{"id":14134,"date":"2011-03-06T23:59:41","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T04:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/static\/?p=14134"},"modified":"2012-02-11T04:32:08","modified_gmt":"2012-02-11T09:32:08","slug":"i-feel-very-depressed-some-days-i-could-just-curl-up-and-cry-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/2011\/i-feel-very-depressed-some-days-i-could-just-curl-up-and-cry-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"“I feel very depressed. Some days I could just curl up and cry” (Australia)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s introduction<\/em>: \u00a0Three letters. \u00a0One written by the husband, Carl, one written by his wife, Samantha, and the third written by their family physician, Dr. Scott Taylor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three letters written to Acciona Energy, begging them to do something about the devastating Wind Turbine Syndrome this family suffers from—suffers so much that they had to abandon their farmhouse and buy a house in town. \u00a0Except, they are forced to spend their days on the farm, working its livestock and crops, for this is the family business. <\/span><\/p>\n

Their letters were also sent to the Australian Federal Senate, which is investigating Wind Turbine Syndrome and other disasters caused by wind turbines built close to people’s homes. \u00a0(The letters can be found on the Australian Federal Senate website<\/a>, items 129 and 130.)<\/span><\/p>\n

I lightly edited each for clarity, brevity, and style. \u00a0None of the meaning has been altered.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read and weep.<\/span>
\n\u00b7 <\/span>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Stepnell Farm, Waubra, Australia<\/h6>\n

The husband . . .<\/h4>\n

I am a third\u00a0generation farmer on our Waubra farm. \u00a0We farm 4200 acres of high quality\u00a0farming land, and are currently running 16,000 to 20,000 sheep, 500 acres of\u00a0crop and 100 acres or irrigated land included.<\/p>\n

From the first day we were asked to have wind turbines on our farm, we were\u00a0very concerned about the impacts of a wind farm in our community. We\u00a0declined to have 4 wind turbines on our land.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n Acciona’s Waubra wind farm<\/span><\/span><\/h6>\n

The closest wind turbine is 900 metres from our house<\/a>, and we have 5 wind\u00a0turbines within 1500 metres from our family home, where I live with my wife\u00a0Samantha and three children, Jacob, Courtney and Joshua. There are about\u00a0another 6 wind turbines within 2000 metres of our land, at another location on\u00a0our farm.\u00a0We can see nearly all the wind turbines from most areas of our farm.<\/p>\n

The first\u00a0day the turbines started operating closest to our home, my wife started feeling ear and head pressure. Similar to flying in an aeroplane, she said. About six months after, I started feeling similar effects.<\/p>\n

As the weeks went on it has gotten worse and worse.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0now suffer headaches, chest pains, a feeling of heart palpitations, and continuous\u00a0lack of sleep. Every night we can’t sleep. \u00a0We go to sleep, then wake and just\u00a0never settle into a good night sleep.<\/p>\n

I have never seen my wife of 18 years look so tired, stressed and unhealthy.\u00a0This is a huge concern. My children are also more tired and emotional. We\u00a0have no other illness or medical conditions that could cause us to feel like this. \u00a0We have not changed anything in our lifestyle since we started feeling like this.<\/p>\n

We have had talks with the operator of the Waubra wind farm, Acciona Energy<\/a>, telling them of our concerns of our health effects of living too close to the wind\u00a0turbines and the effects of the asset values of our land.<\/p>\n

Acciona Energy replied that we don’t have any evidence the wind\u00a0turbines affect our health. \u00a0We have large concerns about the lack of any\u00a0evidence wind turbines don’t affect our health. We have lived near wind\u00a0turbines for about 14 months and are feeling the worse in regards to our health\u00a0and the depressed feelings we get from the visual effects of wind turbines day\u00a0and night, as they have aviation lights at night.<\/p>\n

The noise they create and the\u00a0inaudible noise that I know affects our lives. And the effects in changes to bird\u00a0life, such as our decreased number of brolgas breeding in our area. The total\u00a0loss of bats we used to hear nearly every night, and so on.<\/p>\n

We have now gone to the desperate measure of moving out of our family\u00a0home on our farm and into Ballarat, which is 45 kilometres drive away. We\u00a0will travel daily to our farm. This is a large financial outlay. Our house on the\u00a0farm is only 10 years old and will remain empty, as we could not rent our house\u00a0farm employees due to wind turbines being too close and therefore having\u00a0health effects on them.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, we have massive concerns about the health effects of living and\u00a0working too close to the wind turbines. We are members of the Lexton Land\u00a0Care group, we have planted thousands and thousands of trees, fenced off\u00a0creeks and are all for the environment and green energy such as wind power\u00a0or solar or whatever it takes to help our environment, but to watch myself and\u00a0family suffer from health effects from living too close to wind turbines is a very\u00a0big concern.<\/p>\n

There has to be a compromise.<\/p>\n

Carl Stepnell
\n\u00b7 <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n Stepnell Farm, Waubra, Australia<\/span><\/span><\/h6>\n

The wife . . .<\/h4>\n

Our family home is about 800 m to 900 m from five turbines that are closely clustered together. Our\u00a0farm is surrounded by turbines. My bedroom is the closest room to the four turbines.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0health impact from living so close to the wind turbines began the day they began operation near our\u00a0home are:<\/p>\n