Better Plan, Wisconsin

Wind turbines bring a big change to small midwestern towns.NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: Dr. Douglas Zweizig, who authored this letter to the Wisconsin State Journal is Professor Emeritus of Library Sciences and Information, University of Wisconsin. He also serves as Planning Commissioner for the Town of Union in Rock County and is on the Wisconsin Wind Siting Council which has spent several months reviewing data and creating wind siting rules for our state.

Journal, health agency wrong about turbines

Wisconsin State Journal, madison.com 21 August 2010

The State Journal’s editorial Wednesday, “Science says wind power safe,” provides false reassurance to its readers about the dangers of living in the vicinity of large wind turbines.

The “science” trumpeted in your editorial comes from an inadequate literature review conducted by under-qualified staff at the Wisconsin Division of Public Health — a staff that has not conducted a survey of the hundreds of people in Wisconsin now living in the vicinity of large wind turbines. They have not spent one overnight in a wind farm, the time when the most troublesome noise occurs.

Instead of caring for the difficulties of Wisconsin citizens and directly addressing the numerous complaints of sleeplessness and the ailments that result from disturbed sleep, the division has instead prepared a report from its undiscerning reading of the literature. It has told those suffering these effects that they have no complaint, and then the division has promoted this callous position to the press.

Wisconsin deserves better care from its Department of Health Services.

— Douglas Zweizig, Evansville