What ails this child? (Outraged answer: Wind Turbine Syndrome!)
Mar 4, 2014
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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.
Comment by Marshall Rosenthal on 03/04/2014 at 2:51 pm
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And I thought child abuse was illegal in this country. My bad.
Comment by Sarah Laurie, CEO Waubra Foundation on 03/04/2014 at 7:07 pm
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This abuse of children, as well as their families, extends to all those in the acoustic shadow of wind turbines and therefore includes the children of wind turbine hosts who are not absentee landlords, as well as the non-participating neighbours.
Some hosts are prevented from speaking out about the adverse impacts, and so too those neighbours not hosting turbines, who are signing “good neighbor agreements.” Both turbine hosts and non-hosts are misled by the developers and the wind turbine manufacturers about the noise impacts and the current state of knowledge.
In both circumstances, money buys silence, which may include silence about what amounts to damning evidence later of child abuse. The adverse health impacts of sleep deprivation alone on the bodies and brains of growing children are serious and well known.
In Australia some of those wind turbine host families have coincidentally moved away, after the start up of a new wind project. As Australian wind turbine host David Mortimer has illustrated, along with the 23 Texan turbine hosts now suing their wind developer, deriving an income from hosting wind turbines does not provide a magic shield against the adverse health effects of the penetrating infrasound and low frequency noise pollution emitted by the wind turbines.
For the families left behind, who are not receiving turbine rent income, and whose properties are now judged to be unsaleable by their bank’s valuers and real estate agents, they have no choice but to stay and endure, and subject their children to conditions which are health damaging, or reluctantly flee in order to protect their children and their own health, as the Hartke’s have done.
Not all families can afford to do this. What are the options then?
Trapped in an acoustically toxic home, or homeless?
This abuse of children and their families is being enabled by both health and acoustics professionals, who are not acting ethically and according to professional codes of conduct to protect the health and wellbeing of members of the community, especially those who are most vulnerable. Some professionals appear to be grossly ignorant and reluctant to learn. Others professionals appear to be actively complicit, and have an attitude that rural residents are “collateral damage” and can be sacrificed, or just ignored or ridiculed.
Those within the ranks of government public health departments and climate health advocacy organisations who have not directly investigated the acoustic or clinical problems themselves, are particularly culpable. In Australia these are the respective state health departments, and the advocacy organisations are the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA), the Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA) and the Doctors for the Environment (DEA).
The individuals within these health departments and advocacy organisations, have chosen to actively support the “nocebo nonsense” hypothesis uncritically, rather than objectively examine the mounting acoustic and direct clinical evidence of a serious and growing public health problem from infrasound and low frequency noise and vibration. They have not ever chosen to directly investigate themselves, rather their efforts have focused on “shooting the messengers.”
Interestingly the “nocebo nonsense” is not ever applied by these public health “city armchair experts” to residents driven from their homes by infrasound and low frequency noise and vibration from coal seam gas-field compressors, coal mining noise, or noise from gas-fired power stations.
The health problems being reported by those residents to the Waubra Foundation are identical in many respects, making it clear we are dealing with an unregulated infrasound and low frequency noise pollution problem as a major and growing public health issue.
This then begs the question, “Are these organisations also being funded by the wind industry?”
Sarah Laurie, MD
CEO The Waubra Foundation
Comment by Maureen Campbell on 03/14/2014 at 5:37 am
It beggars belief that in 2014 child abuse can go unnoticed by the companies who are creating this. People like Simon Chapman who think that people are just very silly people. But let’s face it, most of the people don’t a have say wether they go up. All we can do is hope that one day someone will see the light and say enough is enough.
Poor Sophie! What a shocking state of affairs that nobody cares enough to help and stop it all. I look at Simon Chapman and think, “Could I trust this man?” My answer is, “No, nor the companies who are making lots of money.” It seems Little Sophie doesn’t matter at all. Shame on them all.
All I can say “good luck” to Sophie and her family. But don’t forget — there is karma. My thoughts are with you, all ways.