To:  The Australian Medical Association (AMA)
From:  Chris Jelbart (Victoria, Australia)
Regarding:  Your irresponsible statement re. Wind Turbine Syndrome
Date:  3/17/14.
.

My family . . .  [has] been severely impacted by the insidious nature of noise from the Macarthur wind farm.  We have been subjected to audible noise which at times can be clearly heard above the television.  We also know, through paying an acoustician, that our house is subject to infrasound.  This causes my husband severely disturbed sleep.  It also impacts on two sons when they are at home.  I suffer bouts of nausea, which seemed to ease up over the summer — different wind direction generally — but in the last couple of days, as the wind blows from the west I have had a couple of “attacks.”  It concerns me that when I reported severe nausea (dry retching over the kitchen sink — and I’m 59) to my General Practitioner, he said it wouldn’t be caused by noise from the wind farm.  However, if that is his belief, then isn’t he negligent to not investigate further?

.
I am appalled at the Position Statement that the Australian Medical Association (AMA) has put out regarding wind farms and health. This statement smacks of collusion with the wind industry, and is nearly a direct quote of all the propaganda they put forward to the gullible public. I would have hoped that a professional body such as the AMA would think independently about this growing and serious health issue, and looked a little deeper into the mounting evidence that will condemn wind farms to being recognised as the danger to health that they are.

My family is fortunate to live on the volcanic plains in Western Victoria, but have been severely impacted by the insidious nature of noise from the Macarthur wind farm. We have been subjected to audible noise which at times can be clearly heard above the television. We also know, through paying an acoustician, that our house is subject to infrasound. This causes my husband severely disturbed sleep. It also impacts on two sons when they are at home. I suffer bouts of nausea, which seemed to ease up over the summer — different wind direction generally — but in the last couple of days, as the wind blows from the west I have had a couple of “attacks.”

It concerns me that when I reported severe nausea (dry retching over the kitchen sink — and I’m 59) to my General Practitioner, he said it wouldn’t be caused by noise from the wind farm. However, if that is his belief, then isn’t he negligent to not investigate further?

I believe the AMA has taken a very dangerous position here to the detriment of the health of rural Australians. Until there is multi-disciplinary research this position cannot be justified.

.
To:  The President of the Australian Medical Association (AMA)
From:  Terrence Conn, Attorney at Law (New South Wales, Australia)
Regarding:  The AMA’s “actionable” and reckless formal statement on wind turbines & health
Date:  3/28/14
.

Excerpt:

It is time to put the “anxiety from scare mongering” and Professor Simon Chapman’s “nocebo” argument to rest and move on. The idea is illogical, cruel and ridiculous in the context of rural communities and there is not one skerrick of evidence to support it. . . .

To put it briefly, I am flabbergasted by the recklessly negligent AMA position statement. The position statement is reckless in the extreme. It parrots wind farm protagonist propaganda and shows no hint of independent research into health issues or energy issues. The statement is negligent because, firstly, your organization has an acknowledged “duty of care” towards the citizens of Australia and secondly, “you know or ought to know” what the actual evidence is. . . .

Apart from the health issues (about which you would be well advised to limit any AMA statement – again, the case of negligence and recklessness would not be difficult to establish) the position statement makes gratuitous remarks about other aspects of industrial wind turbines. It repeats wind industry propaganda about the benefits of wind farms and the absence of ill effects. In this respect, your statement is patently political and ideological. . . .

In summary, your statement is ignorant, unprofessional, ideologically driven and ill-informed. It is a disgrace to the medical profession. It is dripping with the words of propaganda used by the proponents and supporters of wind farms. I note that its authorship is not acknowledged and it bears an uncanny resemblance to statements issued by the “clean energy council” (formerly the Australian Wind Energy Association) which consistently misrepresents the impact of wind farms. It is an embarrassment to your members and, quite probably, actionable. It should be removed from the internet and, if you must take a public position in the matter, re-done.

I am a solicitor [lawyer] and farmer living in the Central Tablelands of N.S.W. I, and my wife, were approached by a wind farm developer in 2008 and thereafter to consider “hosting” industrial wind turbines on our farm. As a result, I (unlike the AMA) carefully researched and studied the “impacts” of wind farms on rural communities world wide in order to form an independent judgment in relation to these matters. Having done so, I was appalled to read the “Wind Farms and Public Health Position Statement” dated the 18th March 2014 and published on the internet. This is a letter of protest.

To put it briefly, I am flabbergasted by the recklessly negligent AMA position statement. The position statement is reckless in the extreme. It parrots wind farm protagonist propaganda and shows no hint of independent research into health issues or energy issues. The statement is negligent because, firstly, your organization has an acknowledged “duty of care” towards the citizens of Australia and secondly, “you know or ought to know” what the actual evidence is. Even if the author (s) had read the recently released 264 page draft report by the NH&MRC and its referenced material, no “reasonable man” – let alone a qualified professional – could possibly come up with an “objective” statement that resembles anything like the “AMA position” on wind farm health impacts.

In addition to reading the NH&MRC report and references, the author of a proper (rather than a reckless and negligent) AMA position statement would need to consider and weigh the “peer reviewed” literature which the NH&MRC ignored.

Further, it has to be odds of at least 1,000 to 1 that neither you nor any of the authors of your report has ever spoken to a victim suffering ill-health from industrial wind turbines. The negligence case against the AMA in relation to its position statement would not be a difficult one!

Perhaps, if you have spoken to any victims you concluded they were suffering as a result of “heightened anxiety” or “negative perceptions.” As a long standing resident of a rural community and a 4th generation Australian farmer the notion that rural people can be led “lemming like” down a path of “anxiety” with their bulging eyes glazed over in a mask of unintelligent incomprehension into any abyss of physical ill health is absurd. Philosopher M Thomas Inge makes the observation that “farming is the sole occupation which offers total independence and self sufficiency.” The “independence” extends to their decision making.

There are any number of studies and written observations that exist in Australia relating to rural people’s consistent exercise of independence of thought. Do some real research. Look them up but I will refer to one study by Heidi Lindner, School of Health and Environment, La Trobe University. The study outlines an extraordinary propensity by farmers for stoicism, independence and self reliance and concludes that a strong tendency exists in the culture to “victim blame” – to assume that an individual has control over their own behaviours and that their poor health is their own fault. It is precisely this tendency to “victim blame” that makes your statement so utterly careless, negligent and destructive. It deliberately fosters and encourages such an attitude.

It is time to put the “anxiety from scare mongering” and Professor Simon Chapman’s “nocebo” argument to rest and move on. The idea is illogical, cruel and ridiculous in the context of rural communities and there is not one skerrick of evidence to support it.

Apart from the health issues (about which you would be well advised to limit any AMA statement – again, the case of negligence and recklessness would not be difficult to establish) the position statement makes gratuitous remarks about other aspects of industrial wind turbines. It repeats wind industry propaganda about the benefits of wind farms and the absence of ill effects. In this respect, your statement is patently “political” and “ideological.” More importantly, it demonstrates extraordinary ignorance of energy matters and is proof that you have not even been aware of persistent and continuous media and professional debates about the place of wind farms as a generator of electricity in a modern society with an electrical grid system. Hundreds of papers have been written and submitted to governments by professional economists, various engineering groups, individual engineers and acousticians (not involved with the wind industry). I have numerous references to these papers and submissions but I have no intention of attaching them to this letter or sending them to you because you need to first introduce the AMA to health issues rather than the issues that are much debated in energy circles.

That said, bit by bit, governments around the world are realising that they have been “conned” by wind industry propaganda in respect to efficacy, abatement of CO2 emissions, abatement of pollution and the cost of wind energy. In relation to efficacy alone, imagine trying to run just one hospital from power generated by every wind farm in Australia – you can’t. As you would know if you had done any research, even AGL admits this! The obstinate obsession by protagonists to limit discussion of wind farms to only the generation of electricity is another absurdity thrust upon us by the wind industry and its proponents, and apparently now by the AMA. Somebody should have informed the authors of the statement that the “generation” of electricity is just one part of a complicated system that provides 24 hour a day, 7 day a week power to consumers when it is needed. Why would you build a car and place it in an environment with no roads, bridges, traffic control or any of the other components needed for a complicated transport system. The evidence is now in and mounting – the engineers have been consistently correct, the ideologists incorrect. Case studies from around the world are demonstrating that running a national grid that is mandatorily connected to voluminous wind farms is a complete, dangerous and massively expensive flop in every respect.

To say that I am extremely disappointed by the quality and content of the position statement would be to put it more mildly than I am prepared to. At an intellectual level, much has been written recently by social commentators (you could start with the work of Nick Cater) about the emergence of a smug, superior class in Australian society, a class which has delusions of its own adequacy and which takes neither the time nor the trouble to remove itself from its own comfort zones and thought bubbles to connect with real people and “the real world.” It appears to me that the AMA echelons, which have now categorized rural people as worthless, stupid imbeciles incapable of knowing whether they are sick or not, have been permeated by such attitudes and they have no place in a professional organization.

In summary, your statement is ignorant, unprofessional, ideologically driven and ill-informed. It is a disgrace to the medical profession. It is dripping with the words of propaganda used by the proponents and supporters of wind farms. I note that its authorship is not acknowledged and it bears an uncanny resemblance to statements issued by the “clean energy council” (formerly the Australian Wind Energy Association) which consistently misrepresents the impact of wind farms. It is an embarrassment to your members and, quite probably, actionable. It should be removed from the internet and, if you must take a public position in the matter, re-done.

.

Click here to listen to radio interview with Australian Federal Senator John Madigan.

Click here to read the story in French.  English translation is below.

Three questions to …

Paul Boultareau. A wind farm is to be built near his home at Grande-Lande, he believes he does not have all the information regarding this construction.  Since Monday, he has stopped eating.

Paul Boultareau, why this hunger strike?

» First, because it is a peaceful action, one to get the attention of government so as to set off a real debate on the merits, if any, of industrial wind turbines. E.g. what is their place in relation to other new energy sources? And what of their impact on the bocage countryside of our district, on health and on wildlife?

What are the answers you are looking for?

» I would like to understand the financial picture. First, what will be the cost of installing these wind turbines, then their operating costs, and the potential impact on the creation of new jobs in France. I would also like to know how long they will work, what they are to become at the end of the contracts obligating EDF to buy their electricity, and what is their expected output? I would also like to highlight how these contracts will affect the bills of electricity consumers in general and, finally, how these machines will benefit the citizen-consumer.

How will you proceed with your campaign?

» I had my last meal Sunday night, and since then I have consumed nothing but pure water. Thursday, I will set up my camper van in the village of Vritz, in front of the town hall. I will answer questions from the people who come to see me, and I hope this will lead to a real public debate, one which will present objectively all aspects of the proposal.

From:  Ann Gardner (Victoria, Australia)
To:  The Australian Medical Association (AMA)
Date:  3/25/14
Regarding:  The Australian Medical Association’s outrageous dismissal of Wind Turbine Syndrome
.

At the time of writing this letter I am suffering terribly from the infrasound emitted by the 140 turbines located FAR TOO CLOSE to our property.

I have a bad headache.  I have a very strong pain shooting up through the back of my neck and into my head.  I have extremely sore and blocked ears and very painful pressure in my nose.  I have pressure in my jaw and my teeth.  My heart is POUNDING …… I can feel the vibration going through my body, through the chair, like an electric charge.  I have just taken yet another two tablets to try and alleviate the pain.

I am also exhausted, as last night, along with every other night, I spent more time awake than asleep.  The infrasound in our bedroom was appalling …. I could feel the vibration through the mattress and the pillow, like an electric charge through my body.  My head felt as if a brick was on it, and the pressure and pain in my nose was extreme.  I have always been a very sound sleeper, that is until October 2012.  I am now lucky if l am able to get two or three hours sleep each night in my own home.

My name is Ann Gardner and I have lived and worked happily and healthily for 34 years, on my husband’s and my farming property in south-west Victoria until October 2012, when the first only 15 turbines ofthe Macarthur wind farm began operation, and threw our lives and those ofmany others, into turmoil.

A t the time of writing this letter I am suffering terribly from the infrasound emitted by the 140 turbines located FAR TOO CLOSE to our property.

I have a bad headache. I have a very strong pain shooting up through the back of my neck and into my head. I have extremely sore and blocked ears and very painful pressure in my nose. I have pressure in my jaw and my teeth. My heart is POUNDING …… I can feel the vibration going through my body, through the chair, like an electric charge. I have just taken yet another two tablets to try and alleviate the pain.

I am also exhausted, as last night, along with every other night, I spent more time awake than asleep. The infrasound in our bedroom was appalling …. I could feel the vibration through the mattress and the pillow, like an electric charge through my body. My head felt as if a brick was on it, and the pressure and pain in my nose was extreme. I have always been a very sound sleeper, that is until October 2012. I am now lucky if l am able to get two or three hours sleep each night in my own home.

My family’s common law right to a good night’s sleep in our own home HAS BEEN TAKEN AWAY FROM US BY AGL and THE MACARTHUR WIND FARM.

My nights are spent as above. I take at least two tablets in the middle of the night to try and get back to sleep, but most times they just don’t work. Getting up in the morning I feel wretched and reach for at least two more tablets to try and make me feel able to start my working day, with any energy at all.

My husband is severely impacted by the infrasound also, to the extent that since October 2012, we have been forced to leave our property for at least two nights of each week, which literally means three days away. We do this to try and get at least two decent nights sleep each week, and also to remove our bodies from the cumulative impact of infrasound. In your position, surely you would know what infrasound does to the human body. If not, read the link www.lowertheboom.org.au.

When we move [travel] away, which is at great cost to us and our business, our symptoms go away and we feel like normal people again. Our animals suffer, our business suffers, but we can no longer live in our own home for a whole week. What an absolute disgrace this is ….. in a country such as Australia. When we return home again, after several days respite, the symptoms return immediately.

The above description is just how it is EVERY DAY and EVERY NIGHT we spent in our home and on our property, thanks to AGL’s monster Macarthur wind farm where the turbines have been constructed far too close together, and far too close to people’s homes. Already two families have been forced to leave their homes, their jobs and their properties due to the impact of the wind farm turbine noise and infrasound/low frequency noise. Other families, like ours, are forced to leave their homes regularly for respite and to get a good night’s sleep.

THIS IS NOT RIGHT……

So to read the Australian Medical Association’s position statement released recently, we were just appalled.

It is such a disgrace to see that the AMA has allowed the wind industry to infiltrate this association, whose mission statement goes along the following lines:

The AMA promotes and advances ethical behaviour by medical professionals and protects the integrity and independence of doctor/patient relationship.

The position statement released literally promotes the lies and fraud which is endemic within the wind industry, and you two men, who have no doubt been elected with a responsibility and duty of care to protect the health of ALL Australians, have allowed the reputation of the AMA to fall into disrepute, by allowing the AMA to be aligned with and influenced by, the greedy wind industry.

The claims of the  “nocebo”  effect and “scare-mongering” are just OUTRAGEOUS.

These are outright LIES and the AMA knows it.

My family did NOT EVER imagine we would be impacted in any way by this enormous wind farm developed next to our farming property. We feared the noise and vibration could possibly resonate within the walls of our shedded sheep enterprise, but not for one minute did we anticipate any problem regarding our own health.

Do you know why?  We were told by AGL that there would be no more noise than any ordinary working farm!!!!

LIES, LIES, LIES and more LIES, is what the innocent, hard working families were spun by this large Australian company, whose conduct in this district has been shocking.

We, along with so many other families CANNOT SEE the turbines, but we can certainly FEEL them.

What amazes me is that for the past year, various organisations have been trotting out reports claiming there are NO health impacts from wind turbines.

But each of these reports (except for the NHMRC’s) DO NOT HA VE AUTHORS. Why is this?

Could it be that a certain academic from a well-known university, or the Clean Energy Council, or wind developers have had a very large part in writing these shonky reports ?

First of all, we saw the release of the Victorian Health Department’s two fraudulent reports titled “Wind Farms, Sound and Health.”  But alas, NO AUTHORS …….

Recently the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) released its latest report. It did have the names of the authors, however a serious conflict ofinterest has been discovered between several people involved, and the wind industry …….

Now we have the AMA position statement released. Again, NO AUTHOR.

No doubt, release of names of all those who participated in this appalling statement would identify the very close involvement of the wind industry within this organisation also.

I have several questions which I would appreciate your immediate answers to please.

* How many impacted victims did you interview at various wind farms around Australia?

* Why did you NOT visit the Macarthur wind farm?

* Why did you NOT interview impacted families surrounding the Macarthur wind farm?

* Why did you NOT carry out multi-disciplinary research at the Macarthur wind farm?

* Why did you NOT carry out HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENTS at the Macarthur wind farm?

* Why did you NOT carry out ANY investigation in the field at the Macarthur wind farm, when you are WELL AWARE of the preliminary health survey carried out in 2013 in this district, whereby around 23 families (around 66 people) reported various degrees o f health problems associated with the turbines?

Just in case you’ve conveniently forgotten about this preliminary health survey (bearing in mind it was not truly representative ofall the district, as many families have signed confidentiality agreements to host turbines for another wind farm proposal) the link is as follows.  http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2013/macarthur-preliminary-survey-shows-effects-out-8-9km/

I suggest you read it and thoroughly digest, particularly the chilling comments made by the people responding to the survey.

In line with your totally unacceptable behaviour trotting out this recent fraudulent report full of the wind industry’s lies, I suppose you condone the behaviour of AGL Energy whereby in November 2012, they had the audacity to send a letter to the 12 medical centres in this large southwest Victorian district ?

This letter literally advised all the doctors that should any of their patients present with symptoms which they attributed to the turbines at the Macarthur wind farm, there is no evidence of health impacts from wind turbines, and the doctors should advise the patients simply to go home and read the AGL website.

This action by AGL seriously breached the contract between doctor and patient, and caused doctors in this district to neglect their patients and simply not investigate any further their problems, not assisting their sick patients in any way.

Thus I would like your answer to my question:  Does the AMA condone AGL’s actions in trying to influence the medical practitioners in this district, thus ignoring their duty of care and responsibility to the health of their patients?

The totally irresponsible manner in which the AMA has acted, literaly allowing themselves to be an advocate of the wind industry, and the behaviour of AGL in this manner, remind me of what it would be like to live in a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY, where those in authority treat the people with such contempt and shocking disregard.

I ask you how can the AMA and its members ABUSE their duty of care to PROMOTE ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR when both the president and vice president have allowed themselves to compromise the position of this association whose motto is literally DO NO HARM?

The harm your Association has caused to the hundreds of rural Australians whose health and lives have been destroyed by wind turbines, by the greed of developers, by promoting what I am of the opinion to be the corrupt actions of wind developers, is immeasurable. You, along with the wind industry, insist on denigrating innocent families who dare to speak out, in their desperate attempts to prevent further damage to their health and wellbeing.

All I can say to you is SHAME ON YOU!

Could you please inform me the name/s of those who authored this position statement ?

I ask that you immediately REVOKE this disgraceful example of disonesty and spin, and start acting in the manner which is expected of you, as leaders of such a supposed exemplary body.

Put simply, this position statement is ABSOLUTE RUBBISH and you two men should RESIGN immediately. You do NOT DESERVE the positions which you hold, having severely abused the privilege bestowed upon you to hold such offices.

I would also appreciate your HONEST answers to my NINE questions, by return mail please.

To: Dr Steve Hambleton, President, Australian Medical Association
From:  Gary D. Hopkins, MD
Date:  March 20, 2014

I write with regards your recent press release on wind turbines.  I write as a practicing physician with 36 years experience in fields as diverse as rehabilitation, emergency medicine and forensic medicine. Previously a senior lecturer at both the University of South Australia and the Adelaide University lecturing both at an undergraduate and post graduate levels. In particular I lectured to the post graduate diploma of Occupational and Environmental Health, and to candidates for the College of Occupational Medicine.

Over the years the Australian Medical Association (AMA) has been considered conservative, cautious and at times even out of step with modern advances in medical practice. I should point out however that the above is not meant as a criticism but rather as a compliment. Indeed it is the very conservative and cautious nature of the AMA which gives it it’s strength, authority and power both within the profession and to outsiders.

The above being said, I can only say that within the 36 years of listening to advice from the AMA, your recent public statement on the effects of wind turbines on health has for the first time caused me to be embarrassed to be a physician. Throughout my  36 years of practice and drummed into the hundreds of juniors who have passed through my care, has always been the pivotal Hippocratic pronouncement “first, do no harm.”  Your recent press release at the very least has broken this very basis of good medical practice, not to mention decreased the credibility of the AMA itself.

I am rendered speechless by your irresponsible, ill researched, ill advised and reckless statement that those who might suffer physical effects from the presence of turbines are suffering a psychological condition (anxiety). Indeed your very statement itself causes anxiety in those likely to be affected.  (“Who will believe me when I tell them I feel sick?”)

Was this the attitude of your forbears to those of the London plague just before they died, until a connection was made to the transmission of the disease by rats?

Even the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has suggested caution, till further evidence is gained.

“First do no harm.”  What harm have you now done by your statement?

Once I manage to recover from my disbelief and disenchantment with the AMA at such an outrageous statement, I will communicate further.  Hopefully, by then you will have realized your blunder and retracted your harmful statement.

.
“Mouse fire in Enxco’s Chanarambie wind turbine” (Minnesota)

— Eagle Siting, baldeaglesitings.blogspot.com (3/24/14)

Enxco filed an “extraordinary event” report with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission today.  Mice got into the electrical equipment, caused an electrical arc and lit the turbine on fire.  Mice happen; they get into places we would rather they did not.  It is interesting to know a mouse can take out a giant industrial turbine.  However, consistent with almost all turbine disaster reports, the wind project managers found out about the problem when a local resident called them.

“At approximately 9:00 AM on December 2, 2013 a local farmer notified the Operations Manager that smoke was observed coming from the access door and the nacelle on turbine #35.”

Citizens with wind company experience know that developers constantly poo-poo any concerns about safety issues.  The consistent, and obviously misleading, marketing message is that “any time there is ANY operational problem, the SCADA system will automatically shut down the turbine operation and notify the managers.”

Yet, reports of turbine fire, noisy mechanical malfunction, “uncontrolled operation,” and “component liberation,” repeatedly state that the wind company found out about the wreck because a citizen called them. In other cases, the turbine maintenance staff “found the turbine lying on the ground” when they came to work in the morning.

No automatic shut down. No notice from the supposed turbine monitoring system to the company.

Why is that?

.
— David Mortimer, South Australia (3/16/14)
—david.mortimer7@gmail.com

Excerpt:

I signed up with a wind farm developer in 1997 to host wind turbines on my farm. I thought it was good for the planet and as I was getting on a bit in years, it would be a nice supplement to my retirement income. I was so convinced that it was a good idea that I also convinced my neighbours and my brother (who was vehemently against anyone tampering with his land) to sign up to an option to lease to host wind turbines.

The option to lease was a binding document that prevented us in any way from backing out of the deal. I had no concerns with the document because I was informed confidently by the developer that I would not hear the turbines above the ambient noise level.

That subsequently proved to be very much a lie. Many of the landowners who host the turbines do not live anywhere near the turbines and I am aware of at least one non-host landowner who is receiving “good neighbour” money in exchange for their silence. How many others receive what amounts to little more than a bribe?

What about those wind turbine hosts with children? There are more and more reports of children being harmed by these machines, and these agreements prohibit their parents from complaining about what amounts to abuse of these children. What about their rights to a good nights sleep – so essential for their growth and development?

The turbines were installed and commissioned in 2004. Because of the loud audible noise made by the turbines on our farm (each about 750 metres from our house), my wife and I decided to build on a 10 acre block of land 2.5 km from the nearest turbines and still only 5 km from our farm, so that we could still comfortably run the farm. At the 10 acre block, we could neither see the turbines nor hear them unless the wind was blowing directly from them, and then the audible level was generally low enough not to be too annoying.

For the next 14 months, my wife and I spent our waking hours building our new home (just the two of us, every brick and stone and the entire fit out) in addition to running our beef cattle farm. Needless to say, we were very tired at the end of each day. At the end of the 14 months, we moved into our new home although it still needed painting and tiling etc.

Almost immediately after we moved in (September 2006), I started to develop problems such as nocturnal panic attacks, loud tinnitus, deep fits of depression, and apparent heart arrhythmia to name the most prominent. I consulted my doctor about my heart appearing to miss beats particularly if I was inside the house. My doctor could not find any problem with my heart.

The panic attacks, I put down to living in a new strange house and the depression to working too hard. I wondered if my problems were pesticide or herbicide related but ceasing their use for a year did not alter the symptoms. I wondered if I was being oxygen deprived by the lounge room slow combustion heater but the symptoms were still there in the summer months. I could not sit in my recliner without feeling as though I had an x-ray blanket pressing me into the chair and I couldn’t get up from it. When I went to bed, it felt as though I had just run up a flight of stairs. I gave up and considered that I had built a “sick” house. 

In 2011, a Senate committee recommended that urgent testing be conducted on industrial wind turbines with respect to their health effects on nearby residents. To date, no such testing by government funded organisations has been carried out.

At around the same time, the NHMRC recommended that a precautionary approach to the positioning and approval of industrial wind turbines be taken. No such precautionary approach has been taken by governments at any level. Not only has there been no precautionary approach, but rather, caution has been thrown to the wind and wind farms are not only being allowed without proper cost-benefit studies but are being actively encouraged.

That industrial wind turbines are even remotely effective in supplying meaningful power or have any significant effect on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide is questionable at best. How do I arrive at that opinion? Simply put, my home is not connected in any way to the national electricity grid. I derive all of my electric power from a small solar array and a 500watt wind generator. Were I to rely solely on the wind generator, I would receive no more than 20% of the generator’s capacity output for the whole year, nowhere nearly enough to supply our meagre needs. This is approximately the same percentage of power one can get from an industrial wind turbine because that is the degree to which the wind blows. The wind is both intermittent and highly variable. The bulk of my electricity comes from a small 1kilowatt photo voltaic panel array. Excess power produced is stored in lead-acid batteries which gets me well and truly through the night when there is no sun. If the wind blows strongly during the night, almost all of that power is wasted as the batteries are full. This is just like industrial wind turbines where they produce much of their power at night when it is not needed, but unlike my system, it can not be stored.

Much is being said as to the cost effectiveness of wind farms but that is not the subject of this letter as the price of electricity does not impinge upon my life other than to make commodities I purchase more expensive. I don’t receive electricity bills.

My issue is the health of peoples world wide who are being affected to varying degrees by the various frequencies of sound and vibration energy produced by industrial wind turbines, in particular, my health and the health of my wife.

As you are probably aware, there has been relatively little acceptable scientific research conducted in relation to the effect of wind turbine noise on human health and what there has been appears to be frequently overlooked or deliberately ignored. In particular the groundbreaking Kelley NASA research in the 1980’s in the US which resulted in a dramatic design change to reduce the infrasound and low frequency noise generated by a single wind turbine, which was found to DIRECTLY cause the symptoms including sleep disturbance has yet again been ignored most recently by the NHMRC.

Does the NHMRC not consider that NASA and the US government research led by Dr Neil Kelley which resulted in wind turbine design changes from downwind to upwind bladed turbines to be credible research? Or perhaps it is because the wind industry and governments since that research have refused to measure the full sound spectrum, thereby refusing to measure the very frequencies established in 1985 to DIRECTLY CAUSE the health problems so many of us are now (predictably) experiencing.

Why has this NASA research been “buried” by the wind industry and governments including noise pollution regulatory authorities for so long? It was presented at the American Wind Energy Association conference in 1987, so they cannot say they did not know about it.

I signed up with a wind farm developer in 1997 to host wind turbines on my farm. I thought it was good for the planet and as I was getting on a bit in years, it would be a nice supplement to my retirement income. I was so convinced that it was a good idea that I also convinced my neighbours and my brother (who was vehemently against anyone tampering with his land) to sign up to an option to lease to host wind turbines. The option to lease was a binding document that prevented us in any way from backing out of the deal. I had no concerns with the document because I was informed confidently by the developer that I would not hear the turbines above the ambient noise level. That subsequently proved to be very much a lie. Many of the land owners who host the turbines do not live anywhere near the turbines and I am aware of at least one non host land owner who is receiving “good neighbour” money in exchange for their silence. How many others receive what amounts to little more than a bribe? What about those wind turbine hosts with children? There are more and more reports of children being harmed by these machines, and these agreements prohibit their parents from complaining about what amounts to abuse of these children. What about their rights to a good nights sleep – so essential for their growth and development?

The turbines were installed and commissioned in 2004. Because of the loud audible noise made by the turbines on our farm (each about 750 metres from our house), my wife and I decided to build on a 10acre block of land 2.5 km from the nearest turbines and still only 5 km from our farm so that we could still comfortably run the farm. At the 10 acre block, we could neither see the turbines nor hear them unless the wind was blowing directly from them and then the audible level was generally low enough not to be too annoying. For the next 14 months, my wife and I spent our waking hours building our new home (just the two of us, every brick and stone and the entire fit out) in addition to running our beef cattle farm. Needless to say, we were very tired at the end of each day. At the end of the 14 months, we moved into our new home although it still needed painting and tiling etc.

Almost immediately after we moved in (September 2006), I started to develop problems such as nocturnal panic attacks, loud tinnitus, deep fits of depression, and apparent heart arrhythmia to name the most prominent. I consulted my doctor about my heart appearing to miss beats particularly if I was inside the house. My doctor could not find any problem with my heart. The panic attacks, I put down to living in a new strange house and the depression to working too hard. I wondered if my problems were pesticide or herbicide related but ceasing their use for a year did not alter the symptoms. I wondered if I was being oxygen deprived by the lounge room slow combustion heater but the symptoms were still there in the summer months. I could not sit in my recliner without feeling as though I had an x-ray blanket pressing me into the chair and I couldn’t get up from it. When I went to bed, it felt as though I had just run up a flight of stairs. I gave up and considered that I had built a “sick” house.

In 2010, we were informed (by the same wind farm developer) that they were going to install a new wind farm with turbines 50 metres taller than the existing ones, twice the power and much bigger blades in two rows at between 2 km to 3 km directly in front of our home up wind of the prevailing winds. We were not happy with having to have a “picket fence” of around 23 turbines virtually on our front lawn. We informed the developer at a public information (not consultation) day, that although we supported wind farms generally, we were decidedly unhappy with their choice of locations. At no time did the developer ever consult with us despite claiming at the development assessment panel hearing that his company was consulting with households living out to 5 km from the turbines. We informed our council of our concerns and resolved to get on with our life as there was, it seemed, nothing we could do about it although our very striking panoramic view was to be destroyed along with potential value of the block.

Early in 2012, I was asked to attend a wind energy forum in Mount Gambier. I felt I had no need to attend because having turbines on our farm, I thought I already knew about wind turbines but out of curiosity of Dutch relatives who were staying with us at the time we went anyway. At the forum, a gentleman stood up and described a list of symptoms he had been experiencing since the turbines at Cape Bridgewater were set to work. As he listed his symptoms, I mentally ticked off mine and was astounded that they were virtually identical. I found it hard to believe that the turbines could cause such debilitating physiological conditions. The turbines just sit there rotating casually and some could say, gracefully so how could they affect me. The wind farm developer now likes to tell the world that we only started to complain about the current wind farm after we were informed of the proposed (now approved) new wind farm. That is partly true, but why did we wait for nearly two years before making our complaints? Simply because we had no idea that the noise produced by the turbines could have any effect on us. New wind farm or no new wind farm, I would have complained just as long and loud when I discovered the health issues related to the turbines already adjacent our home.

In order to confirm that it was the turbine noise that was affecting us, the first thing we did was to leave the district for a series of holidays from as little as a weekend up to about 8 weeks. Whilst away from the turbines, neither my wife nor I had any of the symptoms, but they returned within hours of being home.

I examined my pulse whilst “listening” to the pulsing inside my head. They were not the same but appeared to drift in and out of sync. The sensation was one of having two hearts that sometimes worked together and sometimes opposed. I have an exercise bicycle on which I elevated my pulse rate somewhat, and noted that my pulse rate was constant but significantly higher than the quasi regular pulsing I could sense in my head. It was around four years before my wife began to experience acute vertigo and now she experiences the same noise related symptoms as I do.

By coincidence, today is world sleep day and our second night of respite from the low frequency turbine noise. We are around 70km from the nearest turbine. Last night, our sleep was wonderful. It was as though our heads had been emptied. Tonight is already the same. I don’t want to go home to the same incessant pounding we get every day. Yes, even on calm days or days when the turbines are barely turning, the deep resonant pulsing, drumming noise they make is intolerable. When the wind blows from the turbines directly at our house or even days when the wind is diametrically opposite, it is impossible to think clearly and we dread going to bed. Every morning I wake up exhausted. The low frequency pulsing seems not able to be blocked by wearing ear plugs or muffs but gets into the skull and feels like someone is striking the base of my brain with a soft hammer.

Do you believe me? I doubt it, but what I tell you is indeed the case. The turbines may look benign but when you think about it, the blades are shifting a swept area of air about the size of a soccer pitch or bigger every second – which just happens to be around the rate of our heart beat. Have you ever wondered just how much energy a pressure pulse of low frequency sound at around our heart beat rate it takes to confuse our actual heart beat? I doubt it, just as I doubt you have ever conducted any scientific research on the matter.

The term “annoyance” with respect to wind turbine noise is being abused by academics and politicians who should know better, and by wind energy developers alike. In my view, there are two meanings of the term. The version used by wind developers relates to emotions i.e. one can be annoyed for example, by the visual impact of turbines and suffer from stress caused by distress associated with their appearance. The other version is that used by acoustic engineers to describe a physical or physiological response to various noise levels and frequencies. Unfortunately academics who should know better and wind turbine proponents pounce on the term “annoyance” and use it to trivialise the very real physical (and measurable) sensations felt by those affected by the noise, such as my wife and I.

Both my wife and I have visited the farm houses of others who are suffering from the effects of the wind turbine created low frequency noise and we can clearly hear and feel that noise inside their houses. They, as we, are not making this up. We have visited the home of a gentleman who lives in Ravenshoe QLD at Windy Hill. The audible and low frequency noises were intolerable to us. If ever in my opinion there was a case for justifiable homicide, that poor chap has one.

We have stayed overnight at a friend’s home in Penshurst Victoria since the MacArthur wind farm was set to work. We expected that we would have our usual peaceful night’s sleep. The walls of the house are stone and are 60cm (2 feet) thick. We were horrified to find that we were subjected to the same wind turbine noise that we are exposed to at home. The turbines are approximately 8 to 12 kilometres distant but are twice the size and power of those adjacent our home. The lady of the house now often wakes in the night believing that she has left a fan running.

We have stayed at another friend’s farm north of Adelaide SA and couldn’t see any turbines on the horizon. We once again expected to have a good night’s sleep, but as we laid our head on the pillow, we both, without any prior discussion told the other that we could feel the same turbine related noise as we feel at home. Neither of us had a good sleep and were informed next morning that we were 17km down wind from the Waterloo wind farm.

We were invited by Tas Wind to visit King Island to address the local community regarding our wind turbine experiences as a precursor to installing a very large wind farm on the island. We had no previous knowledge of wind turbines already operational on the island, in fact, we knew nothing of King Island at all. We were taken to our accommodation around midnight after the presentation and question sessions. The night was very dark. After such a long day, we expected and looked forward to having a peaceful sleep. The ocean was relatively quiet and certainly not disturbing. We both had a very poor night’s sleep and both experienced the usual wind turbine noise sensations. Next morning on our drive into Currie (the main town) we saw a number of medium to large wind turbines operating at the local power station and at a distance of around 5 km from our accommodation. The second night there was just as bad.

We have had acoustic logging of the inside of our home over a one month period. The data shows a very high level of infra sound at around 4Hz as well as low frequency sounds at around 50Hz. The infra sound detected is consistent with what one would expect from the number and location of the wind turbines adjacent our home. The 50Hz noise can not be emanating from appliances in our home because our power supply shuts itself down when there is no demand as it does frequently during the night. The 50Hz was omnipresent. It is all becoming rather telling, don’t you think? I spent 23 years in the Royal Australian Navy, a good deal of it as an electrical engineering officer. Honesty and integrity were and still are part of my way of life, yet wind energy proponents , various media outlets and people in high office, publicly question the veracity of my statements in places that I do not frequent and therefore have no chance to refute this questioning. At no time do these denigrators ever contact me or visit to find out the truth for them selves. Instead, they hide behind media pseudonyms and I am labelled “high profile, anti wind farm activist”. I am a recently retired farmer and former naval engineer trying to enjoy the rest of what life I have left. I certainly don’t want to spend it protecting my health which is being destroyed by totally ruthless wind power developers who have utterly no interest in the environment or the rural communities and whose sole aim is to make as much money from the gullible politicians and general public as they can and seal their deals with lengthy, binding contracts enshrined in law.

There is much misinformation put about that persons such as my wife and I have somehow been put up to claiming that we are affected by wind turbine noise by an organisation called The Waubra Foundation. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have diaries and dated emails which clearly show that we had sought medical advice with respect to our then mysterious conditions years before learning of the Waubra Foundation. I am sure our medical records will reflect that.

We also had not heard of Doctor Sarah Laurie nor the Waubra Foundation prior to becoming aware that our problems were most likely being caused by the wind turbine noise. Some time after the Mount Gambier forum, in conversation with a friend, I was informed casually that he had heard of a Doctor Laurie in regard to wind turbines. I conducted an internet search and found a link and sent and email to the Doctor Laurie listed. I still have that email and all subsequent emails. I have also since met Dr Laurie and found that she is a warm, caring mother and wife who has over the years, done much good work for the benefit of humanity. You would do well to also meet her. Yet for all the good work she has tirelessly done, to try and alleviate and prevent suffering she is like us, labelled “anti wind activist” by those who should know better and a very powerful and as I said, ruthless, wind industry trying desperately to hang on to its very lucrative income and deny the health problems which it has known about for years.

At least one academic, a professor of sociology, has made a careful study of the way in which the tobacco companies manipulated media with respect to the health effects of smoking tobacco. This gentleman has for some reason armed himself with the lessons learned from the tobacco companies and a personal opinion (nothing more) that if we are told that a certain thing will make us ill, then it probably will. Known as the nocebo effect.

This gentleman has from his high position of public office, splashed his opinion around the world, and backed it up with percentages of the population who for example have poor sleep habits but ignores the facts that their sleep problems and specific symptoms do not occur when they are not exposed to operating wind turbines. At no time has he contacted those of us who are effected by the turbine noise to establish our actual normal state of health. At no time has he conducted any scientific research on the subject at all, because he does not have the professional training in either acoustics or medicine which would allow him to speak with any authority on this subject. He has stated that the levels of infra sound near houses in the vicinity of wind turbines is similar to that found in urban streets. He cleverly omitted the fact that the tonal qualities of the wind turbine noise and characteristics such as the pulse duration, pulse width, pulse rise time and infra sound amplitude modulation are vastly different to infra sounds found in the urban environment, or the beach, or other locations.

Another clever tactic used by this media guru is to produce as many plausible papers and “opinions” as possible and have them published in reputable magazines and print media, each one stating that there is no credible evidence that wind turbine noise is a problem whilst carefully ignoring any evidence to the contrary. Before long, these papers start to cross reference one another and eventually themselves leading the ignorant to believe that all that is produced in these papers is scientific fact. It is no more than media brainwashing, and academics and medical professionals who should know better are being sucked into endorsing this chicanery. Saturation advertising. Just as the Tobacco companies did. He has learnt well from studying their techniques.

Why is it that this taxpayer funded person has carte blanch access to print and radio/TV media without question but those such as we, can almost never get a hearing and then not without serious redacting or misrepresentation? It is almost as though the wind industry and their supporters in public health and medical organisations are fully aware of the noise problems but do not wish to address it because rural residents are to be sacrificed “for the greater good”. They appear determined to remain ignorant and prevent any meaningful investigation and independent research.

Remember, this is also the research that the Australian Federal Senate said was “a priority” nearly three years ago.

As time goes on, the number of people becoming severely affected is going to grow, and those people affected will continue to deteriorate. In short, the effects are cumulative. The consequences of severe chronic sleep deprivation and chronic stress are well known to clinical medicine. Mental and physical health are irreparably damaged. Sleep deprivation is used as a method of torture. Personally, I am getting very tired of being the guinea pig and being considered as collateral damage or mere political road kill.

One day, perhaps soon, some one will have had enough and will crack under the pressure, and I am surprised it hasn’t happened already given what I know people are enduring and openly describing as torture for them and their families.

I don’t want to imagine the consequences.

Editor’s note:  This is a must-see!  If you want a cogent, evidence-based, and frankly brilliant analysis of the colossal failure known as “wind energy,” watch this video.

Kevon Martis is Director of the Interstate Informed Citizen’s Coalition.  His testimony urges the repeal of renewable energy mandates in Michigan.  The Coalition gets no funding from any source; all its officers donate their time and money.  This is a grass-roots outfit, from top to bottom.  This is the “best” of American democracy — up against Big Corporate money and lobbying.

Click here to send him a congratulatory email.

Editor’s note:   Senator John Madigan has delivered a blistering speech on the floor of the Australian Federal Senate.  (Click here for PDF of speech.)  He has in his possession the smoking gun of a wind energy company actually contacting physicians in rural Australia, informing them that Wind Turbine Syndrome is a lie and that patients from the Macarthur windfarm who present with WTS symptoms should be turned away and sent to the wind developer (!) for what amounts to propaganda therapy.

Years ago I wrote a broadside titled “How to Fight Big Wind!”  I insisted therein that these people are criminals and stupendous liars.  Senator Madigan speaks eloquently to the point.

All praise to Senator Madigan and his staff for hammering these degenerates and their academic shills.  (Here’s his email address.)

To the rest of you:  Get mad!  Stay mad!  Make history!

— Patina Schneider, Australia

As the main contact of the Australian Industrial Wind Turbine Awareness Network I hear from many people who are impacted from noise pollution created by industrial wind turbines. Nothing is worse than the plea from a parent who can’t protect a child from the invasion of noise pollution created by wind turbines that were forced on their once peaceful rural community

One mother has given me permission to share extracts from her emails.  Like so many other people I hear from, she tells how her family’s life changed for the worse when the wind farm began operation.  The following are excerpts from her distraught emails regarding her child.

Try living with the noise all the time.  It becomes unbearable!”

“How would you cope watching your child scream out in the middle of the night, pleading for the turbines to be turned off so they can sleep and to stop their bed from vibrating?”

“He even asked me if his brain had a heartbeat!  What he was talking about is a pulsing in his head.”

“He gets angry and frustrated from the lack of sleep.”

“I even laid on his bed one night, and I couldn’t believe the vibration.”

“He has the right to have a good night’s sleep and not have to go to school too tired to learn and concentrate.  He should have the same rights as every other child to get an education.”

“Kids are supposed to be important, but apparently kids near turbines aren’t considered.  Where are his rights and why is he not considered?”

“His whole life is being affected.  If he can’t concentrate to learn, what happens to his future?”

“I emailed the [wind energy] company, asking if they could put my son up in a house in town through the week so he could get a good night’s sleep before going to school.  Our call for assistance went unanswered.”

“Do you know how frustrating it is not to be able to protect your child, and have that all taken away from you?”

“IT’S ABOUT TIME SOMETHING WAS DONE. OUR SON IS IMPORTANT AND SO ARE ALL THE FAMILIES OUT THERE!”

This family has filed several hundred complaints since the wind farm began operation. They are trapped in their home because of financial constraints and their property devaluation. Their once happy life has been ruined, along with their business which they previously ran from their property.

Numerous correspondence to the developer and government authorities pleading for help and for them to be relocated to another property has got them nowhere, nor have their hundreds of complaints.

They are trapped, treated with complete disrespect or ignored.

They are sleep deprived, angry and frustrated and just want back what they had — a normal, peaceful life with a happy son who can get a good night’s sleep in his own bed and who can go to school and achieve his best.  Not a son waking, screaming in the middle of the night for the turbines to be turned off.

Is this too much to ask?

Editor’s note:  The following was written by Ted Hartke on 3/7/14.  The Hartkes were forced to flee Invenergy’s California Ridge windfarm (Illinois) because of Wind Turbine Syndrome.  Fleeing meant abandoning their home.  (Click here for story and photos.)

When do we start calling this “child abuse”?

Dear Friends,

I took Sophia to the eye doctor and pediatrician on Wednesday. She is having stress issues. After we were done, we went to my office so that I could do some work before going home.

While at my office, Sophia kept herself busy and found paper/pens/highlighter and did artwork. Art is a way of dealing with feelings, and it provides an outlet for emotions.

Please share these attachments with the decision makers in your communities. I have not heard her talk much about “ingen nous” (engine noise).

This made me sad, angry, and upset. It also made me proud of the fact that I was doing my best to protect my family and serve my community. Let’s keep working hard so that we don’t have to see this type of art project being done by other little girls.

InvEnergy did not include any of my noise complaints as part of their annual report to the Vermilion County Board. I know that they have received “perhaps hundreds” of our emails requesting that turbines be turned off so that we could sleep in our house. I also included them on this email, and expect them to include this with their annual report along with how many times they used a tube of grease on the moving parts of their wind turbines.

 When I visited their office today, I pointed out to Matt Wingler (above), the manager of the Vermilion County project, that his annual report was inaccurate and incomplete. I made him extremely uncomfortable, and Wingler’s response was a threat to call the law if I didn’t leave InvEnergy’s property immediately. I am breaking my promise I made to him which was allowing him to remain an anonymous employee of InvEnergy. He may have done what his employer tells him to do, but he has shown that he cannot handle a situation when there is grief and suffering with any sort of human decency.

Wind turbines do not make good neighbors. Wind energy companies, including InvEnergy, and some of their employees, are pulling off an injustice which is hurting people.

Please tell everyone you know what is happening to wind energy victims.

Editor’s note:  Dr. Colette Bonner, Deputy Chief Medical Officer in Ireland’s Dept. of Health & Children, has come under attack by Ireland’s wind energy lobby for endorsing Wind Turbine Syndrome (WTS) as a genuine, bona fide health issue.

In pushing back against Big Wind’s (predictable) attack, Dr. Bonner notes that (a) there are indeed proven “risk factors” for WTS (as Dr. Pierpont established and identified in her book, “Wind Turbine Syndrome:  A Report on a Natural Experiment,” 2009), (b) the inner ear is almost certainly affected by turbine infrasound, (c) there is a consistent cluster of symptoms worldwide (identified by Pierpont in 2009), and (d), as Pierpont took pains to point out in 2009, not everyone living near wind turbines is affected (since they don’t happen to have the risk factors — just like susceptibility to cancer and any other disease).

In any event, Dr. Bonner is one helluva courageous physician and public health administrator.  Hooray for her!  (Ten to one she’s a pediatrician!)

Click here for a musical tribute to Dr. Bonner’s spirited, “I won’t back down!”  (Turn up your speakers and let ‘er rip!)

“Senior doctor defends wind turbine syndrome conclusions”

— Claire O’Sullivan, Irish Examiner (3/6/14)

One of the most senior doctors in the Department of Health, Colette Bonner, has responded to assertions from the wind lobby that her review on the health effects of turbines was “extremely limited and incomplete.”

Expanding further on wind turbine syndrome, she said older people, people who suffer from migraine, and others with a sensitivity to low-frequency vibration, are some of those who can be at risk of wind turbine syndrome.

In the controversial document, which she sent to the Department of the Environment last year as part of their review of wind turbine guidelines, she controversially stated that while turbines do not represent a threat to public health, “there is a consistent cluster of symptoms related to living in close proximity to wind turbines which occurs in a number of people in the vicinity of industrial wind turbines.”

“These people must be treated appropriately and sensitively as these symptoms can be very debilitating.”

.
Experts worldwide differ on whether wind turbine syndrome really exists.

Irish Wind Energy Association chief operating officer Caitriona Diviney immediately accused the deputy chief medical officer of having focused on out-of-date information.

“A number of comprehensive studies carried out internationally in recent years have clearly concluded that wind turbines are not harmful to humans and we would encourage all parties with interest in the issue, including the Department of Health and the Department of the Environment, to study this data,” she said.

“We would also point to extensive work carried out by Professor Simon Chapman, professor of public health in the University of Sydney, in cataloguing the increasing number of independent reviews published on the issue since 2003 which all reached the same conclusions, that wind energy is not harmful to human health,” said Ms Diviney.

But yesterday, Dr Bonner’s spokesman said “symptoms (including sleep problems, headaches, dizziness and exhaustion) relating to living in close proximity to wind turbines have been described in the literature.”

“Not everyone living near wind turbines have these symptoms. Susceptibility to symptoms differs with individuals. According to the current literature, sensitivity to low-frequency vibration is a risk factor. Sensitivity to low-frequency vibration in the body or ears is highly variable in people and, hence, poorly understood and the subject of much debate. Another risk factor described in the literature is a pre-existing migraine disorder. Other candidate risk factors for susceptibility to wind turbine related symptoms are age related changes in the inner ear.”

Citing a 1960s report, he also stated “noise-induced respiratory pathology is not a new subject.”

— Curt Devlin, Guest Editor 3/5/14

The Danish physician, Dr. Mauri Johansson, has pointed out in these pages that averages don’t exist in the real world.  At best, they occur rarely.  (Click here, scroll down to the Comments.)  Events don’t impinge on us as “averages.”  (Could this be what Mark Twain had in mind when he exclaimed, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”?)

Dr. Johansson’s observation calls attention to the difficulty of measuring ILFN and its impact on the human body.  Averages are actually quantitative abstractions used by the mind for corralling large amounts of data into convenient abbreviations. In the world of computer software, it’s sometimes said that averages are “lossy” because once you discard the raw data and save only the averages, the loss of data is irretrievable.  You can never recover the highs, lows, and trend details.

When the Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection (MA-DEP) sound technician, Laurel Carlson, addressed the Fairhaven (Mass.) Board of Health to explain the procedure she intended to follow for measuring audible wind turbine noise, I raised my hand:  “If I stand nearby during testing and loudly bang a  large bass drum once a minute or so, would that alter the test results?”  “No,” she said, “it would be averaged out.” To which I responded, “But it will in fact keep everyone in the neighborhood awake, correct?”  (She didn’t get it.)

Our capacity to capture, preserve, and analyse large amounts of data in the raw is changing dramatically.  Our ability to do this today exceeds our previous capabilities by many orders of magnitude using Big Data computing models.  This means there is now far less need to sample slowly or throw raw data away.

Averages are one of many challenges for analysing and understanding low frequency noise and how it affects us.  I think, for example, of the paper presented by Dr. Mariana Alves-Pereira about measuring dose responses to infrasound and low frequency noise (ILFN).  Unlike radiation poisoning, we have no “dosimeter” for measuring aggregate ILFN exposure.  Yet, much like radiation, we know that the effects of infrasound and low frequency noise accumulate over time.   Even if we carefully record the amount of sound being produced at a given location for a given period of time, and even if we sample at a rate of 10,000/sec and collect all the raw data, we are still in the dark about individual dose responses.

At the moment, we have no way to “follow” an individual person as he (she) wanders through his daily routine while quantifying how much ILFN exposure has accrued over weeks, months, or years. The newest gadgets, such as the ASGARD Mikrobar-20 microbarometric infrasound meter, while important for accurately measuring infrasound, are still far too sensitive to changing ambient conditions to attach to a person while mobile, even if we were to miniaturize the apparatus.

Another hurdle for measuring the impact of ILFN involves the inherent complexities of accurately measuring sound impact by frequency and amplitude.  Just as averages do not occur in the real world, pure tones (with no harmonics or inter-mixture of other sound frequencies) are extremely rare.  Industrial Wind Turbine (IWT) noise is no exception.  In practical terms this means that if someone develops a migraine during exposure, it’s very difficult to tell which frequency or combination of frequencies may have caused it.

Moreover, if you examine the way that most sound studies that have been conducted — even the credible ones — acoustic researchers most often measure and record sound in the time domain rather than the frequency domain.  This approach can result in greatly underestimating the true amplitude of sound.  I was amazed when I first read Dr. Malcolm Swinbanks’s paper on this topic.  If I may summarize briefly, Swinbanks shows that when you measure ILFN in the frequency domain (instead of time domain), the amplitude of a specific frequency combines coherently with its harmonics at higher frequencies.  This increases the intensity (amplitude) of sound impact on the body by about 30% — much greater intensity than previously believed.

In short, it is not only the whole-body impact that we must take into account; it is the whole-sound impact, as well.  Notice, for example, the 0 – 2 Hz frequency which is believed to be especially dangerous.  It would tend to have several harmonics in the 0 – 200 Hz range, suggesting that these very lowest frequencies may strike the body with much greater biomechanical force than previously thought.  Swinbanks shows that in some cases, infrasound can actually be amplified to the point where it actually becomes audible to the human ear — though painfully so — suggesting different causal forces on the body, and perhaps very different symptoms and health effects.

We shouldn’t ignore these challenges.  At the same time, we must not let perfection be the enemy of progress.  (“Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler,” cautioned Einstein.)

Many of the pioneers in X-rays quickly discovered the dangers of radiation.  Even though there were no known devices or techniques for accurately measuring dose response to X-rays, Roentgen, Tesla, Edison, and Curé warned about risks of exposure. Tesla is credited with (sensibly) recognizing that limiting exposure time and increasing distance from the source were protective.

We are in the same predicament today regarding the hazards of ILFN exposure.  We know that limiting exposure time and increasing distance from the source (in this instance, IWT’s) helps shield us from the most harmful cumulative effects.  Let us act on this — on what we know — and exercise the precautionary principle while awaiting more sophisticated means of quantifying the potential harm.

Wind turbines do not represent a threat to public health. However there is a consistent cluster of symptoms related to wind turbine syndrome which occurs in a number of people in the vicinity of industrial wind turbines. There are specific risk factors for this syndrome and people with these risk factors experience symptoms.”

These people must be treated appropriately and sensitively as these symptoms can be very debilitating.”

— Colette Bonner, M.B., Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, Ireland

Click here for letter discussing Dr. Bonner’s observations — observations that have triggered (predictable) rage from Big Wind.  One senses from the correspondence that Dr. Bonner got herself reprimanded over this.  (Another case of “politics” over “clinical medicine”?)

.
“Court Orders Utility To Address Wind Turbine Noise Problems.  Residents near Consumers Energy wind farm complain of health issues”

.
— Jack Spencer, CAPCON:  Michigan Capitol Confidential (2/7/14)

A judge has ordered Consumers Energy to come up with a plan to rid its Lake Winds Energy Plant of excessive noise levels.

Last month, Consumers Energy asked the 51st Circuit Court to overrule Mason County’s finding that the Lake Winds industrial plant is not in compliance with the county’s noise ordinance. As part of that legal action the utility also wanted the court to issue a stay that would block efforts by Mason County to enforce the county’s interpretation of the ordinance until after the case had been argued in court.

On Monday, 51st Circuit Court Judge Richard Cooper denied the CMS request for a stay and ordered the utility to submit a plan to the county by today to mitigate the noise problem. In response, CMS officials said they would comply and a mitigation plan would be submitted.

“We were asked to submit a mitigation plan by Feb. 7 and we will do so,” CMS spokesman Dennis Marvin said. “It will be up to the county to make a determination on our plan. At the present time, we do not know how that process will work.”

Marvin said the judge’s decision not to grant the CMS request for a stay will not prevent the utility’s case from moving forward.

“We believe the arguments we’ve outlined are well founded,” Marvin said. “We look forward to the court’s review.”

However, there isn’t any wiggle room for mitigating the noise issue, said Kevon Martis, director of the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition (IICC), a non-profit organization that is concerned about the construction of wind turbines in the region.

“There are only two ways to reduce the noise level,” Martis said. “One would be to increase the distance between the turbines and the homes, and it is too late for that. The other is to reduce the decibel level, which would significantly increase the operating costs of the plant.”

Lake Winds is a 56-turbine facility located south of Ludington in Mason County. It was the utility company’s first wind plant project in Michigan. Residents who live near the $250 million plant began complaining of health problems shortly after the turbines began operating. They filed a lawsuit on April 1 arguing that noise, vibrations and flickering lights emanating from the wind plant were adversely affecting their health. Among the symptoms noted in the lawsuit were dizziness, sleeplessness and headaches.

Less than six months later, in September, the Mason County Planning Commission determined that the wind plant is not in compliance with safety guidelines. CMS appealed that decision to the Mason County Zoning Board of Appeals. In December 2013, the County Zoning Board of Appeals upheld the planning commission’s decision. In response, CMS took the county to court. If the 51st Circuit Court ultimately upholds the Mason County finding, CMS would be expected to take the issue to the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Lake Winds is part of the utility’s effort to meet Michigan’s renewable energy mandate, which requires that 10 percent of the state’s energy be produced by in-state renewable sources by 2015. Though the mandate was ostensibly aimed at reducing carbon emissions, the 2008 law did not require that emissions be monitored to measure the mandate’s actual impact.

Editor’s note:  This article was sent to us by a man in the Midwest, who knows this girl’s family.  The girl’s father, Ted Hartke, “is an engineer and surveyor,” wrote my friend.  “He was initially in favor of the California Ridge windfarm.  You already know what happened next.”

We’d like to dedicate this story and the plight of  6-year-old Sophia (yes, that’s her name) to Australia’s Professor Simon Chapman and the U.K.’s Dr. Geoff Leventhall.

Sophia, my sweetheart, both these brilliant professors ridicule what you’re suffering from.  It’s called ‘Wind Turbine Syndrome.’  Both men say it’s nonsense.  Mr. Chapman says people like you become ill because you envy your neighbors who have wind turbine leases.  (Really, Sophia!  Are you really truly envious of them?  You can tell me, confidentially.)  Whereas Mr. Leventhall seems to think  you don’t understand that wind turbines don’t produce infrasound of any significance.  And, even if they did, he’d assure you it couldn’t bother you in the least, my love!”

(It’s clear what Sophia’s problem is.  She doesn’t have a PhD degree.  Nor does she “consult” for wind energy companies.  Nor does she get herself quoted by world media, ridiculing people with symptoms like hers.  If she did have a PhD and did consult for wind companies, she’d know in a flash that she’s making all this up, and being hysterical, and probably needs to be told by her mom to stop this naughty behavior RIGHT NOW!  Then of course get sent to her room.)

This is a snapshot of the Hartkes, Christmas 2012, at the start of their wind turbine noise hell. (Merry Christmas from the wind developers and their enablers!)

Click here to read more about their horror story, and view more photos.  The following was written, I believe, by Mr. Hartke.

InvEnergy Wind Turbine Victim – California Ridge Wind Farm (Vermillion County, Ill.) 3/3/14

This six-year-old girl is wearing her Hello Kitty headphones to bed in July 2013 because the wind turbines operating on the adjacent farm property are making too much noise.

This photo was taken at 10:43 PM after her being in bed since 8:00 PM.

The closest wind turbines are 1665’ and 2225’ away, they are 495’ tall GE 1.6 MW nameplate capacity, and they are owned & operated by InvEnergy in Vermilion County, Illinois.

This scenario was repeated for so many nights during each week that, within six months after this photo was taken, the parents and both children abandoned their home and moved into a doublewide trailer eight miles away — to get away from the nighttime noise.

Now, she regularly asks her parents, “When can we move back into our old house?” and “I want to have a normal life and get to have my old bedroom back again because I don’t like living here because there’s not enough room for my stuff and there’s no place to keep my things.”  Her parents have gently reminded both kids that they love them very much and that their health is away more important than having material things such as a nice big house with all the toys and things.

Good parents know when they have to set priorities, and this family is making the right decision to inform the public so that other families do not have to suffer the grief and life-changing setbacks caused by improper wind turbine siting.

Are there children who live in your county?  Are there any families who live near wind projects proposed for their rural community?  Have you seen the letter from the Armstrong Grade School Superintendent?

If not, please take a few minutes to learn more by visiting www.fairwindenergy.org and www.edgarcountywatchdogs.com and  search “Vermilion” to see what can happen to your friends or family when wind turbine siting is overlooked and decisions are made by ill-informed government bureaucrats.

Editor’s note:  Ever wondered about the sleaze being published in Big Wind’s so-called peer reviewed reports?  Ever wondered why none of these reports finds a single problem with wind turbines?  I mean:  never!  Zero!

Gutted property values?  Of course not!  Wind Turbine Syndrome, anyone?  Of course not!  Massacred birds & bats?  Of course not!  Loud?  Of course not!   Worthless, redundant energy parasitizing reliable base-load sources?  Of course not!  Astronomically expensive?  Of course not!  Strangled tourism?  Of course not!  Age-old bonds of community torn apart?  Of course not!  Stray voltage in the barn?  Of course not!  Livestock killed off, stillborn, or born deformed?  Of course not!

Who are the unnamed, mysterious “peer reviewers” in this massively orchestrated enterprise in denial — this tarted-up hoax masquerading as real science?

Click here.  You will find out you’re not alone.