Better Plan, Wisconsin

WIND ENERGY: NOISE POLLUTION: LIVING NEAR WIND TURBINES CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH

By Robert Bryce,

VIA National Review Online, www.nationalreview.com

February 2, 2012

Shortly after the Shirley Windproject’s turbines began operating, the couple began experiencing numerous symptoms, including “headaches, ear pain, nausea, blurred vision, anxiety, memory loss, and an overall unsettledness,” says Mr. Enz, 68. Today, the Enzes are living in their RV or staying with friends. “We didn’t expect any of this stuff,” says Enz, who spent more than 30 years working as a millwright at a paper mill in Green Bay.

In his State of the Union address last week, President Barack Obama touted renewable energy and declared that he would “not walk away from workers” such as Bryan Ritterby, who is employed by a wind-turbine manufacturer in Michigan.

But in their rush to embrace the wind-energy business, Obama and numerous other politicians are walking away from rural residents such as David Enz and his wife, Rose. A year ago, the couple abandoned their home near Denmark, Wis., because of the unbearable low-frequency noise produced by a half-dozen 495-foot-high wind turbines that were built near the home they’ve owned since 1978. The closest was installed about 3,200 feet from their house.

Shortly after the Shirley Windproject’s turbines began operating, the couple began experiencing numerous symptoms, including “headaches, ear pain, nausea, blurred vision, anxiety, memory loss, and an overall unsettledness,” says Mr. Enz, 68. Today, the Enzes are living in their RV or staying with friends. “We didn’t expect any of this stuff,” says Enz, who spent more than 30 years working as a millwright at a paper mill in Green Bay.

Policymakers and health experts are casting a hard eye on wind energy at the same time that the wind industry is desperately trying to convince Congress to pass a multi-year extension of a tax credit that supports it. Without the subsidy, the domestic wind business, which is already being hammered by falling natural-gas prices, will be forced to downsize even further. In December, the American Wind Energy Association issued a report predicting that some 37,000 wind-related jobs in the U.S. could be lost by 2013 if the tax credit is not extended.

That possibility doesn’t faze Wisconsin Republican state senator Frank Lasee, whose district includes the Enzes’ 41-acre property. Last October, Lasee filed legislation that would require the state to investigate the health effects of the noise produced by industrial wind turbines. If passed, the bill– the first of its kind in the U.S. — will impose a moratorium on new wind projects until the study is completed. “I’ve heard and seen enough from people I represent to know that we need a factual study,” Lasee told me recently. In addition to the Enzes, Lasee says he knows another family among his constituents who have abandoned their home because of wind-turbine noise. “We shouldn’t be embracing an agenda that hurts people’s property values and their health,” he said. In mid-January, Lasee filed another bill that could allow cities and counties to establish minimum setback distances between wind projects and residences.

It’s tempting to dismiss the complaints about wind-turbine noise as little more than NIMBYism. And to be clear, not every wind project is causing problems. Further, the most problematic noise generated by the turbines — low-frequency sound (20 to 100 hertz) and infrasound (0 to 20 Hz) — has varying effects. Some individuals feel the effects of the noise quickly and compare it to motion sickness. Others may not feel it at all. That said, the harmful effects of infrasound are well known. A 2001 report published by the National Institutes of Health said that exposure to infrasound can cause vertigo as well as “fatigue, apathy, and depression, pressure in the ears, loss of concentration, drowsiness.”

Furthermore — and perhaps most telling — are the news reports. And there are lots of them. Newspaper stories from Missouri, Oregon, New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Britain, Australia, Canada, Taiwan, and New Zealand indicate that the wind-turbine-noise problem is global and that the frustration among rural landowners is growing.

The wind-energy lobby desperately wants to downplay the problems associated with low-frequency noise and infrasound. That’s not surprising. The industry has no solution for the noise problem, except, of course, to increase the setbacks between wind turbines and residential areas. But doing so would dramatically reduce the industry’s ability to site turbines (and collect fat taxpayer subsidies).

In 2009, the American Wind Energy Association and the Canadian Wind Energy Association commissioned a group of doctors to review the available literature on wind turbines and noise. The two lobby groups published a paper that concluded, “There is no evidence that the audible or sub-audible sounds emitted by wind turbines have any direct adverse physiological effects.” It also said that the vibrations from the turbines are “too weak to be detected by, or to affect, humans.” However, that same study also said that extended exposure to unwanted noise can cause a number of symptoms, including “dizziness, eye strain, fatigue, feeling vibration, headache, insomnia, muscle spasm, nausea, nose bleeds, palpitations, pressure in the ears or head, skin burns, stress, and tension.”

To bolster its claims that turbine noise is not harmful, the wind-energy lobby is touting a study released in mid-January by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection that largely dismissed complaints about wind-turbine noise. But the authors of the Massachusetts report did not interview any of the homeowners who’ve left their houses because of turbine noise. Instead, they did a cursory review of the published literature.

Shortly after the Massachusetts report came out, Jim Cummings of the Acoustic Ecology Institute, a non-profit organization that tracks noise issues, wrote that the authors of the Massachusetts report “dropped a crucial ball” because they did not “provide any sort of acknowledgement or analysis of the ways that annoyance, anxiety, sleep disruption, and stress could be intermediary pathways that help us to understand some of the reports coming from Massachusetts residents who say their health has been affected by nearby turbines.”

Over the past few months, a spate of reports have been released that provide credence to the complaints being made by the Enzes and people like Janet Warren, who raised sheep on her property near Makara, New Zealand, until a wind project was built near her home. Noise from the turbines caused “loss of concentration, irritability, and short-term memory effects” that forced her and her husband, Mike, to leave their property in early 2010.

Among the most important of the recent reports is a decision issued last July by Ontario’s Environmental Review Tribunal regarding a wind-energy facility known as the Kent Breeze Project. Although the Canadian officials allowed the facility to be built, they said that

this case has successfully shown that the debate should not be simplified to one about whether wind turbines can cause harm to humans. The evidence presented to the Tribunal demonstrates that they can, if facilities are placed too close to residents. The debate has now evolved to one of degree.

In other words, Canadian regulators have stated, on the record, that wind-turbine noise can harm human beings if turbines are built too close to homes. That finding was corroborated, again, in August, in a peer-reviewed article published in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. Carl V. Phillips, a Harvard-trained Ph.D. who now works as a researcher and consultant on epidemiology, concluded that there is “overwhelming evidence that wind turbines cause serious health problems in nearby residents, usually stress-disorder type diseases, at a nontrivial rate.” That same issue of the journal carried eight other articles that addressed the issue of health and wind-turbine noise.

In October, a peer-reviewed study of wind-turbine-related noise in New Zealand found that residents living within two kilometers of large wind projects reported

lower overall quality of life, physical quality of life, and environmental quality of life. Those exposed to turbine noise also reported significantly lower sleep quality, and rated their environment as less restful. Our data suggest that wind farm noise can negatively impact facets of health-related quality of life.

Alec Salt, a research scientist at the Cochlear Fluids Research Laboratory at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has written extensively about the health effects of wind-energy projects. He flatly concludes that wind turbines “can be hazardous to human health.”

Dr. Robert McMurtry, a Canadian orthopedic surgeon, is also pushing for more study; he is among the leaders of a large anti-wind contingent in Ontario. Try as they might, McMurtry’s opponents cannot dismiss him or his credentials. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada and was recently named a member of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honor.

Ontario has become ground zero in the fight against the wind-energy sector. In September, a Canadian family filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against the owners of a wind project in southwestern Ontario. That same month, CBC News reported that Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment has logged “hundreds of health complaints” about the wind projects there. According to the Society for Wind Vigilance, a group of doctors, acousticians, academics, and health professionals that is focused on the adverse health effects of wind turbines, about 40 families in Ontario have moved out of their homes because of turbine noise. Last month, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the province’s biggest farm organization, said that the push for wind energy had “become untenable” and that “rural residents’ health and nuisance complaints must be immediately and fairly addressed.”

Finding people in Canada and elsewhere who are being victimized by turbine noise is easy. Over the past two years, I’ve personally interviewed, by phone or e-mail, homeowners in Wisconsin, Missouri, New York, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and England who’ve had wind turbines built near their homes. Their health complaints are nearly identical to those made by the Enzes. For instance, Darrel Capelle, a 34-year-old farm hand, lives in De Pere, Wis., with his wife and their two young boys. In October 2010, two large wind turbines were built within a quarter mile of their home. “Sleeplessness with the kids started right after the turbines went in,” says Capelle. His wife, Sarah, now suffers from frequent, intense headaches.

Although the federal government has yet to undertake any broad studies of infrasound and wind turbines, other countries are responding to the surging resistance against land-based wind projects. Among those countries: Denmark, which has become the Green Left’s favorite example of the merits of wind energy. Alas, the Danes themselves aren’t so enthusiastic.

In 2010, the Copenhagen Post reported that “state-owned energy firm Dong Energy has given up building more wind turbines on Danish land, following protests from residents complaining about the noise the turbines make.” The newspaper quoted Dong CEO Anders Eldrup as saying, “It is very difficult to get the public’s acceptance if the turbines are built close to residential buildings, and therefore we are now looking at maritime options.”

The controversy over wind-turbine noise has been raging in Australia for more than two years. Much of the fight has focused on the noise generated by the Waubra wind project in the state of Victoria. Residents near the project began complaining of health problems shortly after the 192-megawatt facility began operating in 2009, and several residents near the project abandoned their homes. Australia’s mainstream media have paid serious attention to the turbine-noise issue, including a 2010 TV report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that focused on the problems at Waubra.

In mid-2011, Victoria’s state government responded to the problems at Waubra by announcing that it would enforce a two-kilometer (1.25-mile) setback between wind turbines and homes. The state’s planning minister said the setback was needed for health reasons. In December, government officials in the state of New South Wales issued guidelines that give residents living within two kilometers of a proposed wind project the right to delay, or even stop, the project’s development. The rules also will impose strict noise limits.

The backlash against the wind-energy sector is particularly fierce in Europe, where the European Platform against Windfarms now lists 518 signatory organizations from 23 countries. In the U.K., where fights are raging against industrial wind projects in Wales, Scotland, and elsewhere, some 285 anti-wind groups have been formed. Last May, according to the BBC, some 1,500 protesters descended on the Welsh assembly, demanding that a massive wind project planned for central Wales be halted. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., about 140 anti-wind groups have been formed.

The growing resistance to large-scale wind projects raises a number of questions that must be addressed before Congress approves any further subsidies.

The most important one is also the most obvious: If the noise generated by wind turbines isn’t a health problem, why are so many people, in so many different countries, complaining about the noise in nearly identical terms? And why are some of them going so far as to abandon their homes?

Another question: Why isn’t wind-turbine noise getting more attention from the Environmental Protection Agency? The EPA has plenty of resources to investigate complaints about the oil-and-gas sector on the issue of hydraulic fracturing. Meanwhile, the wind industry is getting a free pass, even though tens of thousands of wind turbines could be built in the U.S. over the coming years thanks to the renewable-energy mandates that have been instituted in 29 states and the District of Columbia.

The Green Left is so married to the notion that wind energy might help reduce carbon-dioxide emissions that they are blithely ignoring the “energy sprawl” and noise problems that come with large-scale wind projects. Never mind if dozens, or even hundreds, of rural homeowners are being euchred out of their homes and property. They can be ignored. They can easily be sacrificed in the quest to appear to be doing something — anything — in the push to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, no matter how small or inconsequential those reductions might actually be.

That same mindset prevails in the White House and at the Department of Energy. Indeed, despite the panoply of evidence that shows wind-turbine noise causes health problems, President Obama has made it clear that he wants lots more renewable energy. In his State of the Union speech, he said that he wants to impose a national standard requiring the use of “clean energy,” and that he wants to “double down” on the “clean-energy industry.”

When Dave Enz heard the president’s proposal, his response was simple: “I don’t think he cares about people like us.”

— Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His latest book is Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.

Movie Review: Windfall by Laura Israel

WINDFALL

By Roger Ebert,

via www.rogerebert.com

February 1 2012 

Driving from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, you pass through a desert terrain in which a new species has taken hold. Wind turbines grow row upon row, their blades turning busily as they generate electricity and pump it into the veins of the national grid. This wind farm is a good thing, yes? I’ve always assumed so, and driven on without much thought.

A documentary named “Windfall” has taken the wind out of my sails. Assuming it can be trusted (and many of its claims seem self-evident), wind turbines are a blight upon the land and yet another device by which energy corporations and Wall Street, led by the always reliable Goldman Sachs, are picking the pockets of those who can least afford it. There is even some question whether wind energy uses more power than it generates.

Director Laura Israel’s film is set almost entirely in Meredith, N.Y., a farming area of some 2,000 people in a beautiful Catskills landscape. A few dairy and beef farms still survive, but many of the residents are now retired people who have come here with their dreams. Most of them were once “of course” in favor of wind power, which offered the hope of clean, cheap energy. When an Irish corporation named Airtricity came around offering land owners $5,000, neighbors $500 apiece and the town a 2 percent cut of the revenue, that was a win-win, right?

So it appeared. But some residents, including a former editor for an encyclopedia and the final photo editor of Life magazine, began doing some research. The town board set up an energy advisory panel, and after a year of study, it recommended the town refuse the Airtricity offer. The town board rejected the panel’s finding. One of them recused himself because of his personal holdings in energy. The others saw no conflict.

This generated a furor in Meredith, and we meet people who were best friends for years and now were no longer on speaking terms. We watch board meetings and meet lots of locals; the film bypasses the usual expert talking heads and relies on the personal experiences of these individuals.

I learned that wind turbines are unimaginably larger than I thought. It’s not a matter of having a cute little windmill in your backyard. A turbine is 400 feet tall, weighs 600,000 pounds, and is rooted in tons and tons of poured concrete. If one is nearby (and given the necessary density, one is always nearby), it generates a relentless low-frequency thrum-thrum-thrum that seems to emanate from the very walls of your home. The dark revolving shadows of its blades are cast for miles, and cause a rhythmic light-and-shade pulsing inside and outside your house. Living in an area with all that going, many people have developed headaches, nausea, depression and hypertension.

The effect on property values is devastating. The owner of a lovely restored 19th century farmhouse asks — who will buy it now? People don’t come to the Catskills to undergo nonstop mental torture. Nor do other living things like wind turbines. Their blades, revolving at 150 miles an hour, slice birds into pieces and create low-pressure areas that cause the lungs of bats to explode.

For the loss of its peace of mind, a community’s cut of the profits may be enough to pay for a pickup truck. Tax revenue drops because many of those (who can afford to) flee. Turbines sometimes topple over or catch fire (all firemen can do is stand and watch). And of course the local taxing agencies have been required to take advantage of sweetheart state and federal tax cuts, promoted by the industry’s lobbyists.

“Windfall” left me disheartened. I thought wind energy was something I could believe in. This film suggests it’s just another corporate flim-flam game. Of course, the documentary could be mistaken, and there are no doubt platoons of lawyers, lobbyists and publicists to say so. How many of them live on wind farms?

WIND MORATORIUM PASSES: HEARINGS SCHEDULED

Written by Jim McCabe,

Via wlds.com

31 January 2012 

Sangamon County has passed a moratorium on wind energy projects.

The move was made last week by the full county board after originally being proposed in November. It freezes all potential wind project development in the county and allows the zoning ordinance effecting wind farms to be updated.

The moratorium anticipates plans for a 200-turbine wind farm on land that goes from the Morgan County line to Farmington to Loami to Pleasant Plains. The project, developed by American Wind Energy Management, is known as Sangamon Wind I and Sangamon Wind II.

Sangamon County administrator Brian McFadden says the county’s Public Health, Safety and Zoning Committee was getting inundated with requests to update the ordinance. Several public hearings have been scheduled so the public can voice concerns.

Concerns about Sangamon Wind I and II include the project’s impact on bird and bat population and the ability of the turbines to catch fire. McFadden says the most prevalent concern is the issue of setbacks, which refers to the distance between the turbines and the homes they’d be up near.

New Berlin will hold one hearing at the Knights of Columbus Hall from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on February 22nd. Another hearing will be in Springfield on the 29th.

McFadden says the meeting will start off with a brief presentation on the current ordinance, which hasn’t been updated in six years.

McFadden says the moratorium can last a maximum of nine months, but he believes it will end before that. American Wind Energy Management has previously stated that it wouldn’t seek a permit application for the projects until late this year or in early 2013.

From West Virgina

GREEN MOUNTAIN SOUNDS OFF ON NOISY WIND TURBINES

Elaine Blaisdell,

Via Cumberland Times-News, times-news.com

January 31, 2012 

“When the wind comes from the west, you get the real low-frequency noise. You can feel the pressure waves in my ears. You can’t sleep with it.

KEYSER, W.Va. — A majority of those in attendance at the Community Advisory Panel meeting on Monday night agreed — there is an issue with noise emitting from the wind turbines at the Pinnacle Wind Farm on Green Mountain.

Green Mountain residents described a variety of noises from a hammer, to a whoosh, to a low-pitched, consistent vibration.

“I don’t like it better anymore than you do,” said Brad Christopher, Edison Mission Energy project manager. “I’ve stayed up there; I know what you are talking about. I wish I could snap my fingers and it would go away, but I can’t.”

Richard Braithwaite, a Green Mountain resident, said he has been hearing the noise since November.

“Nobody has mentioned the other noise that (Christopher) has heard himself — the prop turning. It sounds like a train or hammer,” said Braithwaite. “When the wind comes from the west, you get the real low-frequency noise. You can feel the pressure waves in my ears. You can’t sleep with it. The low-pressure noise can hurt you according to medical journals.”

A whoosh is emitted from the cooling fan and the blade when the turbines turn from the other direction, according to Braithwaite.

“I don’t know of anything that can be done for blade noise,” said Christopher. “As far as the fan noise, that we can approach from the louver system.”

A test louver system is being ordered from Mitsubishi but it is not expected until March, according to Christopher.

“The louver system will go on the back of the nacelle on the head of the cooling-fan air intake on one of the wind turbines,” said Christopher. “We will do a noise study.”

A nacelle is a cover for all the generating components in a wind turbine.

If the louver system reduces the noise, more will be ordered for the 22 remaining wind turbines, according to Christopher, who said the system would most likely redirect air noise.

“You don’t know how much I hope this will work,” said Christopher. “I don’t like sites with issues. We are trying to get it quick as we can and get it resolved.”

If it doesn’t work, other options have to be researched such as changing the motor speed, according to Christopher.

“Charley (Parnell, vice president of public affairs for Edison Mission Energy) said we were within code,” said Donnie Ashby, a member of CAP.

“I would like to know what the code is. What are the guidelines — the Public Service Commission doesn’t have any and the EPA doesn’t have any.”

Before the project began, a sound expert was hired to study a wind turbine model that was created to predict what sound the wind turbines would make, according to Dave Friend, vice president and director of the US Wind Force Foundation. It predicted well below what is being heard, said Friend.

“It would imply that it would be half of what you are suggesting,” said Friend, who agreed after visiting the site that the noise is annoying. “As irritating as it is, unfortunately I can’t go back and say, ‘Click, it’s gone.’ But if you could bear with us I think we could find a solution.”

Ashby questioned whether models at other sites had noise complaints.

Neither of the wind farms that have Mitsubishi turbines in Sterling, Texas, and Telugu, Okla., has had complaints about noise, according to Christopher. However, both are located on mostly flat ridge lines and Christopher isn’t aware of any other Mitsubishi wind turbines that are located on mountains.

“I’m very displeased that a representative is not here at the meeting from the corporate office,” said Ashby. “If I asked my neighbor to turn it down, they would turn it down. A lot of people are displeased. I spoke up for the project and now I look like a idiot.”

Currently there are seven Mitsubishi employees at the Pinnacle Wind Farm, two of whom are local hires, according to Christopher.

“Mitsubishi does have a permanent site manager now, which I think makes a big difference,” said Christopher.

Two-thirds of the project went online Dec. 21 and the remaining one-third went commercial Jan. 13, with power being sold to the state of Maryland and the University of Maryland, according to Christopher.

A call to the local fire department went out when this 400 foot tall turbine caught fire on Saturday night. Firefighters could do little besides watch it burn.

From New York State

WIND TURBINE CATCHES ON FIRE; ALTONA FIRE FIGHTERS RESPOND

Via www.wptz.com

January 28, 2012 

ALTONA, N.Y. — Firefighters said a wind turbine caught fire in Altona, N.Y. saturday night.

Clinton County fire officials said people driving by the windfarm called in to report the fire. Altona firefighters responded to the scene.

County fire officials said only one wind turbine was on fire, and nobody was hurt.

Winds were gusting up to 25 MPH in the area.

Investigators said it was too early to determine a cause.

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: Another story of trouble in the same wind project:

WIND TURBINE COLLAPSES IN ALTONA

Via Press Republican

March 6, 2009

ALTONA — Area residents were startled Friday morning when they heard what sounded like an explosion at Noble Environmental Power wind park here.

The repetitive booming noise lasted a few minutes, as a massive turbine collapsed to the ground off Fisher Way.

Noble officials said the 9:45 a.m. collapse sparked a small fire at the base of the turbine.

Neighbors could see thick, black smoke billowing at the rural wind park as Altona and Ellenburg Depot crews arrived to extinguish the blaze.

No one was injured during the collapse.

The entire Altona wind park was shut down after the accident, but officials said no danger was posed to the public.

After two years of construction, dozens of turbines are scattered across the Northern Tier. There are about 270 turbines between the various projects in Clinton and Franklin counties.

It can take weeks to construct and energize a single turbine, which at full height stands about 392 feet tall.

Friday’s collapse was the first major incident at any of the area wind parks, which are insured.

Noble officials are continuing to investigate and refused Friday to release any additional information or say whether the collapse caused any other damage.

In a news release, Noble Environmental CEO Walt Howard said: “Noble values the safety of its employees and neighbors above all else. Noble has committed its full resources to understanding the cause of this incident.”

Local firefighters referred all comments to Noble.

It was still unclear Friday afternoon what caused the collapse.

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: The video below is from a wind turbine fire in Scotland less than two months ago. The turbines in this video are the same scale as turbines in Wisconsin.