wind groups in Australia had been more successful than in any other country. He accused some of spreading misinformation and using “astroturfing” (fake grassroots) campaigns to persuade politicians to pass legislation making wind farm operations more difficult.’

Or maybe the more than 2000 community groups in 33 countries have been successful because they are the only ones telling the truth.

Does Vestas inside knowledge, since 2004, that their turbines will have an effect on some people and their subsequent denials of such constitute misinformation or something much worse?  Certainly the culture at Vestas is called into question by Professor of Political Science, Peter Nedergaard from Copenhagen University who said “There’s no doubt that Vestas here smears its opponents.”

If one accepts at face value the claims of the wind industry, vociferously articulated over the last decade that there are no health impacts from wind turbine noise, it begs the question of why they are so secretive with regards to noise data.  More importantly if they are so confident of their product, why not take the fight to their critics by vigorously encouraging government to undertake health studies to prove there are no adverse effects as they claim?

Surely it would be in the interests of the wind industry to fund independent studies to vindicate their claims and silence critics, especially since they say their turbines pose no threat to human health.

The hypocrisy of claiming moral purity while not taking available action that would exonerate them, while concealing information that damns their operations, exposes the duplicitous nature of the wind industry and some supporters.

These supporters, many of whom are on the fringes of the medical fraternity, have either knowingly or unknowingly endorsed the denials of the wind industry.

Despite the wind industry being well aware for years that their product has the potential to cause serious harm to human health they invited Professor Simon Chapman, the Climate and Health Alliance, and others to help Vestas launch their ‘fact-based’ campaign last year.

Professor of Public Health, sociologist Simon Chapman who lacks any medical or acoustic qualifications, has been vocal in the media denigrating those who call for medical research into the effects of wind turbines and spoke at the launch of the Act on Facts campaign.

How can Professor Chapman reconcile his ridicule of the reasons numerous people have been forced to abandon their homes because of continuing adverse health effects with the knowledge that the company initiating the campaign knew a decade ago there were problems?

Or how does Professor Chapman reconcile his statements at the senate inquiry into the impacts of wind farms where he was asked if he would be opposed to research into health impacts he said it “would be a wonderful idea” with his strident advocacy depicting those seeking such research as “scaremongering” activists.

Chapman in an SBS radio interview in January this year questions the need for any further research, despite thinking it is a wonderful idea, saying there have been a total of 20 reviews since 2003. Indeed there has; reviews of existing literature but no independent research.

In the same interview he says “the U.S. research was done on wind turbines that were much smaller than what’s used today” which renders that research completely irrelevant as per the conclusions of the Moeller Pedersen research.  Chapman by his own statements displays no obvious comprehension of the acoustical properties of wind turbine operation, but pretends to understand the issue.

What is worse though, for someone who parades his ‘health’ credentials while behaving like a dilettante on actual noise issues, Chapman and other ‘health professionals’ display an amazing lack of compassion in their dismissive attitude to people who claim to be suffering debilitating effects from pervasive wind turbine noise.  Considering there has been no government health study demonstrating adverse health impacts – or studies showing there are not – one could be forgiven for thinking health professionals, of all people, would take a precautionary approach as recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Indeed much the same could be said for the convenor of the Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA), Fiona Armstrong who also spoke at the campaign launch.  What due diligence did the CAHA undertake before deciding there was no substance to the concerns of thousands of people around the world who are directly impacted by wind turbines?    As someone representing health professionals did Fiona Armstrong call for independent health studies to settle the noise issue once and for all?  Having endorsed the Vestas campaign to stick to the facts, what is the response of the CAHA to the internal Vestas document acknowledging noise from their turbines impacts some people in rural communities?

President of the CAHA is Dr Liz Hanna.  It is assumed that Dr Hanna authorised the participation of CAHA at the Vestas launch of its corporate spin campaign.  This immediately puts both Dr Hanna and the CAHA in a position of assisting a turbine manufacturer to deny the adverse health impacts from its product – impacts which it is well aware of and were acknowledged in the 2004 presentation.

There is no evidence any of these health professionals have taken the trouble to interview Annie Gardner, Donald Thomas, Trish Godfrey, Noel Dean, Brian Kermonde, Melissa Ware, Carl or Samantha Stepnell or dozens of others in Victoria alone to determine the integrity of their claims relating to the effects they have been subjected to from wind turbines.

Perhaps the health professionals knew they would be confronted with inconvenient truths if they did, which would undermine their confected outrage at the temerity of those who do not genuflect before the turbines of righteousness.

Another speaker at the campaign launch was Simon Holmes à Court, chairman of Hepburn Wind.  Holmes à Court is famous for being the driving force behind the two turbine community owned wind farm near Daylesford Victoria, the first of its kind in Australia.  Holmes à Court has assiduously cultivated the media in numerous feature articles to present as the community minded crusader for wind energy.  He is perhaps infamous for Hepburn Wind repeatedly reneging on a commitment to release noise data from the Daylesford wind farm after a number of nearby residents, including a local doctor started suffering health impacts.

Uncritical public acceptance of wind industry spin began to change after the 2011 senate inquiry into the impacts of wind farms, chaired by Greens senator Rachel Siewert made the unequivocal recommendation that “the Commonwealth Government initiate as a matter of priority thorough, adequately resourced epidemiological and laboratory studies of possible effects of wind farms on human health.”

After a decade of grass-roots rural community angst from being ridden over roughshod by multi-national energy companies aided by state and federal governments eager to be seen to be ‘doing something’ about climate change, while ignoring the basic human right to enjoy rest and repose in their own home, the issue of health impacts will now get the hearing it deserves.

The Abbott government has announced a health study into the effects of wind farms with the Victorian government pledging $100,000 support.

Environment groups that have supported the wind industry and taken their thirty pieces of silver, ‘health professionals’ who have no expertise in acoustics and no interest in faraway rural communities, but do have an overblown interest in climate health effects, have jumped on the wind energy bandwagon eager to claim the high moral ground despite the human collateral damage.  They instead should have taken the time to look at the noise data and the evidence.  It also would not have hurt to at least speak with the affected families as well.

By allowing themselves to be co-opted as useful idiots to support a so-called ‘noble cause’, where the ends justify the means as well as failing to exhibit a modicum of caution or undertake due diligence, they now find themselves endorsing an industry denying in public what it knows in private to be true.  Good luck with that! 

_{© The National Forum and contributors 1999-2014. All rights reserved.}

— Curt Devlin, Guest Editor

Faced with growing evidence that industrial wind turbines (IWT’s) cause serious adverse health impacts, comparisons between the wind industry and the tobacco industry are getting more obvious all the time.  The Big Wind tactics of stalling, dismissing legitimate concerns, and outright denial of the link between turbines and health problems seem straight out of the Big Tobacco playbook.

Perhaps this pattern is standard behavior for dirty industries, especially when there is no easy way to acknowledge the harm they cause without damaging profits as well.  Despite these similarities, there are also fundamental differences between these two industries, the problems they create, and how they create them.  Anyone looking to hold Big Wind accountable for the havoc it creates should pay careful attention to these differences as well.  Forewarned is forearmed.

Before it was known that cigarette manufacturers were chemically enhancing the addictive properties of its product, they often argued that smokers had the choice to stop.  They insisted that they could not be held responsible for personal choices made by smokers.  Whether true or not, the idea that smokers could opt out at any time was a powerful persuasion on public opinion.  By contrast, once an industrial-scale wind turbine begins to spin in your neighborhood, there is no chance for anyone to opt out.  The wind industry is always quick to point out that a vote was taken to accept a particular wind project — but the fact that no one was told just how dangerous industrial turbines are, is never mentioned.  In any case, the perverse idea that a majority of voters have the right to impose harm on a minority belongs more to fascism than democracy.

Making the scientific link between cigarette smoking and its more egregious health impacts, such as lung cancer and vascular disease, was a long, slow process due to the nature of these diseases and how they must be studied.  The link between wind turbines and their most immediate health impacts, however, can be established much more directly and swiftly, by using a different methodology.  How the link to adverse health impacts is made is a difference worth exploring.

Making the Link 

When public attention first turned to smoking as a health hazard, the tobacco industry tried to defend itself by pointing to the fact there were no large cross-sectional studies that “proved” a direct causal connection between smoking and illness.  Making a causal link between a health hazard and its impact can be difficult, costly, and time-consuming.  As a result of these obstacles, Big Tobacco was able to hold its critics at bay for decades.  The strategy of insisting on almost absolute certainty, something that cross-sectional studies are not designed to furnish in any case, also provided Big Tobacco with the time it needed to mount a massive PR campaign and aggressively lobby policymakers for legal protections.  Meanwhile, despite public posturing to the contrary, Big Tobacco knew full well just how dangerous and addictive its product truly was.

The fact that tobacco taxes have been a mainstay of state and federal revenues for more than a century made it easy to convince lawmakers to protect the industry.  Similarly, Big Wind’s call for indisputable certainty about turbine health impacts has bought years for its epic lobbying campaign to extend the wind production tax credits (PTC), its only source of financial sustenance in the U.S.  By contrast, however, the PTC amounts to nothing more than a government subsidy to big business.  Similar subsidies exist in many other countries as well.  Economically, wind turbines have been a corporate drain on taxpayers and ratepayers alike.  Unlike tobacco, wind energy is simply not a self-sustaining industry.  Now that the PTC has finally been abandoned in the U.S., the wind industry is already looking toward developing countries as a market for it dangerous product—just as the tobacco industry did when its domestic market began to contract.

Cross-sectional studies are an excellent delaying tactic, but they are not equally well-suited for studying all forms of health impacts.  They are designed to compare two groups of people based on a single variable that makes them different, such as smokers versus non-smokers.  Though such studies don’t actually lend themselves to determining causal links in a rigorous scientific sense, they can provide powerful and convincing statistical links known as correlations.  We now know, for example, that smoking correlates very highly with lung cancer and vascular disease—even though we still do not fully understand many of the details about “how” it causes morbidity.

At first glance, smoking seems to be a good candidate for cross-sectional study, because separating smokers from non-smoker seems straight forward enough.  In time, however, researchers realized that this is not as easy as it sounds due to the complicating factor of secondhand smoke.  Many “non-smokers” were actually inhaling large quantities of secondhand smoke at home, in the office, and in public places like bars and restaurants.  Until laws were passed to prohibit smoking in public, many so-called non-smokers were passively inhaling a substantial cigarette smoke every day.  Once researchers began to control for secondhand smoke (by eliminating subjects who were heavily exposed to it), the link between smoking and morbidity came into sharp relief.

Health issues like those caused by turbines, however, are even more difficult to study using a cross-sectional methodology because it is almost impossible to separate those who are exposed and those who are not. Cross-sectional studies connecting wind turbines to adverse health effects such as sleeplessness have been done in a few cases, but these tend to produce weaker links (Nissenbaum 2012). The problem is somewhat similar to that of secondhand smoke.  Much of the harm caused by turbines comes from the low and very low frequency noise they emit.  This combination is sometimes referred to as infrasound and low frequency noise, or ILFN. Extensive research shows that ILFN can cause a wide range of health impacts because it adversely effects the whole body—not simply the ear.

Much like secondhand smoke, therefore, the problem is that ILFN is everywhere.  Virtually everyone is constantly being exposed to it because at least some form of low frequency noise is produced by so many natural and man-made sources other than turbines.  Fairly intense low frequency noise can be found inside cars, buses, trains, planes, and trucks. It is also produced by industrial air compressors, some electrical motors and many other forms of industrial equipment, such as large HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) fans and industrial air scrubbers.  In fact, residential homes were one of the few remaining places of refuge from this onslaught of low frequency noise—until the wind industry began moving into residential neighborhoods.  For these homes, there is no respite.  Worse yet, many residential structures actually amplify ILFN, making it more intense indoors.  It is nearly impossible for researchers to find a group of people who are completely free of ILFN exposure.  Without this control group as researchers call it, how can a cross-sectional comparison be made between groups who are exposed and those who are not?

Case Series Crossover Studies to the Rescue

Fortunately, there are other perfectly valid and well-accepted methodologies for making reasonably precise comparisons in situations like this.  One such methodology is called a case series crossover study, or sometimes simply a crossover study.  This methodology has been widely used for many years in public health, population biology, occupational, and environmental studies like this.  When conducted with care and rigor, crossover studies can identify connections between adverse health impacts and sources which are otherwise hard to identify.

A crossover study is a very elegant and powerful technique for making comparisons over time.  Instead of comparing two separate groups of subjects like a cross-sectional study, a crossover study compares each subject in the experiment to himself or herself at different times or phases.  In the case of turbine noise, for example, subjects can be compared to themselves before, during, and after exposure to wind turbines.

This is precisely why Dr. Nina Pierpont (who is both an MD and a PhD in population biology) chose the case crossover technique for the landmark study reported in her book, Wind Turbine Syndrome:  A Report on a Natural Experiment (2009). In the non-clinical chapter of her report, she wrote:

First, to call this a wind-turbine associated problem at all, I compared how people were during exposure to how they were when not exposed, and I specified that “not exposed” meant both before and after living near turbines.  All my subjects saw their problems start soon after turbines went online near their homes, and all saw their problems go away when they were away from the turbines [author’s emphasis] (Pierpont 2009).

Given this evidence, what conclusion would you draw?  Those who have experienced new symptoms firsthand when turbines start spinning near their homes, also soon discovered that these same symptoms disappeared when they got away from the turbines.  They quickly came to the same conclusion as Pierpont did, entirely on their own.  For them it wasn’t necessary read Wind Turbine Syndrome to identify the source of their health problems; it was obvious from the outset.  Many of those directly affected are so certain, in fact, that they have voted with their feet, by abandoning their homes to find a place of refuge far from any turbine.  Science and commonsense have come to the same conclusion about the dangers of living near turbines.

This is a very different experience from that of smokers.  In the past, smokers themselves often did not believe their daily habit was ruining their health.  In fact, the media was constantly reassuring them that smoking was both healthy and glamorous.  Unlike wind turbine syndrome, the progression of cancer and heart disease caused by smoking is so slow and imperceptible that victims often don’t notice until it is too late.  How often have you heard a smoker say “I’ve been smoking for years and it hasn’t bothered me at all?”

Identifying the Moment of Incidence

Not every disease or condition can be studied using the crossover approach.  For instance, diseases such as lung cancer and heart disease cannot be studied this way, for two important reasons. First, these diseases develop so gradually and imperceptibly that science cannot reliably determine when they first began. A rigorous crossover study must be able to identify what medical researchers call the moment of incidence, the moment when a symptom or condition begins. Unless this moment can be determined with some accuracy, a crossover study cannot link an adverse health effect to a specific source at a particular time.

Secondly, some conditions, such as lung cancer and heart disease, are often irreversible.  Lung cancer, for instance, does not disappear simply because you stop smoking.  It would be absurd to claim that smoking does not cause cancer simply because it doesn’t go away when a smoker quits.  A crossover study would not be effective for studying the health impacts from smoking.  By contrast, many of the earliest health effects associated with wind turbines quickly subside or disappear completely when turbine exposure stops.  This makes the crossover methodology an excellent choice for studying the relationship between wind turbine noise exposure and its symptoms.

It is important to realize that science does not need to study the symptoms of wind turbine syndrome for decades to accurately determine the source of the problem.  When precisely controlled comparisons are made using the case crossover approach, the link between industrial wind turbine noise and its most immediate detrimental health effects is clear and compelling.

When two 1.5 Mw turbines were sited in a dense residential neighborhood in Fairhaven, MA (Methia 2013) two years ago, some of the residents began experiencing sleep disruptions, intense headaches, and dizziness almost immediately.  Proponents of the wind project tried to deflect blame for these problems by suggesting that they were caused by the large HVAC fans on the back side of the nearby Stop & Shop.  The trouble with such explanations is that the HVAC fans had been operating there for several years, generating few complaints.  By emphasizing the proximity in time between the source and symptoms at the moment of incidence, case crossover data can establish compelling evidence against the real culprit, and clearly distinguish the true source of the problem—the introduction of nearby industrial turbines into a previously quiet neighborhood.

Despite this intuitively obvious fact, many neighbors in towns like Fairhaven, Falmouth, and Scituate in Massachusetts, who have not felt any immediate impact, believe they are completely safe.  Wind advocates often cite this as evidence that the turbines are not the problem.  The best available scientific evidence suggests, however, that those who think they are unaffected are making a very bad—possibly deadly—mistake.

Eventually Everyone Is Affected

Ominously, studies which have focused on the health impacts from long-term exposure to low frequency noise, much like studies on long-term smoking have demonstrated that it leads to diseases which are debilitating, eventually irreversible, and sometimes fatal.

In fact, long-term exposure to intense low frequency noise has been linked to chronic diseases similar to those caused by smoking, such as cancer and heart disease.  Like Big Tobacco, it is easy for Big Wind to be dismissive about these findings because the early stages of these diseases are often asymptomatic.  You can almost hear a slightly distorted echo of the smoker’s bravado: “I’ve been living near big turbines for years and I feel just fine!  It doesn’t bother me.”

The wind industry has seized upon the common misconception that sound energy only impacts the human ear.  If infrasound cannot be heard, then it cannot harm you, right?  This dangerous misconception has been flatly contradicted by the work of Dr. Alec Salt, an otolaryngologist in the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.  Salt has demonstrated that sound frequencies below the threshold of hearing have direct impacts on the inner ear (vestibular organs) and cause signals to be sent to areas of the brain other than the hearing center (Salt, Responses of the Ear to Infrasound and Wind Turbines, 2010).  He has also shown that these signals rise to a level 4X the loudest audible noise, making the human extremely sensitive to infrasound (Salt, Turbines can be Hazardous, 2013).

Beginning in 1980, two Portuguese researchers, Nuno Castelo-Branco, MD, and Mariana Alves-Pereira, PhD, who have been studying the long-term health impact of ILFN on both humans and animals for over three decades now, began demonstrating that intense low frequency sound and vibration have highly destructive impacts on the entire body, known collectively as vibroacoustic disease or VAD.  In a co-authored paper based on their study, they reported that:

The autopsy findings of thickened cardiac structures led to the echocardiographic study of the population of aircraft technicians.  All had thickened pericardia, and many also exhibited thickened cardiac valves (Marciniak et al. 1999).  Pericardial thickening among LFN-exposed individuals has been anatomically confirmed through light and electron microscopy studies of VAD patient pericardial fragments (collected with patients’ informed consent, during cardiac bypass surgery received for other reasons) (Castelo-Branco et al. 1999a, 2001, 2003a,b; Castelo-Branco 2004).

All 140 of their subjects showed signs of dangerous and sometimes lethal thickening of the tissue in and around their hearts after long exposure to low frequency sound and vibration at work—the same kind of sound and vibration produced day and night by wind turbines.  Unfortunately, this thickening can become life-threatening with little or no warning for the victim.  This same study also reports that 100% of the subjects suffered from some form of cognitive impairment, noting that “delays in multi-modal evoked potentials (including endogenous), observed in all 140 patients, are a sign of progressive neurological deterioration and early aging process” (Castelo-Branco 2004).  In other words, after sufficient exposure to ILFN, virtually everyone is affected.

In case a finding of premature aging in every subject is not disturbing enough, they also found that more than half their subjects developed bronchitis whether they smoked cigarettes or not.  Half or more also developed headaches, nose bleeds, and balance problems such as vertigo and dizziness—many of the same hallmark symptoms reported by Pierpont in Wind Turbine Syndrome.  It is worth noting that the occupational pattern of exposure in the Portuguese study is an excellent way to gather crossover data.  The report notes, for example, that many of these symptoms subsided or disappeared when technicians went home for the day.  Ironically, those who are most affected by early symptoms may be the lucky ones if it forces them to get away from the source before the worst effects take hold.

Castelo-Branco and Alves-Pereira also found 22 cases of late-onset epilepsy among the technicians (Castelo-Branco 2004).  The development of even one or two cases among adults would be disturbing enough, since this form of epilepsy rarely occurs after about ten years of age.  Twenty-two cases represents a startling 20-fold increase over the occurrence in the general Portuguese population.

In addition, this team also was able to directly observe the destruction of healthy cells in tissue samples under an electron microscope.  Apparently, the biomechanical force of low frequency vibration can cause healthy cells to burst like water balloons after being squeezed one too many times.  The abnormal destruction of otherwise healthy cells throughout the body can be a precursor to various autoimmune diseases, as well.

In short, research out of Portugal confirms that exposure to ILFN has impacts throughout the human body.  The greater the exposure, the more severe the morbidity.

If you are wondering whether industrial-sized turbines can produce the same health impacts as found among the aircraft technicians, Alves-Pereira and Castelo-Branco subsequently extended their study of ILFN to families and horses living near such turbines (Alves-Pereira 2006).  They used similar techniques, such as echocardiographs and brainstem auditory evoked potentials.  Predictably, they found health effects very similar to those found in their seminal study of aircraft technicians. One can only imagine how quickly illness will occur when someone spends all day in an ILFN-rich work environment, only to come home at night to a barrage of low frequency noise and vibration coming from a nearby complex of industrial wind turbines.

When long-term morbidity from Big Wind and Big Tobacco is considered carefully, the two industries appear to have more in common than either would like to admit. When you consider the wind industry’s increasingly desperate denial of a large and growing body of evidence from experts in clinical and acoustic research, showing that wind turbines make people very sick — it’s hard to ignore the mirror image of Big Tobacco’s response to evidence that smoking is disastrous to health.

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References

Alves-Pereira, C.-B. (2006, Aug 4). Vibroacoustic disease: Biological effects of infrasound. Lisbon, Alverca, Portugal: ScienceDirect. Retrieved from http://nmcares.pbworks.com/f/AlvesPereira2007%20Vibroacousticdisease:biologicaleffectsofinfrasound.pdf

Castelo-Branco, A.-P. (2004). Vibroacoustic disease. Noise Health [serial online], 6:3-20. Alverca, Caparica, Portugal: Noise Health. Retrieved from http://www.noiseandhealth.org/text.asp?2004/6/23/3/31667

Methia, J. (2013, April). Too Close: Stories from Those Who Live in the Shadows. Fairhaven, MA, U.S.: John Methia. Retrieved from http://vimeopro.com/user8792371/too-closestories-from-those-living-in-the-shadows

Nissenbaum, A. H. (2012). Effects of industrial wind turbine on sleep and health. Noise Health [serial online]. Retrieved Dec 30, 2013, from http://www.noiseandhealth.org/text.asp?2012/14/60/237/102961

Pierpont, N. (2009). Wind Turbine Syndrome:  A Report on a Natural Experiment.  Santa Fe, NM: K-Selected Books.

Salt, A. (2010, Aug. 30). Responses of the Ear to Infrasound and Wind Turbines. Cochlear Fluids Research Laboratory, Washington University in St. Louis. St. Louis, MO, U.S.: Washington University in St. Louis. Retrieved from http://oto2.wustl.edu/cochlea/windmill.html

Salt, A. (2013, 6 19). Turbines can be Hazardous to Human Health. Cochlear Fluids Research Laboratory, Washington University in St. Louis. St. Louis, MO, U.S. Retrieved from http://oto2.wustl.edu/cochlea/wind.html

Editor’s note:  Click here for the video accompanying this editorial.  We’d like to dedicate this piece to Geoff Leventhall and Simon Chapman, two ardent enablers of  wind energy.  The former is a physicist.  The latter, risibly, a sociologist.  Neither seems capable of grasping that wind energy is, through and through — horseshit.  (Yes, this includes the physics of wind energy.)  That it’s absolute horseshit — or worse.  Both men dismiss and, in Chapman’s case at least, openly ridicule Wind Turbine Syndrome.  History will judge them harshly.  That historical reckoning begins with Acheson’s editorial, below.

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— Ben Acheson, Huffington Post (UK), 2/16/14

Another week, another plethora of news reports attacking wind farms. The latest headlines include; November date for Trump’s wind farm challenge”, “Approval for wind turbines sparks protest at ‘ring of steel'” and “Wind turbines may be killing bats by ‘exploding’ their lungs”, to name but a few. Yet will the stories about Donald Trump, exploding bats and Scotland’s version of the Iron Curtain help to stem the spread of mammoth turbines across our land and seas?

Probably not.

Still, it was only two years ago that anyone who publicly opposed wind turbines was considered a social pariah and practically ostracised from society as if they were modern-day lepers. Things have changed. Not a day goes by without a new story slamming wind energy or highlighting the increasing wind farm opposition across the UK. Just as it was once popular to support wind energy, it has almost — almost — become fashionable to oppose wind turbines.

The problem is that many of the news reports are nothing more than filler. If they are printed on a Tuesday, they are forgotten about by Wednesday; such is the nature of the fast-paced, up-to-the minute, 24-hour news cycle that is available to us. Despite the constant barrage of anti-wind press, the spread of massive industrial wind turbines continues unabated.

In the last year alone we have seen news reports outlining how wind farms have surrounded some of Britain’s most untouched landscape and blighted some of our most bucolic and treasured towns and villages. We have heard horror stories about planning departments ignoring guidelines and forcing homeowners to live next to monstrous whirling steel turbines. We have been warned that property values have plummeted due to the inappropriate placement of wind farms and we have seen hundreds of anti-wind protest groups spring up across the nation, incensed at the lack of democracy in the planning system.

We have read how turbines impact human health and after years of mockery from pro-wind groups, we now have the first peer-reviewed, science-based report confirming that turbines do have harmful impacts on humans.

We have watched videos of turbines exploding in high winds and crashing to the ground in storms. We have witnessed precious habitats and ecosystems torn apart to make way for turbines and we have seen stories about birds being chopped to bits. We have heard how offshore wind farms will destroy precious undersea carbon stores, affect aquatic animals and close important fishing grounds.

We have been told that the tourist industry will be damaged and the golf industry will take a hit. We read explanations of how sailing routes will be impacted and even how Britain’s strategic nuclear deterrent could be hampered. The Ministry of Defence has objected to many wind farms which will affect radar systems and we have even seen how turbines could prevent the detection of secret nuclear weapons tests.

Mountaineers, ramblers, cyclists, equestrians, aviation enthusiasts and bird-watchers have protested. Celebrities have come out to support anti-wind campaigns. Members of every political party, except the Greens, have spoken out against turbines. Over 100 MPs petitioned David Cameron to stop the madness. Members of the European Parliament have repeatedly urged the European Commission to get involved. The Scottish Government has received 10,000 objections from people who oppose wind farms – and that was just for large developments (>50MW).

We have read that schoolchildren are being utilised as pro-wind propaganda tools and we have even seen how the United Nations has ruled that the UK is in breach of international law regarding public participation and the right to receive information in regard to wind farm developments. In the last few weeks, we have heard how IPCC climate change projections, which formed the basis for renewable energy targets, have been called into question by leading scientists.

We have watched as turbines have had to be shut down in high winds and how consumers foot the bill when they are. We have seen their minimal contribution the UK energy supply, even when they are needed most. We have been affected when energy bills have skyrocketed thanks in part to a misguided focus on wind energy. Unfortunately we have also heard how millions of households have been forced into crippling fuel poverty, now having to choose between food and fuel.

We have read about noise abatement orders and residents’ legal challenges. We have seen some communities torn apart by wind farm proposals and others handed bribes in return for their silence. We have read how landowners pocket exorbitant amounts of cash in return for housing turbines and we have seen developers reap vast profits from the UK’s subsidy regime. We have heard how peat bogs have been ripped up and forests torn down to make way for wind farms. We are now being told that wind energy has not made even the slightest difference to carbon emissions.

We have even seen those who peddle ridiculous pro-wind arguments about green jobs debunked and refuted. There is enough credible evidence and enough of an opposition to end a policy of support for industrial wind energy. Yet still we see wind farms popping up all around the country.

Isn’t it about time that we looked at all the evidence cumulatively? Isn’t it about time that we just chalked it up as a loss and tried something else?

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Ben Acheson is the Energy and Environment Policy Adviser and Parliamentary Assistant to Struan Stevenson MEP at the European Parliament in Brussels. In addition to his expertise on Energy and Environment issues, he has an in-depth knowledge of regional security in Central Asia, animal welfare within the European Union and EU-aspects of the Scottish independence debate. In his spare time, Ben writes for www.thinkscotland.org and plays semi-professional American Football; in 2012 he was unanimously voted as the National Player of the Year in Belgium.

Follow Ben Acheson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@ben_acheson

Click here for the article in “Stop These Things!”

— Carl V Phillips PhD, Guest Editor

Large wind generators (IWTs, for “industrial wind turbines”) cause health problems for nearby residents, kill birds, and destabilize the power grid. Something those impacts have in common is that it would be possible for them to not be the case, and so attempts to deny them represent merely a refusal to acknowledge the overwhelming empirical evidence. That “merely” contrasts with another impact, IWTs lowering local residential property values. Denial of that not only requires ignoring the specific empirical evidence, but requires a suspension of well-established principles of economics.

The value of a piece of real estate is what someone is willing to pay for it. More specifically, in a theoretical perfect market, it is what the person (or family or other entity) who values it second-most would pay for it. This is because whoever values it first-most would have to pay $1 more than that value in order to win the bidding for it. Anything that would cause that person in the second-most position to value the property less, therefore, lowers its value.

Many people are aware of the potential health effects of nearby IWTs, and thus will value a property enormously less if it is near IWTs. For many others, the audible noise or visual impact would lower the value somewhat. If the person who values a property second-most falls into either of these groups, the value of the property will be lower. There is no reason to believe that anyone prefers to have a nearby IWT, so there is no chance that person would like the property more and thus increase the value. (Note that this analysis does not consider the net change in the value of a property with income from IWTs that are actually on the property. For such properties there will still be a decrease in value from the proximity but might be a net increase because the income more than makes up for this.)

Moreover, even someone who does not personally worry about the health risk or find the aesthetic impacts objectionable will know that others do. Thus, he will know that the potential resale value of the property is lower, and since that contributes to the value, this will tend to push down the value for even those who do not mind living near the IWTs.

Thus, there is simply no question that IWTs lower the value of nearby property, and the only legitimate question is “how much?”, not “does it occur?” Anyone who insists that there is no reduction in value is trafficking in nonsense that is actually one step worse than the nonsense that there are no health impacts, in that it denies both the evidence and the irrefutable logic.

Of course, in reality markets do not function exactly like the theoretical simplification, but the same principle applies in the real world with only a bit of additional complication. The sale of a property does not attract the attention of everyone who might want to bid, and so the second-highest valuation is not based on every possible buyer, but only on those who are in the market at the particular time. But this changes nothing. More significantly, the market is not a perfect auction, so the highest offer (which determines the market value of the property) does not consist literally of someone outbidding the second-highest by $1, but rather some guesswork about what bid is enough to convince the seller that no better offer is available. But this offer will be no higher than the potential buyer’s value for the property, which will be lowered by the factors noted above, and the guesses about alternative offers will be pushed downward by those factors also. Thus the exact real world results may not be as predictable as the theoretical case, but the fact that there is a reduction in value is unchanged.

Finally, the person/family who values a property the most is almost always, by far, the one who is living there. This is why very few sales result from an interested buyer making an offer for a property that is not actively for sale. So when residents suffer problems from nearby IWTs that make them want to move, the market value is dramatically reduced because the bidding for the property no longer includes the person who previously placed the highest value on it. Even worse than this impact on the market value, the benefits from that piece of land to overall human happiness — because it no longer provides net benefits to those who valued it the most — is reduced even more.

Empirical studies are required to determine how much property values are decreased near IWTs, and that magnitude might affect policy decisions and certainly affects cost-benefit analyses. The methods for doing such studies are highly imperfect; hence, there is room to criticize the estimated magnitude.

One thing we know for sure is that any study or assertion that insists there is no impact — is wrong.

Editor’s note:  Behold “Turbo-Jesus.”  TJ.  The Redeemer.  Our 21^st-century Messiah.

TJ promises to save us from the apocalypse of Global Warming.  TJ is the god of the Wind Energy religion.  You can see his symbols, his cruciform icons, erected willy nilly across rural landscapes around the globe.  (Check your electric bill.  Every month, you’re being tithed to pay the priests of this cult for installing TJ crosses across land & sea.  Soon they will be coming to your neighborhood!)

“Praise the Lord,”  shout TJ’s followers in loud hosannas to their (financial) savior!

Noise engineer Stephen Ambrose had an epiphanal encounter with TJ several years back, when, like the biblical Saul on the road to Damascus, Ambrose was brought to his knees by TJ’s (infrasonic) powers.

Did this turn Ambrose into a believer?  Well, yes, sort of.  He immediately became a born-again believer in Wind Turbine Syndrome — as he describes in his testimony before the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Utilities last month.  (Click here for a PDF of his testimony.)

Jesus of Nazareth is said to have warned his followers that in the so-called End Times (a spooky apocalyptic scenario), an Anti-Christ would appear, promising redemption to humanity.  Could TJ and his horde of followers who make a financial windfall off taxpayer & ratepayer subsidies — is it possible TJ is that very Anti-Christ?  The god whose “brand” is the 2.5 MW Triune Phallus?
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Testimony of Stephen Ambrose before the Mass. Dept. of Public Utilities (1/29/14)

I witnessed this [wind turbine] harm 1750-ft from the nearest Falmouth wind turbine during moderate to strong winds. I never expected to be made sick, to feel miserable, to have an unrelenting headache, and nausea. I lost enthusiasm doing the work that I love. I recognized the loss of cognitive ability and was able to adjust with extra care and effort. There were frequent awakenings from unknown causes that interfered with restful sleep. Leaving the area provided some relief, yet was quickly lost after returning. Amazingly, it took two weeks at home for my wife to notice that I was returning to normal. I never want to have this experience repeated.

— Stephen Ambrose, Board Certified Noise Engineer, INCE

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My name is Stephen Ambrose and I am an acoustic professional with over 35 years’ experience in community noise assessments. My success is achieved by education, learned experiences, careful listening, and then confirming with good measurement practices. I follow industry-accepted guidelines and procedures developed to protect neighbors from adverse noise impacts. These wind turbine noise complaints should never have occurred. They could have all been predicted before ever being presented for public review.

I graduated from UMasss Amherst in 1976 with a BS degree in Civil Engineering. I have 18 years’ experience with Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation in Boston, where I specialized in industrial noise and vibration control. For the past 15 years, I have been an independent consultant focusing on acoustics, environmental sound and noise control. I am Board Certified by the Institute of Noise Control Engineering and Full Member of the Acoustical Society of America.

My career is committed to following the highest canons of professional ethics:  1) hold paramount public safety, health, welfare and wellbeing, 2) represent clients truthfully, and 3) avoid or make known all conflicts of interest.

As a professional acoustic investigator, I will confirm by my own experiences that neighbors are being harmed when wind turbines are built too close to homes. This HARM is real. Wind turbine HARMS in many ways by causing physical or mental damage or injury, diminishes the enjoyment of life. People are impaired, hurt, broken, devalued, weakened, etc. Harm destroys the fabric for living.

I witnessed this harm 1750-ft from the nearest Falmouth wind turbine during moderate to strong winds. I never expected to be made sick, to feel miserable, to have an unrelenting headache, and nausea. I lost enthusiasm doing the work that I love. I recognized the loss of cognitive ability and was able to adjust with extra care and effort. There were frequent awakenings from unknown causes that interfered with restful sleep. Leaving the area provided some relief, yet was quickly lost after returning. Amazingly, it took two weeks at home for my wife to notice that I was returning to normal. I never want to have this experience repeated.

I have visited Fairhaven, Kingston and Scituate and other wind turbine sites. Neighbors living near these facilities are being harmed, yet they are being ignored by those entrusted with the responsibility for protecting public health. Why is this? Why is Massachusetts only funding studies to disprove and invalidate neighbors’ complaints? This is WRONG! The State must acknowledge neighbors’ hardships and provide comfort and assurance that this will be remedied. An expression of sympathy is the right first step. Instead, the State continues to voice disdain and contempt for neighbors’ complaints. This must STOP!

Observing noise produced by a large wind turbine during the daytime is very misleading. Go out at night during moderate wind speeds (12 to 18 mph) and higher at distances greater than 900-ft. Stand quietly and identify all the sound sources that you hear. Then imagine trying to sleep. Remember neighbors’ complaints relate more to the activity interference than the actual sound level; watching TV, conversations, and especially sleep.

I recommend that my peers and public health officials and talk with the adversely impacted neighbors during a windy night. Better yet, go prepared to live as a neighbor and do not be surprised when they invite you to sleep in their bed. This happened to me and was a life-changing event in my career. I no longer have sympathy for wind turbine neighbors. I now have real empathy. One prone to motion sickness may have a similar experience to mine.

When neighbors describe the horrors living near a wind turbine, believe them. They all are looking for deliverance from their State imposed misery. Count your individual blessings, for not being in their place where you need to plead for liberation from living in a public health sacrifice zone.

Please respond proactively for the plight of wind turbine neighbors.  I envision that these hearing will have a positive outcome enabling changes that benefit Massachusetts commitment to protect all citizens equally.

These DPU hearings are highly beneficial. DPU involvement in this issue is welcomed. All State regulatory agencies are empowered to protect the public. Board members have heard firsthand witnesses describe their ruined lives and the harmful effects caused by wind turbines. The DPU has the regulatory authority, and this should be used to be pro-active in their efforts to protect public health, safety, welfare and well-being.

Editor’s note:  In December 2013, the Hartke family abandoned this home — as in, “abandoned.”  Not sold.  Abandoned.  (Yeah, it was their sole residence.)  They now live well away from wind turbines (“No louder than a humming refrigerator” — remember?) in a double-wide trailer.

You who scoff at the idea that wind turbines can and do make people sick (sick enough to abandon a home) — read on.  Take comfort knowing that Mr. Hartke was like you: he believed the idea was preposterous.

There’s a professor at an Australian university who preaches — to anyone within earshot — that WTS is horseshit.  The man fancies himself clever and a great wit.  He, and an equally imbecilic physicist in the UK, are currently the academic bell-ringers for the messianic drive to install wind turbines in everyone’s backyard — wind turbines as the Savior of the world.

(Not surprisingly, neither man can claim a single clinical credential and both are manifestly senile or venal or both, and both would be laughed out of any self-respecting American university.  Yet this doesn’t slow them down.)

Tragically, the Hartke family fell victim to these two hacks.  Life is rich.

—Testimony by Ted Hartke before the Boone County Zoning Board (Illinois), 5/28/13

My name is Ted Hartke. I am a professional engineer and professional land surveyor, and I own Hartke Engineering and Surveying, Inc. My dad, Phil, and my brother, Dave, are both farmers. As a land surveyor, I know how emotional and protective people are about their land and the rights they have to get the most out of their property. This wind farm issue is very difficult to deal with, and I have an important story to tell you.

I live in the center of the Invenergy California Ridge wind farm located in Vermilion County, Illinois, consisting of 138 turbines rated at 1.6 megawatts each and being 495 feet tall.

Before our project started, and throughout its construction, I had no issues with my county’s decision to create our existing wind industry ordinance including all of the details within it regarding setbacks or other matters. I did not know or worry about noise pollution. There had been some negativity about noise, so during the summer of 2011, I parked under a wind turbine near Bloomington Illinois on our way to Phillip’s church camp. I turned off the car, and myself, my wife, and my kids all got out to walk around and look at things. I could hear light wispy air “whooshing” sounds. I could hear a tractor in a field a mile away and also birds chirping about as loud as the blades’ air disturbance. I thought I had very little to worry about the noise from turbines about to be constructed near my home in Vermilion County.

We managed to get through the dust, traffic, construction noise while our road was reconstructed in front of our property. It was exciting to see the huge turbine components hauled past our house. For me, things were friendly between me, the construction crews, and the wind farm representatives. Everything was “just fine.” We thought we had lived through the worst part of the project.

In January, our noise problem began. We had a couple bad nights of engine whining noise. We thought we might get used to it … sort of like people become accustomed to living near busy highways or train tracks. However, our noise was lasting all night long, kids were waking up numerous times every night. It was totally unexpected … a complete shock. We were unaware of how the noise was going to change our lives.

I have personal first-hand knowledge of and expert witness testimony as follows:

1) Wind turbines will wake you up at various times. It is impossible to get healthy sleep.

2) The engine “whining” or “humming” noise is very disturbing and stressful. This low frequency noise penetrates your house, and there is no place where you can go inside your house to escape it. (OUTSIDE your house, the noise doesn’t seem so bad. INSIDE your house, the noise is unbelievable.)

3) There were mornings when I put clothes on my kids and shoved them out the front door when they were sleep deprived and not ready for a full day of school. Wind turbines are hard on your children.

4) Our son already had a pre-existing sleep problem and we have been seeing a specialist for ~2 years now. Up until the turbines went live, Phillip’s symptoms had been improving dramatically, and in early January at his last check up with the specialist we had discussed weaning him off his sleep meds. Since the turbines turned on in January, Phillip’s symptoms have been gradually returning/becoming worse. Since the developer will not turn the turbines off at night anymore, we had a very bad noise event at our home on May 11. This was the first time Phillip complained of dizziness from the noise. Later in the evening he started vomiting. It was a really miserable night for the entire family.

The Dr. made some suggestions to help cut down on the noise (special ear plugs) and to cut down on the vibrations caused by low-frequency sound (shock absorbers under the legs of his bed). He also increased the dosage of a medication our son was already taking due to his sleep disorder in the hopes that this would allow Phillip to have greater periods of uninterrupted sleep.

5) I have argued with my wife at 2:30, 3:30, 4:30, and 5:30 in the morning. Wind turbines are hard on your marriage.

6) Being exhausted severely impacts your work performance and stresses relationships with employees and co-workers. Wind turbines are hard on your careers.

7) I have embarrassed myself and have cried in front of my peers while describing the insurmountable problem my family is experiencing with this noise. Wind turbines are hard on your public image.

8) Standing up and requesting assistance to solve this problem required me to put pressure on my county board representatives. My ties with community leaders have been severed….hurting my small business. Just like any other person, I had to put my family first, and I put my business at great risk while going up against neighbors, public officials, fellow citizens, and construction companies who hire my firm to do engineering and survey work. I decided to come up to your community tonight because I feel a heavy burden and responsibility to other men, women, and children who will suffer from future wind turbine placement.

9) Between January and May, I was able to convince Invenergy to shut down turbines approximately 50 times during nighttime noise events. During that time, I contacted contractors and researched ways to soundproof my home. I was rejected by several contractors who did not believe they could fix my problem. Soundproofing against low frequency noise is extremely difficult. My home had too many large windows, a fireplace flue, 5 dormers, vaulted ceilings in the living room and upstairs bedrooms. On Saturday, May 11th, my request to turn off one of these turbines was declined. We were awake all night with high levels of wind turbine noise. We cannot live this way. This wind turbine noise is torture … torture is what you do to terrorists, not my children!

10) I have researched and studied soundproofing improvements to my home. To get some relief from soundproofing, it will require new windows, doors, exterior sheeting, wall insulation, and roofing insulation. To get the insulation completed will require removal of existing windows, siding, sheeting, and a build-up of roofing materials. The approximate cost to soundproof my home in this manner is $150,000.

11) My wife and I were very stressed and needed help … we decided that this horrible noise should be documented and reported because of the upcoming discussions for the county board and also to build records to justify our soundproofing repairs with Invenergy. A Vermilion County Sheriff’s Deputy was at my house, in my bedroom, to listen to the noise at 2 AM. Our Mother’s Day holiday was ruined.

12) I emailed the entire county board an open invitation to come to my home, spend time inside my bedroom where I sleep. They have declined to address my problem. Unfortunately, this noise problem will grow and affect more Vermilion County citizens as more turbines are constructed. For as long as you allow wind turbines to be constructed within 2,500 feet of homes, you will have noise complaints from neighbors. You will become a target of controversy, complaints, political challenges, hatred, and lawsuits.

13) It is not too late for your community to create an ordinance that protects you from the trouble I am living through.

In conclusion:

I am requesting that, before you vote on this, think about the resident like me who will invite you to stand in their bedroom to listen to the noise. While you are there, he or she will introduce you to their precious children. You will have the opportunity to sit down and discuss with the kids about how it makes them feel. While there are few things worse than a sick or injured child, I believe that hurting them by allowing wind turbines to be constructed too close to their homes is unforgivable.

If you still want to proceed with allowing wind farm development under this weak ordinance, then maybe you should think about how stressed you will be when your names are listed on the lawsuit for voting in support of the inadequate setbacks and no way to enforce noise violations. Now is your opportunity to stop and think about it. If a wind farm chooses not to enter your county based on noise restrictions, then you know that they do not have the capability to fulfill their “good neighbor” promise. Put your noise restriction in writing and include a corrective action to address it such as night-time turbine shutdown upon a legit noise complaint.

Don’t be afraid to change your mind. When I have said “no” to my kids, my employees, my clients, and my family, they went through a short period of unhappiness, but I always wanted to do what was fair to everyone involved and still be able to provide for them. You will earn my respect and the respect of wind company representatives … they may not like it, but they will respect it. It is OK to change your mind in the course of exploring all of the avenues and throughout the presentation of facts. Opening the door to the first wind farm development is like selling the business or the home farm … you only get one chance at doing it right. Try to learn from other’s mistakes and make adjustments accordingly. Learning from your own mistakes is a harder way to go about it.

When you became a board member, I hope it was to serve your community. If you are seated at this table, and your interests are about self-preservation for you and your friends, then you are in the wrong room.

Although my five minute time allowance is up, I would be pleased to give you more detailed feedback and information so that you may make the best possible decisions.

Thank you for allowing me to speak to you tonight. I hope that sharing my experience helps your community.

Download original document: “Ted Hartke Submittal, May 28, 2013: Wind Farm Experience”

Update: We moved out of our house permanently a few days before Christmas. We will not be returning to our house. There are still a few families who continue to suffer night and day within our neighborhood. Dave and Jean Miles, Gina Isabelli, and Kim Hufford are struggling with noise which has caused them and their kids to have major sleep issues. Including us, none of these people knew this would be a problem until the turbines started producing power —Ted Hartke.

Editor’s note:  If you live anywhere but North America, you may find you can’t play this video.  That’s because SunNews, a Canadian company, has restricted access to North America.  (Why they do this, I have not a clue!)  We find that, oftentimes, we can’t play videos from Australia or the UK.

Happily, our German colleagues have fixed the problem:  Click here if you can’t otherwise open the video.