Better Plan, Wisconsin

Click on the images below to watch 4/18/09 news segments from Ontario regarding health problems experienced by wind farm residents. For those whose internet connection isn't fast enough to watch these videos, a transcript is provided below.

Part One

Part Two

Glenn Wylds: In the beginning this is the room we had the major problem in-

Reporter, Scott Miller : Glenn Wylds is standing in what used to be his bedroom. You see, his family doesn't live here any more. Wind turbines drove them out.

Wylds: Well, we first started feeling it in the spring of 2008 but we didn't really know what was wrong with us. So we were feeling awful itchy in the house, major headaches, our hearts were always pounding,

Sandy McCloud: I was getting sicker again this year…

Reporter: A block away, Sandy McCloud has the exact day they turned the turbines on near her home marked on the calendar.

McCloud: Night after night after night without sleep, and you got so exhausted.

Reporter: Just around the corner, Helen Forrester runs off the symptoms she and her neighbors have been experiencing for well over a year.

Helen Forrester: I have tinnitus and pressure in my ears and fatigue, heart palpitations stress, anxiety..

Reporter: The companies that run the 38-turbine wind farm say they have been studying the problem for months now.

Eric Snider, Spokesman for Wind Developer Acciona: We didn't find anything. So there is nothing we can point to directly that's causing these issues.

Reporter: But David Culling thinks he knows. Culling is an electrical agricultural consultant. He believes that high frequency electrical pollution is traveling from the turbines along these wires and into these homes.

Culling: All the collection lines should be buried. They should never be above ground between the wind turbines and the substation.

Reporter: The wind companies did bury some lines last fall, but only small sections. And while they were working on that they paid for hotels for some of the affected residents. But when they returned, the problems were still there.

McCloud: It hasn't been fixed to near our satisfaction.

Reporter: The Company says they are running out of solutions.

Acciona Spokesman: You know, I wouldn't say it's in their head, I would just say, that, um, you know, that, probably more can be done, um, uh, from the, at the local level to determine, you know, what are causing the problems.

Reporter: Fed up with it all, Glenn and Brenda Wylds have moved to Concarden. But they worry about their son and his growing family who also live amongst the turbines, but can't afford to move.

Near Ripley, Scott Miller, A News


PART TWO:

Reporter, Scott Miller: Bruce Ribey has 15 wind turbines within a mile of his home. In three months he says he and his family have hardly heard the turbines and can't report any health problems. In fact, he'd gladly accept more in his neighborhood.

Bruce Ribey: We certainly wouldn't have any hesitation at all if there was more that came to the area.

Reporter: Ask the same question to Sandy McCloud and you'll get a completely different answer. The local schoolteacher hasn't had a good nights sleep since wind turbines came on line near her Ripley area home seventeen months ago.

Sandy McCloud: Until we know exactly what's caused the problems and these problems have been fixed in turbine projects up to this point, they should not build another one out there.

Reporter: Dr. Robert McMurtry couldn't agree more. He's been following the very rapid wind energy expansion across the province.

Dr. McMurtry: There are lives being put in harms way, there is no question in my mind about that.

Reporter: McMurtry is the former Dean of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, and is currently an orthopedic consultant. For months now he has been studying the medical reports of people who say the turbines are making them sick.

Dr. McMurtry: Apart from that I just was called by another person today whose heart arrhythmia, something called atrial fibrillation, goes out of control when she is near the wind turbines.

Reporter: That sounds a lot like what happened to Sandy McCloud this February when she had to go to the hospital with heart attack symptoms. Something she blames on the turbines.

McCloud: We're having a lot of trouble and we would like it to be over.

Reporter: So too would Glenn and Brenda Wylds. They've left their home amongst the turbines for the relative calm of a townhouse in Concarden. They are happy and healthy here, but the headaches they had at their old home were simply driving them crazy.

Brenda Wylds: I don't really think I could live in there anymore.

Glenn Wylds: They did the test for the bats, they did the test for the birds, why don't they do any study on the humans? It's very hard to get people convinced to believe us.

Reporter: In Ripley, Scott Miller, A News