Better Plan, Wisconsin

From Canada

COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT: Wind project resident pleads for help in another useless email to developers

SOURCE: Windyleaks.com- documents obtained through freedom of information request

EMAIL TO:  Scott Hossie, CANADIAN HYDRO DEVELOPERS
                    Gary Tomlinson – Provincial Officer, Ministry of the Environment

FROM: (A resident of Amaranth/Melancthon, Ontario)
DATE: March 16, 2009

“It is 1:00 AM.

I can’t take much more of this Scott. The Turbines were down a lot yesterday as I suppose you were testing again. Even with them looking like they weren’t working the vibration / hum in and around our house yesterday was very loud. Again, I cannot fathom what causes that when it appears everything is not running. You would know better than we.

At dinner last night it was quiet and it was the first time that it felt like the days before these turbines started. I had forgotten what peace was like.

Dennis and I went to bed at 7:20 last night because it was quiet, to try to catch up on our sleep. I prayed that you would leave these things unhooked last night so we could have one full night of rest. By midnight I was awake with the vibration back and very loud. I am so disappointed and back on the couch with the TV on to try to drown it out.

I need an answer and I need to move. I cannot bear this any longer and I will  not put up with this for Dennis and our pets either. My head felt like stew when I left the house yesterday to go shopping because the vibration was so strong. I don’t know what it is doing to us but I have the worst headache in the world right now.

I have to go to school all this week. I want you to call Dennis Monday and tell him what is going on. Gary, I am pleading with you to make this vibration in our house stop. It is absolutely maddening.”

Email to: Ministry of Environment Officials
From: a resident of Amaranth/Melancthon, Ontario
Date: Wednesday March 25, 2009 (18:18 :53)

“To all:

I would like to request a meeting with everyone to solve this ongoing problem at our property. We have vibration in our house virtually every night, some rare nights not.

I have not been lately, and will not email Canadian Hydro anymore as I do not have any faith that they are trying to help us and please note, this lack of correspondence does not suggest that things are any better in our house.

 We have done nothing but try to help them figure this out and it appears that all of our input has been for nothing. Either they are refusing to acknowledge that we have a very big problem or they do not know anything about the business they are in and can’t fix it. This would never be allowed to continue in any industrial or commercial workplace. And even then, at least the employees get to go home to a quiet house to rest. Where in the world are the safety standards for the homeowners that have had this forced upon them? This is just insane.

I do not know at which point the body starts to break down with constant vibration going through it when it is supposed to be resting. I hate for my husband, our pets and myself to be the collection of lab rats that figures that one out for them. I have to ask you what you think we would be doing right now if we had children at home? Think about it.

I cannot put our house up for sale and move. Nobody could live here, and that was echoed by   S_ _    H_ _ _ _ (employee of the developer) as he sat at our table a month or so ago. What are we supposed to do? We need help, Please….”

SECOND STORY:

From New York State

ORLEANS TOWN COUNCIL TO CONSIDER STRICT POWER ZONING REGULATIONS

SOURCE  watertowndailytimes.com

 AUGUST 28, 2011

By NANCY MADSEN

LAFARGEVILLE — The Orleans Town Council is weighing zoning law amendments that will make its rules for wind turbine placement among the most restrictive in the region.

The town of Henderson banned all wind energy towers in November. Orleans would still allow commercial and residential turbines, but the noise and setback rules would make placing turbines in the town very difficult. A public hearing continued from Aug. 11 will be reconvened at 8 p.m. Sept. 8 at the town offices, 20558 Sunrise Ave. Copies of the law are available at the town office.

The law was written and reviewed by the Planning Board after the town’s Wind Committee made zoning recommendations in October 2009 and a Wind Economics Committee made further recommendations in May 2010.

“The Planning Board wrote it, which basically went with what the committee members had suggested — it’s very strict,” town Supervisor Donna J. Chatterton said. “Pretty much, it’s a stop to having any, but they can change it.”

The proposed law would push turbines away from neighboring property lines, roads, the St. Lawrence River, neighboring town lines, state- and federally regulated wetlands and residential, historic, school and wildlife refuge areas by 3,000 feet or 10 times the diameter of a turbine’s blade sweep area, whichever is greater.

The noise regulation sets absolute levels for daytime, evening and nighttime in both the A-weighted, or basically audible spectrum, and C-weighted, or low-frequency, noise levels. If the background noise is greater than five decibels below the standard, the allowed noise level would be five decibels above the background noise level.

For example, the allowed noise level for daytime, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., is 45 decibels on the A-weighted scale and 63 decibels on the C-weighted scale. But if the A-weighted background noise during that period reaches 44 decibels, the allowed limit would be 49 decibels. If the turbines emit a steady pure tone, which sounds like a whine, screech or hum, the allowed noise limit is decreased by five decibels.

During the evening period, 7 to 10 p.m., the law would allow 40 decibels in the A-weighted scale and 58 decibels in the C-weighted scale. And during the nighttime period, from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., the law would allow 35 decibels in the A-weighted scale and 53 decibels in the C-weighted scale.

Residents within two miles of the project would have a property value guarantee, which requires appraisals before turbine construction and when residents try to sell their properties in the first five years after construction of the wind farm. The developer and property owner would agree on an asking price, based on an appraisal, and the developer would pay the difference between the asking price and sale price.

Other regulations include:

■ The Town Council and Variance and Project Oversight Board must approve change of ownership of the project or the project’s controlling entity.

■ Notification of the project’s pending application to the town is required to be sent to all landowners within two miles of the project’s boundaries.

■ Submission of studies are required on the project’s creation of shadow flicker, visual impact, noise, electromagnetic interference, transportation issues, ice and blade throw, stray voltage and wildlife harm as well as an emergency response plan, current property value analysis, operation and maintenance plan, decommissioning plan, earthquake preparedness manual and cultural, historical and archeological resource plan.

■ Submission of an escrow agreement, proof of liability insurance of $20 million per year and wind speed data from a year prior to construction are required.

■ Turbine and blade height are limited to 400 feet.

■ An annual report from the owner or operator on the operation and maintenance activities are required so that the town can compare the project’s plan and its actual results, and its noise projections and actual noise levels.

The proposed law goes into great detail on how sound measurements should be taken. The council has flexibility on applying fines for lack of compliance with the regulations.

The amendments do not substantially change rules for personal wind towers.

Wind power development critics support the amendments and said the town should not fear the state’s placing turbines against the town’s proposed law under the rejuvenated Article X electricity development law.

“The setbacks are great,” said Patricia A. Booras-Miller of the Environmentally-Concerned Citizens Organization. “They were thinking of Article X, too; there’s a lot of documentation to support their reasons.”

The town feels urgency, too, to pass the law before a new slate of council members is elected in November. The council must act on an environmental review of the law, so the law may not pass at the September meeting.

“We want to go the next step so we can get approved before the end of the year, before our board changes,” Ms. Chatterton said.

Last week Better Plan learned of a dairy farmer named Kevin Ashenbrenner whose farm is in the Shirley Wind project (Town of Glenmore, Brown County WI) From an email to Better Plan:

"He has lost 17 calves and 15 cows since the Shirley turbines started spinning, that's more than he loses in 5 years of farming and breeding. The closest turbine to his house is 9/10 mile away as the crow flies. There are six turbines total around his property. His family is also suffering badly with headaches, anxiety, and insomnia."

He's not alone. This video interview with Kewanee County dairy farmer Scott Srnka describes similar problems after turbines went on line near his farm

Another Wisconsin farmer, Joe Yunk, talks about what happened to his beef cattle after the turbines went on line near the farm that was in his family for generations:

He says "I had beef cattle for about two years prior to the turbines operating and never lost any animals. However, shortly after the turbines began to operate, I had beef cattle become ill and die. I reported this on the WPS hotline and nothing was done. I lost ten animals valued at $5,000 [each] over a two year period and couldn’t afford to continue."

(Source: Read Yunks full testimony to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin HERE)

After turbines in the Blue Sky/Green Field project went on line near the Town of Marshall in Fond Du Lac county, James Vollmer's chickens began to fail. His hatch rate plummeted and there were a high number of unusual deformities in the chicks that did hatch, including missing eyes, crossed beaks and missing leg bones.

Vollmer has been around chickens his whole life. His grandmother and grandfather raised poultry and he says he took to it right away.  He has photograph taken by his grandmother of himself  as a toddler in the chicken house with baby chicks nesting on his back. He says, “I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t around chickens.”

He joined 4-H and by the age of nine he was showing chickens at the county fair.  4-H taught him to be ameticulous record keeper, a habit he has never lost. He’s been documenting all that has happened with his chickens since the wind turbines started up.

How could someone who has raised healthy prize-winning poultry his whole life find himself in a situation where he is unable to keep them alive?

When Better Plan visited Mr. Vollmer in 2010, the chickens were not doing well.

“They shouldn’t be hanging their heads and sitting there like that,” said Vollmer, “They should be going outside and running around.”

Vollmer knew there was trouble when his birds went into a full molt the first winter the turbines were on line.

“Then they pretty much quit laying eggs.”

A full molt in winter is unusual. Birds don’t spontaneously molt in the winter when they need their feathers most to stay warm. And he’d never had a problem with egg production before, but his hatch rate plummeted to 11%  He said, “I didn’t know what was going on.”

Dr. Lynn Knuth, a biologist from Reedsville, has an idea. In 2010 testimony to the Public Service Commission Dr. Knuth says

 "The deformities seen by the farmer are similar to those reported in a study done by the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory (Shannon et al, 1994). In this study, fertilized eggs were exposed to different levels and frequencies of whole-body low frequency vibration. The results revealed increased mortality and birth defects caused by the vibration.
 
 As a biologist, I am concerned. Chick development is used as a model of human embryonic development."

(SOURCE: PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION DOCKET, GLACIER HILLS PROJECT)

To Better Plan's knowledge, the effect of wind turbine noise on domestic animals has not been specifically studied, but there are studies on the effects of aircraft noise on domestic animals.

A white paper issued by the Engineering and Services Center 
U.S. Air Force, Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior includes this statement:

"Sudden or unfamiliar sound is believed to act as an alarm, activating the sympathetic nervous system. The short-term physiological stress reactions, referred to as "fight-or-flight," are similar for many vertebrate species (Holler 1978).

Various stimuli can produce similar physiological effects. Different stressors have their own unique effects, however, and reactions to stress can vary between species and also among individuals of the same species.

0nly laboratory studies have been able to eliminate these variables and show that noise produces certain physiological effects.

The general pattern of response to stress includes activation of the neural and endocrine systems, causing changes such as increased blood pressure, available glucose, and blood levels of corticosteroids.

The effect of sympathetic activation on circulation also is believed to have an effect on hearing (Holler 1978).

A correlation has been shown to exist between the reaction on the peripheral circulation and the temporary threshold shift caused by noise exposure.

Prolonged exposure to severe stress may exhaust an animal's resources and result in death.

IN TODAY'S NEWS:

From California

Can chickens provide early warnings of wind turbine health dangers?

SOURCE http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/6999 

By Miriam Raftery

August 21, 2011 (San Diego’s East County) – Like those proverbial canaries in the coal mine, chickens near wind farms may provide early clues to potential harm to health of humans and animals.  That’s the contention of Hamish Cumming, a farmer battling proposed wind turbines near his home in New Zealand.

He has written a letter to East County Magazine seeking help from people living near wind farms locally (and in other locations) to document cases of shell-less eggs, dead chickens, or other animals that suffer internal hemmorrhaging.

The “humble chicken” is common in rural areas near wind farms and can be easily monitored, Cumming says.   Chickens under stress may produce a soft-shelled or shell-less egg that can’t be laid, killing the chicken. Such incidents have been documented near wind farms, says Cumming, who has also collected examples of livestock and a dog that died from internal hemorrhaging near wind farms.

“There are reports from many wind farm locations that chickens within a 3 km distance from turbines exhibit shell-less eggs during some weather conditions,” he stated. “Some locations have reported shell-less eggs or dead chickens that coincide with residents’ complaints about “noisy nights” from turbines.”

In fact, shell-less eggs are also known as “wind eggs.” According to Broad Leys Publishing, which specializes in books for poultry owners, a yolk-less wind egg may occur in a young pullet, but “wind eggs can also occur in older hens if they are subject to sudden shock.”

Chickens aren’t the only species suffering ill health effects from living near wind farms, Hamish says.

“So far there are several records of dairy cattle in Canada and Australia reducing milk output by as much as 30%,” he wrote.

The Discovery Channel ran a report on massive deaths among bats that suffered lung hemorrhaging when flying near wind turbines: 

Goats in Taiwan, verified by the Taiwanese Department of Agriculture, have reportedly died due to stress-induced conditions within 2 km of turbines.  “I have had reports of high levels of stillborn lambs and calves (up to 10%)…and stillborn horses in Australia and overseas, only after wind farms commenced operations,” he claims.

Wind farms may even be damaging to the family pet, he believes.  “A dog was verified by Werribee Veterinary Hospital as dying from multiple organ fibrosis, believed to be stress-induced—and it was also within 2 km of turbines.”

Animals grazing near wind farms have also exhibited fibrosis, or hemorrhaging of major organs, when butchered, he observed.  He believes this may explain why some native birds abandon habitat and cease breeding close to wind turbines.

That’s of serious concern to Cumming, who has endangered bird species nesting on wetlands at his New Zealand farm.

There have also been claims around the world of human health impacts in some communities near wind farms. Dr. Nina Pierpont, a Johns Hopkins  School of Medicine trained physician and Princeton University PhD, has authored a book titled Wind Turbine Syndrome documenting serious health effects in people living near wind turbines due to low-frequency sound waves: . The wind industry has disputed her findings.

Cumming seeks residents in East County and elsewhere around the world who live within 5 km of wind turbines to create a large data pool.  Participants may already own chickens, or be willing to acquire them for the study.  Cutting open a dead hen will expose the shell-less egg, if that is the cause of death, he said.

He seeks the following data:

1.  How close the nearest turbines are to your chickens or slaughtered animals
2. How many turbines are within 5 km
3. Brand and size of the turbines
4. Name of the wind farm
5. Your country

Data may be sent to Hamish.cumming@bigpond.com

East County Magazine is also interested in hearing about local cases of animal hemmorrhaging, wind eggs, or human health issues from people living near wind farms in San Diego's East County: contact editor@eastcountymagazine.org.
 

FROM AUSTRALIA

LEONARD'S HILL COUPLE 'UNDER SIEGE' DUE TO WIND FARM NOISE

SOURCE: The Courier, thecourier.com.au

August 19, 2011

By BRENDAN GULLIFER,

Trevor and Maree Frost say they are under siege in their Leonards Hill home of 30 years because of noise from the Hepburn wind farm.

Mrs Frost, a part-time cleaner at Daylesford District Hospital, said she had suffered extreme sleep deprivation since the two turbines began operating earlier this year.

“I’ve had enough,” Mrs Frost, 57, said this week. “I want something done. I want my life back. That’s all I want.”

Mr Frost, a 65-year-old firewood supplier, said he was not so badly impacted but had witnessed the deterioration of his wife over recent months.

“She makes a lot of mistakes because of a lack of sleep,” he said.

Mrs Frost said the noise varied from a low whoosh to like a jet engine, depending on wind velocity and direction.

She said she was forced to wear earplugs while working outside.

“It’s not acceptable for country life,” she said.

“What we’ve worked for in the last 20 or 30 years, it feels like it’s all been for nothing.

“This is our place. I’ve never had anything that has interrupted my sleep like this, even when you’ve lost someone in your family. The stress is there all the time.”

And the couple say their daughter, Jenna, 22, was forced to move away from home because of noise from the turbines, about 520 metres from their house.

“She couldn’t hack it,” Mr Frost said. The situation is complex for the tightly-knit Leonards Hill and Korweinguboora communities around the wind farm.

The turbines are located on land owned by Mr Frost’s cousin, Ron Liversidge. The two men haven’t spoken in recent months.

Mr Frost said he and his wife had made an official complaint to Hepburn Wind and were keeping a diary of the noise impact.

From Indiana

Between 300 and 400 people filled the Culver Elementary School gymnasium Saturday morning for what was billed as an informational meeting sponsored by Concerned Property Owners of Southern Marshall County, Indiana.

The topic of the day has become a hot one in recent weeks and months in the area: the proposed placement of more than 60 400-plus foot wind turbines across several thousand acres in parts of Marshall and Fulton Counties by Florida based energy company Nextera.

Three presenters detailed concerns raised by some in the area over the project, which was formally denounced by Culver's Parks and Recreation board recently.

Lake Maxinkuckee resident Mark Levett, who added he grew up in the Plymouth area, opened the event by noting the intent was "to represent facts and not get too emotional." He showed a map of the proposed area of some 17,000 acres and explained Nextera is owned by Florida Power and Light, "the largest operator of wind turbines in the U.S."

Levett also described the blades for each turbine as stretching from one end of the gymnasium to the other, and the towers as 45 stories high.

"They're visible for 10 miles," he said. "That's basically (comparable to skyscrapers in) downtown Indianapolis."

Levett said the turbines do not reduce power rates and while they "have a lot of green features...you don't have them unless they're subsidized.

"The average statistic is you need about 30 percent subsidies to make wind turbines viable. The industry has been around for 30 years and you still need a 30 percent subsidy."

He also pointed out two European countries are moving wind turbines offshore to avoid some of the complications they cause near human and animal residences.

"Reported symptoms (of those living near existing turbines) include headaches, blurred vision, nausea sleeplessness, ringing and buzzing in your ears, dizziness vertigo, memory and concentration problems, and depression. For every article that says there are no health effects, there's one that says there are."

Levett said Marshall County's present ordinances call for turbines to be placed 1,000 feet from homes, while he said doctors nationwide are recommending a distance of one and a half miles for safety. The impact on livestock from voltage surrounding the towers has also been controversial, he added, as has bird and bat kills by the blades, though he acknowledged the question of "how many is too many (killed)" is up for debate.

"There's no controversy about this," Levett said. "If you're in sight of a turbine, it causes you to lose land value -- six to 30 percent."

Prior to the meeting, as audience members filed in, a Youtube station video showing "shadow flicker" effects inside and outside a home near an existing turbine was shown in rotation on the gymnasium's screen.

Levett also showed photos taken at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and nearby Lake Winnebago, where dozens of turbines were clearly visible.

"Those turbines are eight miles away," he said of the photos. He referenced a full-page advertisement published by Nextera in the August 11 Culver Citizen, which noted the company is moving its study area three miles to the east (further away from Lake Maxinkuckee). The move would still leave the turbines highly visible on the Lake Maxinkuckee skyline, according to Levett, who again referred to the Wisconsin photos as examples.

"This will be our new view from the lake," he said. "Get informed -- it's a big decision for Marshall County."

Steve Snyder, an attorney engaged by the event's sponsoring organization, detailed the county's procedures regarding the project, explaining the decision to accept or reject Nextera's proposal will ultimately be made by the Marshall County Board of Zoning Appeals, which he said is required by its own ordinances and state law to consider several factors in its determination.

First, Snyder explained, the project "can't be injurious to the public's health, safety, and welfare."

It must meet development standards in the Marshall County zoning ordinances.

It must not permanently injure property or uses in the vicinity, "which means," he added, "will it reduce property values?

I would suggest the evidence is conclusive that you will see a drop on property values when your property is in visibility of one of these things."

Lastly, the project must be consistent with Marshall County's comprehensive plan, which Snyder said does not anticipate wind farms, and so isn't a serious consideration.

The BZA, he noted, must consider "every aspect of a project at a public hearing," which will take place after an application has been filed, which has not yet occurred in this case.

He emphasized counter-evidence to that presented by the petitioner -- in this case Nextera -- should be presented in that hearing, though Nextera "has the burden of proving those four elements (required for the project's approval) I just discussed."

Setbacks from homes, said Snyder, are one factor to be considered.

"If somebody puts a tower up and you own a building site within a thousand feet,” he said, “you're prevented from building on your own land."

Other factors include security and noise, which is limited here to 55 decibels. Further, he said, a decommissioning plan is required for the project to prevent abandoned wind farms as exist in some parts of the country.

"Essentially you're looking at a minimum of one public hearing at which five members of the county commission will hear from Nextera."

Rounding out Saturday’s program was a detailed presentation from Roger McEowen, a professor in Agricultural Law at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, where he is also the Director of the ISU Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation.

McEowen encouraged the audience to read up on the details of his presentation as well as legal issues for landowners potentially negotiating a lease with wind companies, on the Center's website at www.calt.iastate.edu [3].

He primarily focused on the benefits and drawbacks on wind energy nationally and globally. Currently, he said, wind generates about one percent of the United States' power needs, though some have proposed that by 2020, six percent will be wind-derived.

"However," he added, "the U.S. Energy Administration's annual energy outlook for 2006 concluded that by 2030, wind power would supply no more than 1.2 percent of U.S. energy if current incentives and subsidies stay in place."

McEowen emphasized subsidies are driving the wind energy industry today, and questioned whether -- in light of present budgetary woes on the federal level -- those subsidies will hold out much longer.

Further, states like Iowa, California, Minnesota, Texas, and Kansas, some of the top wind energy production states at present, differ from Indiana in that each has large amounts of open space away from people, he said.

On a map McEowen showed from the U.S. Department of Energy depicting most and least viable locations to place wind farms, some parts of Indiana were rated "fair" for placement, but the local area designated for placement was blank, ranking it of dubious viability.

When asked why a company would choose to build here under such conditions, McEowen noted Marshall County has "good access to the (energy distribution grid)."

He also suggested the company will profit because of subsidies offered per kilowatt hour for wind generated.
McEowen described motives for the current push for wind energy development nationally, including improvements in the industry's technology, high fuel prices, mandates in 29 states requiring certain amounts of generated energy to be renewable, difficulty in launching new coal-fired power projects, and financial viability of wind projects due to tax credits and other subsidies.

He refuted the claim that wind energy makes the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. Petroleum, he said, only generates eight tenths of one percent of American electrical power. Instead, most domestic electricity comes from coal, natural gas, and nuclear power.

The wind industry wouldn't exist, McEowen said, without federal incentives, and the income tax credit per kilowatt hour for electricity produced by a qualified wind facility is 2.2 cents.

Many states also subsidize wind energy, he said, alongside reductions or exemptions from state or local property sales and other taxes.

Some states, such as Wyoming, McEowen noted, are taxing wind companies due to the full "social cost" of wind farms to taxpayers, ranging from road construction and repair to police and fire protection related to the farms.

While wind farms do create jobs, McEowen added, since most jobs are due to government subsidies, the net effect is simply a shift from non-subsidized labor to subsidized, rather than creation of genuinely "new" jobs.

"When Spain reduced its alternative energy subsidies," he said, "thousands of jobs were lost."

Also discussed was whether industrial wind farms constitute "the next generation of nuisance lawsuits."

McEowen detailed possible legal claims from neighbors of wind turbine-hosting land, ranging from ice throws when blades -- which can spin at more than 150 miles per hour -- ice up, to malfunction or lightning strike-rooted fires, interference with radio or TV signals, to aforementioned health impacts on adjacent landowners.

He cited several studies on the health effects of the turbines.

Most courts, he emphasized will only recognize nuisance claims after the towers have been installed, rather than in an anticipatory manner. Instead, it was noted the local legislative process is the best manner to address concerns before wind farm placement.

Property values have been shown to be negatively impacted by proximity to the turbines in some studies, McEowen said, by 10 to 30 percent.

"All this is related to how close these are to your home or business," he added. "Does this part of the country have enough open space to get these away from people?"

Among topics discussed in a question and answer session near the close of the program included potential conflict of interest for any members of the county's BZA, something Snyder said is required to be disclosed by county and state statute.

"Typically, (conflict of interest) means there's financial benefit flowing to one who votes that could affect his decision," he added.

Also discussed was the effect of the farms on Doppler radar for weather predictions. One group member said a wind farm near Lafayette, Indiana, causes the appearance of a major storm to be constant on radar-based weather maps, creating "trouble predicting tornadoes."

From Australia

 LEONARD'S HILL WIND FARM: HEPBURN MAYOR RESPONDS

SOURCE The Courier, www.thecourier.com.au

August 19 2011

BY BRENDAN GULLIFER,

Shop owner Jan Perry said yesterday she had been seeing a Ballarat doctor for sleep problems following the activation of turbines.

Ms Perry, 57, said her doctor was “surprised and shocked” that she also had high blood pressure.

A third Leonards Hill resident has gone public about alleged health problems caused by living near Hepburn wind farm.

Shop owner Jan Perry said yesterday she had been seeing a Ballarat doctor for sleep problems following the activation of turbines.

Ms Perry, 57, said her doctor was “surprised and shocked” that she also had high blood pressure.

“I’ve always had normal blood pressure and had it taken back in May and it was still normal,” Ms Perry said. “But my doctor took it again on Tuesday and it was up.”

Ms Perry said she had constant earache since the turbines started.

Ms Perry is one of at least two Leonards Hill residents who have made formal complaints to the Environmental Protection Authority about turbine noise.

She said the shire of Hepburn had failed in its duty of care to residents.

“Hepburn Wind and the shire have ruined our lives,” she said. “We can’t sell, we can’t move.”

But another Leonards Hill resident spoke highly of the turbines.

Dianne Watson, 56, a pensioner, rents a cottage with her husband from turbine landholder Ron Liversidge.

“We’re down the hill, below the turbines, and you can’t hear them at all,” Mrs Watson said.

Mayor Rod May said he hadn’t received any correspondence “of late” about problems associated with the wind farm.

“The shire probably needs to be convinced of the causal link between the wind turbines and the syndromes that are being presented,” he said.

Second story:

WIND FARM SICKNESS: BALLARAT DOCTOR CALLS FOR STUDY

SOURCE The Courier, www.thecourier.com.au

August 19 2011

BY BRENDAN GULLIFER,

“Patients present with a complex array of symptoms. You hear it once, then a second person comes along with something similar. By the third or fourth person, you’re starting to think there’s something here.

A Ballarat doctor yesterday joined the wind turbine debate, comparing the alleged link between health problems associated with turbines to cigarette smoking’s connection to cancer back in the 1950s.

Sleep physician Dr Wayne Spring said he had been treating patients from Waubra and Leonards Hill and he supported a senate inquiry call for a formal health study.

“Research needs to be done into the whole concept of wind farms,” Dr Spring said yesterday. “It’s like cigarettes in the 50s; people didn’t believe they caused lung cancer and now we’ve got people living near turbines coming in early with all sorts of conditions. We’ve got to acknowledge the facts.

“Some of these people are called hysterics or it’s psychosomatic or they’re labelled as jumping on the bandwagon. People in industry and government dismiss these people but this is an important issue.”

Dr Spring’s comments follow those this week of Daylesford doctor Andja Mitric-Andjic.

Dr Mitric-Andjic said she had been treating Leonards Hill residents for problems associated with sleep disturbance since turbines began operating in the area earlier this year.

Hepburn Wind chairman Simon Holmes a Court said much of the anxiety from residents living near turbines was created by “misinformation spread by anti-wind activists”.

But Dr Spring said the problem was anecdotal evidence was not regarded as scientific.

“We do not have evidence,” he said. “I can’t be dogmatic but we do not have evidence to refute there is a problem.

“Patients present with a complex array of symptoms. You hear it once, then a second person comes along with something similar. By the third or fourth person, you’re starting to think there’s something here.

“Bad sleep is bad for you, regardless of whether it’s caused by noise or anxiety about a situation.”

From Australia

HEPBURN WIND FARM: LOCAL DOCTOR SPEAKS OUT

The Courier, www.thecourier.com.au

August 18 2011

BY BRENDAN GULLIFER

[Local Doctor] said patients had come to see her to complain about the noise from the two local turbines.

“They can’t sleep and in the morning they wake up exhausted. They can’t function. They have poor concentration, probably because of poor sleeping.”

[Local resident] Mr Liversidge said he had been doing his own noise monitoring, by parking his car on the road and listening.

“Anybody can come and listen for themselves,” he said. “I don’t believe there’s any problems whatsoever.”

A local doctor has spoken out publicly for the first time after treating patients for symptoms associated with living near wind turbines.

Dr Andja Mitric-Andjic, who practises in Daylesford, said she had treated at least two local patients for sleep deprivation, and spoken with others living near the Hepburn wind farm.

SECOND STORY

From Michigan

JUDGE ORDERS WIND COMPANY'S TOWER TO TOPPLE

SOURCE Daily Telegram, www.lenconnect.com

August 17, 2011

FAIRFIELD TWP., Mich. — A 262-foot tower set up last fall to monitor weather for a potential wind energy project must come down, a judge ruled Monday.

The tower built by Orisol Energy U.S. Inc. is in violation of Fairfield Township zoning ordinances, ruled Lenawee County Circuit Judge Margaret M.S. Noe. She granted a motion by the township to affirm a February decision by Fairfield Township’s zoning board of appeals that the tower violates zoning requirements.

Orisol had the tower and weather monitoring equipment installed on property on Arnold Highway in November in preparation for a potential wind energy project. It is one of three companies working on plans to install commercial wind turbines in Riga, Ogden, Fairfield and Palmyra townships.

A legal battle developed over the tower after Orisol neglected to obtain a permit from the township before erecting it. The company did have permits from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Michigan Department of Transportation aeronautics division.

Responding to township officials, Orisol sought permission to keep the tower in December but it was denied. The zoning board of appeals reviewed an application from the company for a waiver but voted to deny it after a public hearing in February.

Orisol went to court, arguing the tower is not excluded by the township’s zoning ordinance and a 39-foot height limit for buildings in agricultural zones does not apply to towers.

An attorney for the township filed a lengthy motion in June, asking the court to affirm the zoning board of appeals decision and rule the tower a nuisance that must be removed. Attorney Carson Tucker of Farmington Hills referred to it as a “262-foot monstrosity” that is harming local citizens and neighbors.

The case had been scheduled for a jury trial in February. Monday’s ruling requires the tower to be removed unless further court action is taken to grant a delay.

Dr Mitric-Andjic, who lives at Korweinguboora, said she, her husband and14-year-old son had also suffered sleep interruption since the turbines began operating.

Dr Mitric-Andjic said she decided to speak out because the problems being experienced by local residents could not be ignored.

“Wind farm, what do you mean wind farm?” she said.

“This is industrial. No one is against green energy. Everyone would say yes, of course, but put it out of residential areas.”

Dr Mitric-Andjic, 49, practises at Springs Medical Centre. She and her husband bought land on the Ballan-Daylesford Road seven years ago and built a house there last year.

She said patients had come to see her to complain about the noise from the two local turbines.

“They can’t sleep and in the morning they wake up exhausted. They can’t function. They have poor concentration, probably because of poor sleeping.”

Hepburn Wind chairman Simon Holmes a Court said any claims of adverse health effects would be taken “very seriously”.

“As a community organisation, we’re very concerned about the well-being of our community,” Mr Homes a Court said.

“If anyone is concerned that the turbines are harming them, we want to meet to understand their claims. Our project officer lives in Leonards Hill and is in frequent contact with the community around the wind farm.”

Turbine landholder Ron Liversidge said any claims of noise problems were “completely false”.

Mr Liversidge said he had been doing his own noise monitoring, by parking his car on the road and listening.

“Anybody can come and listen for themselves,” he said. “I don’t believe there’s any problems whatsoever.”

CONCLUSIONS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW TRIBUNAL

“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. The question that should be asked is: What protections, such as permissible noise levels or setback distances, are appropriate to protect human health?

In Ontario, recent regulations have provided guidance in that regard. In cases such as this, where the Appellants have not sought to demonstrate any type of unique harm associated with the design of this Project and have not attempted to demonstrate the sensitivity of a particular receptor, it was essentially up to the Appellants to prove that the Ontario standards are wrong in the context of the specific Project under appeal (leaving aside the related question about possible non-compliance with the standards).

Just because the Appellants have not succeeded in their appeals, that is no excuse to close the book on further research.

On the contrary, further research should help resolve some of the significant questions that the Appellants have raised.”

Note from the BPWI Research Nerd:  

 The photo below was found on the Westwood Land and Energy Development Consultants website where the 'company biologist' Ron Peterson (mentioned in the following article) is said to work. Wind companies often employ the services of one-stop-shopping 'consulting' firms like Westwood. The caption for the photo below reads: "We've been dancing through the years!"

Photo from Westwood Land and Energy WebsiteMore from Westwood's website regarding their 'environmental services' 

Overview

From lakeshore residential developments to 1,000-square-mile wind farms and linear transmission corridors, Westwood’s environmental staff delivers fast-paced environmental review, natural resource studies, contamination assessments, and permitting to resolve complex issues. By collaborating with planners and engineers, we identify hidden potentials and optimize land use for clients.

Winning Approval Strategies
Our creative solutions win environmental approvals. When a project requires wetland strategies, environmental impact assessments, wildlife studies, permitting, creative mitigation, or sustainable stormwater management, we can help. Our client-centered service and regulatory credibility bring forth solutions that result in successful projects.

Team and Technology
Our team of ecological and regulatory experts creates opportunities and effectively resolves issues for our clients. Westwood provides the full range of wetland, wildlife, plant ecology, cultural resources, GIS, and regulatory consulting services. Throughout the life of a project, we efficiently assess and retire risks for our clients, from the earliest due diligence through permit procurement, and ultimately providing construction compliance monitoring.

       [Wind] Company biologists said they found three eagles’ nests within a 2-mile radius of the project, but concluded that the birds were not at risk because they didn’t hunt near the turbine sites. Mary Hartman, a member the citizens group, was skeptical. Only three nests? “This place is loaded,” she said. Members of her group went out and found eight nests.

         Ron Peterson, the company biologist, disputed that number. He said that only two additional nests were documented, and that they were there because the eagles were feeding on “improperly disposed” livestock carcasses. If farmers stop leaving carcasses out, he said, the eagles would move on.

Davis, of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said there are at least four or five nests in all, and he criticized the company’s initial survey as “not extremely substantial.

Davis, of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said there are at least four or five nests in all, and he criticized the company’s initial survey as “not extremely substantial.”

After a fierce, two-year fight against a proposed $179 million wind farm near Red Wing, Minn., local opponents have only one trump card left — the bald eagle.

Just before the government shutdown on July 1, the 12,000-acre project cleared a major hurdle when the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted to move it forward. But in recent months, a citizens group that has opposed the project discovered that the 50 turbines will be built smack in the middle of prime nesting territory for that beloved American symbol of freedom.

Federal wildlife officials say that the developer could face civil or even criminal action under federal laws if a bald eagle or an even more rare golden eagle is felled by one of the massive blades.

“It comes down to whether they want to take on the risk or not,” said Richard Davis, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who has monitored the project for two years. “I do think there is a higher likelihood of a strike in that area than any other wind project I’ve looked at in the state.”

Chuck Burdick, project director for the developer, AWA Goodhue Wind, said the company has been diligent in responding to the concerns raised by both federal and state wildlife officials. It’s done everything possible, he said, to site turbines where they will cause the least harm to flying wildlife, from long-eared bats to loggerhead shrikes to eagles. But all projects entail risks, he said, and the company plans to start construction this fall.

“I don’t know that a wind farm has ever been built that didn’t result in some bird or bat mortality,” he said.

Wind farms vs. wildlife?

The conflict between these two opposing environmental goals — clean energy and protecting wildlife — is occurring increasingly as wind farms sprout across the nation. There is a growing realization that the massive towers with blades that travel hundreds of miles per hour are killing millions of wandering birds and bats.

The concerns are having an effect. In April, a wind development in North Dakota halted when Xcel Energy, which had agreed to buy the electricity, abruptly pulled out of the deal because of risks to two endangered birds — the piping plover and the whooping crane. The developer, EnXco, still doesn’t have a buyer for the electricity.

Just this week, the federal Department of the Interior proposed new voluntary wildlife protection guidelines for wind projects, but they were denounced by environmental and bird-loving organizations as grossly inadequate. At minimum, such rules should be mandatory, the American Bird Conservancy said.

In Minnesota, the drive for wind energy comes in part from a state law that requires utilities to derive 25 percent of their energy from wind by 2020. Now, the pressure to build has been intensified by industry fears that the federal Production Tax Credit, which greatly reduces the costs of the projects, will expire this year.

Wind energy proponents argue that the risks are worth it. After all, they say, mountain-top coal mining and air pollution from fossil fuels are far more destructive to wildlife than wind turbines. But critics say that doesn’t justify the harm, noting that 55 to 94 golden eagles die every year at Altamont Pass in California — one of the oldest and, many say, most poorly designed wind farms in the country.

Dispute over eagle nests

The eagle problem in Goodhue County surfaced only this past winter, thanks largely to the Coalition for Sensible Siting, a citizens group that opposed the wind project from the beginning. Mostly, they don’t want the turbines close to their homes because of concerns about the effect of stray electrical voltage and the annoying strobe-like shadows cast by the moving blades.

But when the company issued the results of a wildlife survey it conducted on the site last summer, opponents realized they might have more leverage. Company biologists said they found three eagles’ nests within a 2-mile radius of the project, but concluded that the birds were not at risk because they didn’t hunt near the turbine sites.

Mary Hartman, a member the citizens group, was skeptical. Only three nests? “This place is loaded,” she said. Members of her group went out and found eight nests.

Ron Peterson, the company biologist, disputed that number. He said that only two additional nests were documented, and that they were there because the eagles were feeding on “improperly disposed” livestock carcasses. If farmers stop leaving carcasses out, he said, the eagles would move on.

Davis, of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said there are at least four or five nests in all, and he criticized the company’s initial survey as “not extremely substantial.”

But at this point, all Davis and state wildlife officials can do is make recommendations on how to best site the turbines to protect the birds. The ultimate decision on the future of the wind farm is up to the PUC. The citizens groups and Goodhue County, which also opposes it, can ask the commission to reconsider its approval, but a major change is unlikely, participants said.

Still, the commissioners’ concern about vulnerable species was evident. The permit will be one of the first in Minnesota to require a bird- and bat-protection plan, which the company must develop with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service.

Plan to ‘promote wildlife’

But there is no certainty such a plan will succeed in protecting eagles or other endangered species.

Burdick said the company’s biologists are tracking the flight paths and hunting territories of eagles and other vulnerable species at the site. He said he expects the company will also “promote wildlife in the general area” and work with the state and federal agencies on turbine locations.

“We are doing everything possible to avoid the most sensitive and intensely used areas for wildlife,” Burdick said.

The federal government can step in only after the project is up and running, if something happens to a protected bird, Davis said. The options in that case might range from shutting down problem turbines, for example, to legal action.

If eagles start dying, he said, the federal government is less likely to forgive an operator that knew the risks earlier.

But that’s only if the deaths are discovered.

“If there are 50 birds hit, are they going to tell anyone?” he said. “We hope they would.”

SECOND FEATURE: FROM AUSTRALIA

New Video: AGAINST THE WIND

NOEL DEAN: The first time that I got affected was just after they started up. I woke with headaches of a morning. I had to have Panadol. It hadn't happened before.

It happened two mornings in a row and then because we had a property up north, I went up there for the night. I woke up without headaches and then when I come back I did get headaches again.

ANDREW FOWLER: Perplexed by what the problem might be, Noel Dean went to his doctor who sent him to a specialist..

NOEL DEAN: He said it looked like it was an electromagnetic spasm in me skull. All the muscles in me skull just pulled tight like a tight glove. And so I, it was just like it was pulling.

It's hard to explain, it's not pressure like that, it's just as if something, as if the muscles just pulled tight over your skull.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH 'AGAINST THE WIND'

Austrailian television takes a closer look at Big Wind

An investigation into allegations that wind turbines are making people sick. Are these installations ‘weapons of mass destruction’ as some have claimed, or are they vehicles for mass hysteria?

For some time now, people forced to live close to wind farms have expressed concern that the noise from the turbines is affecting their health. They say the machines have destroyed their lives, causing headaches, high blood pressure and nausea. Four Corners goes to several wind-farming hot-spots across Australia to meet the people who claim they are simply collateral damage as the nation scrambles to embrace renewable energy.

TRANSCRIPT OF THE PROGRAM

Read the program transcript of Andrew Fowler's report 'Against the Wind', first broadcast 25 July 2011.

Reporter: Andrew Fowler

Date: 25/07/2011

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: According to the Federal Government, this technology will be a key to Australia's alternative energy future.

JULIA GILLARD, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: We're a nation perfectly position to seize this clean energy future.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But a grass roots campaign against wind turbines could undermine the Government’s plans.

DONALD THOMAS, FARMER: I've lived and worked on the farm here for over fifty years. I thought the wind turbines coming to the area would be a really good thing.

SCREEN TEXT (over turbine blades): AGAINST THE WIND

DONALD THOMAS: But I was wrong.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Another arm of climate change policy to strike turbulence.

Welcome to Four Corners.

Right now the Gillard Government is in awful trouble over its latest attempt to develop a credible policy for tackling climate change.

The proposed carbon tax, for instance, is about as popular as a pacifist at a weapons expo.

The Government is now relying more than ever on its other climate change commitment, to produce 20 per cent of Australia’s entire electricity supply from renewable energy sources by 2020.

The maths is simple; that is less than nine years away.

Wind power will be a vital component in reaching that target.

Giant wind turbines are already making their presence felt in a number of regions across the southern half of Australia. But it is estimated that they may have to triple in number this decade to play their part in reaching that renewable target.

That seems entirely doable, except for one fly in the ointment; the increasingly voluble protest from people concerned about claims of adverse health effects from prolonged exposure to low frequency noise.

Protestors say the anecdotal evidence is growing, but preliminary findings from one substantial study conducted in two states, which we’ll reveal tonight, suggest otherwise.

And another, more familiar agenda seems to be caught up in the mix – the push from sceptics to discredit the prevailing scientific orthodoxy on climate change itself.

This report from Andrew Fowler.

(A range of wind turbines silhouetted against the sunset)

ANDREW FOWLER, REPORTER: High on the hills in Western Victoria they stand ominous, staring down at the township below.

The wind turbines are mainly still now after furiously spinning all day, pumping power into the national grid.

MARK DREYFUS, CABINET SECRETARY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY: It's now the fastest growing renewable energy source in Australia. There's some 50 wind farms that have been accredited.

ANDREW FOWLER: They’re the main weapons in the Federal Government’s attempt to produce 20 per cent of Australia’s energy from renewable sources by 2020.

So far they contribute just 2 per cent of Australia’s power needs. But to reach the 20 per cent renewable target there’ll probably need to be another 3,200.

DR MARK DIESENDORF: If we look at the next 10 years, we could envisage that wind replaces several coal fired power stations.

ANDREW FOWLER: Few would argue they aren’t clean and green. All they need is a windy location and they can do their job. Many stand as high as the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

They’re part of a patchwork of nearly 1100 turbines straddling the mountains and ridges from Perth to the Eastern States.

ANDREW THOMSON, ACCIONA ENERGY: The important point is that last year, for example, we generated just under 600 gigawatt hours of zero emissions electricity - zero emissions electricity. And that was enough in a local context to power a city like Ballarat and surrounding towns.

ANDREW FOWLER: Towns like Waubra, north west of Ballarat in Victoria, are ideal, with its exposed hills and a regular strong breeze.

Waubra is home to 128 wind turbines, scattered across the pastures that mostly produce mutton and lamb.

(Excerpt from ACCIONA Corporate Video of the Waubra community festival, uplifting music)

For many in Waubra, the more the merrier.

Every year the town holds a wind festival to celebrate the arrival of the turbines.

ACCIONA SPOKESPERSON: We’re here, solving problems, solving challenges, being successful together as true partners for the long term.

(End of excerpt)

ANDREW FOWLER: The wind farm operator is Acciona, a Spanish corporate giant with hundreds of wind farms across Europe. Today it’s spreading the word in Waubra.

(School kids run to the base of a turbine)

ACCIONA EMPLOYEE: We’re making the kids into the shape and size of a blade, so this will give them some idea of how big the blades are.

TEACHER 1: Sixty metres! So that's... When you see it like this you realise how big it is don’t you.

TEACHER 2: Everyone look up, look up at the blades.

On the count of three, blow as hard as you can and we’ll see it go round.

Ready? One, two, three!

(Children blow)

TEACHER 2: No, harder! Blow! Harder!

CHILD 1: It’s going round.

CHILD 2: It's actually working!

ANDREW FOWLER: Yet there’s no illusion about one of the wind farms greatest attractions: the huge amount of money that the turbines have brought to the region and the town.

CHILD 3: It's turning!

CHILD 4: It's going round! Woo!

ANDREW FOWLER: Yet there's no illusion about one of the wind farm's greatest attractions - the huge amount of money that the turbines have brought to the region and the town.

For every turbine the region receives a direct $500 payment into a community fund. David Clark is the former local mayor.

Tell me David the beneficiaries of the community fund, whereabouts- who gets the money here?

DAVID CLARK, PYRENESS SHIRE COUNCIL: Yes, I suppose the biggest money we’ve put is into this $1.4 million development for the community. So the community fund has put $100,000 into that over five years.

Then the other big beneficiaries are the school, obviously, across the road, the CFA up the other end of town, the little cemetery - they don't get a lot of money to maintain the cemetery so we’ve bought them a new mower, which they use on the recreation reserve, which is pretty good.

But we've got a really good little local horticultural society, and then the Landcare groups in the area - there's three Landcare groups in the area of the wind farm so they do quite a lot of work with it and they do a free tree scheme as well for the community as part of that.

ANDREW FOWLER: But there’s more money than that in the wind industry and many farmers have grown rich on the proceeds, pulling in up to $10,000 a year rent from the company which runs the wind farm.

DAVID CLARK: This is only a small town. The landholder payments are nearly a million dollars in itself, so that puts a significant amount of money in farmer pockets around here. And then the wind farm employs 30 people, so there's probably another $2 million in wages that certainly go into the regional economy.

So it's a very significant boost for a community like this. You don't get a leap like that out of agriculture.

(Tractor rolls slowly over a fallow field)

ANDREW FOWLER: It’s unlikely wealth for the likes of potato farmer Lawrence Gallagher. His high country captures even the slightest breeze. In the tough world of farming it’s the equivalent of standing on a hill of gold.

Gallagher snared the most turbines in Waubra.

LAWRENCE GALLAGHER: On this property here there's seven wind towers and then we’ve got more wind towers back over the hill there where my father lives.

ANDREW FOWLER: In all the Gallaghers have 19 of the 128 wind towers in the region– and they rake in $135,000 in rent every year.

LAWRENCE GALLAGHER: well I believe it helps drought proof our property. We've had ten dry years before a very a wet year and it's helped- it's helped us to get by, like to pay our bills and that. And I know other farmers, it's helped them out as well.

ANDREW FOWLER: Yet not everyone in Waubra is celebrating the arrival of the wind farms. It’s caused a major rift in the tiny community of 500 people.

What was life like before the turbines came?

NOEL DEAN: Well, it was peaceful, you could enjoy life. You did you don't enjoy life out there. You just want to get the hell out of there. You cannot enjoy life. The only time you can enjoy life is when the turbines are not going. It's peaceful, you feel relaxed.

ANDREW FOWLER: Noel Dean used to run a successful property just a few kilometres from the town centre. It had been the family home for nearly 40 years.

Now the farm is derelict, the house empty.

How hard is it for you to leave all this behind?

NOEL DEAN: The family we- it’s the only place we had since we got married, we reared our three children here and it was home. But we can’t really call it home now.

ANDREW FOWLER: Dean says the choice was simple, remain and suffer bad health, or leave and lose the productive capacity of the farm. For him there was no choice.

NOEL DEAN: We’re refugees in our own country. We’re leaving here because of danger. It’s not just- no set up or anything, we’re being really harmed.

ANDREW FOWLER: Dean didn’t oppose the turbines but chose not to have any on his property.

The first trouble started within days of his neighbours turbines, which are less than two kilometres from his property, being switched on.

What particularly disturbed him and his wife was the sound of the blades as they rotated in the wind.

ANDREW FOWLER: So these are the turbines that originally caused you trouble?

NOEL DEAN: These were the ones that initially caused us the headaches, but these ones over here was the worst ones.

They seemed to, um the big whoosh sound coming through and dreadful headaches from those ones, and we never come back to live in the house since then.

ANDREW FOWLER: Dean describes the land his farm is on as being like an amphitheatre – a bowl shaped valley between two hills. It’s a wonderful setting but he says it funnels the noise from the turbines down towards the house.

NOEL DEAN: The first time that I got affected was just after they started up. I woke with headaches of a morning. I had to have Panadol. It hadn't happened before.

It happened two mornings in a row and then because we had a property up north, I went up there for the night. I woke up without headaches and then when I come back I did get headaches again.

ANDREW FOWLER: Perplexed by what the problem might be, Noel Dean went to his doctor who sent him to a specialist..

NOEL DEAN: He said it looked like it was an electromagnetic spasm in me skull. All the muscles in me skull just pulled tight like a tight glove. And so I, it was just like it was pulling.

It's hard to explain, it's not pressure like that, it's just as if something, as if the muscles just pulled tight over your skull.

ANDREW FOWLER: On another occasion, he says he went to the outpatients department at the local hospital complaining about muscle spasms.

NOEL DEAN: I was getting a lot of pulsings in muscles and I went to the outpatients at the hospital and they said "You've just got too much electricity in your body. You've just got to stay away from the wind farm".

ANDREW FOWLER: The Deans decided to leave the property and move to a house in Ballarat, 35 kilometres away.

Noel Dean says it was only when they moved out of Waubra and left the wind farms behind that the headaches disappeared. His neighbojurs Lawrence and Kerryn Gallagher have some sympathy.

LAWRENCE GALLAGHER, WAUBRA FARMER: Well, our farming neighbours that we know a lot better, they're genuine people and we've lived beside them all our lives and we take them at their word and believe what they say. It's just, we haven't been affected by the noise issues and all the people as far as we know with wind towers haven't been affected, and we live in noisier areas.

KERRYN GALLAGHER, WAUBRA FARMER: I find it really sad if, you know, these people are getting sick. If- you know, you've got to take their word for it and I mean they genuinely believe that they are sick.

And you know I find it really sad to think that it's come to this, you know, it is affecting them - where I just know that it's just not affecting us at all.

ANDREW FOWLER: But others in Waubra are having problems, blighting what should be a wonderful time to be a farmer.

Carl Stepnell runs sheep on his property.

CARL STEPNELL: WAUBRA FARMER: We’ve had such good seasons in the last couple of years. Usually this time of year we'd be bloody flat out feeding them.

ANDREW FOWLER: So the mills are still today up there.

CARL STEPNELL: Yeah, yeah... yeah.

ANDREW FOWLER: How many of them are there? There's five within 1200 metres of the house there. The closest one is 900 metres.

ANDREW FOWLER: Now they’ve moved out because of the sound of the turbines.

What’s the noise like?

CARL STEPNELL: Oh... it varies a lot. Sometimes it’s a constant roa, then it's a swooshing and it just... they’re different all the time. Yeah.

ANDREW FOWLER: It might look like a rural idyll but when the turbines are turning for Carl and Samantha, it’s anything but.

Though they regularly return to manage the 4,200 acre property, they never stay overnight.

CARL STEPNELL: Samantha got affected first.

It took me about six months before I started feeling a bit indifferent and started getting sort of tingling in the head and headaches. And then it just, you could feel it eventually getting worse and worse.

You'd just try to fight it off. You just think it's not real, 'cause it's affecting your day, every day and night.

And then eventually, you start waking up at night - two, three in the morning wake up every night, and you just couldn't get back to sleep. You're just wide awake

ANDREW FOWLER: How did you feel sick? What was it like?

SAMANTHA STEPNELL, WAUBRA FARMER: Like being in a cabin of a plane. That's the only way I can explain it, is just the ear pressure and headaches - and the nausea.

Just didn't - the pressure in my ears didn't go away. It just got worse.

The longer I was around the turbines the worse I was feeling.

ANDREW FOWLER: Samantha says the pain had a big impact on her health. She became lethargic and in the end sought medical help.

CARL STEPNELL: The doctor wanted to put her on anti-depressants. That's what he wanted to prescribe her with and we just come to the conclusion, there's a way out.

We're not. We can't feel trapped into feeling this way so we moved off the farm into Ballarat and bought another house, yeah.

ANDREW FOWLER: The decision to move out and travel back to Waubra several times a week has put a big strain on the family - especially their youngest son, who they had to remove from the local school.

SAMANTHA STEPNELL: Oh well he didn't want to leave his friends. He didn't want to leave his home. We didn't want to leave.

We had no choice but to leave. We, we honestly didn't. There was no way out except for us to move away from our home. You don't, you don't move away from home when there's no problem.

CARL STEPNELL: No. No and he did it really tough for weeks.

SAMANTHA STEPNELL: He, for two weeks he cried every day. It was... it was the hardest thing I've ever had to see him go through (crying). It was just...

He didn't want to leave his school. He still doesn't. He still thinks that he'll be back here one day. We come back out to the farm but not to live.

ANDREW FOWLER: The proposition that wind turbines make people sick has been rejected by mainstream science, although some studies have found the sound of the turbines causes annoyance and sleep deprivation.

PROFESSOR SIMON CHAPMAN, PUBLIC HEALTH, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY: There's no doubt that there are some people who live close to turbines who don't have them on their property who say that they're being annoyed and kept awake, and even being made ill by them.

But interestingly there are also people who have them on their property, who live just as close or closer, who curiously don't say that it makes them ill or that it annoys them.

So if you've got fifteen of these things on your property you wake up every morning knowing that you've got $150,000 in the bank.

The question is whether that variable may mediate feelings of annoyance or feelings of being ill.

ANDREW FOWLER: Eight years earlier when the turbine companies came through town offering tens of thousands of dollars to site their wind farms on local properties there was little opposition.

But in the years to come, when the turbines began operating, they would create a strange notoriety for the town.

Waubra was developing a reputation, not for the lamb it produced from its rolling green pastures, but for Waubra Disease - claims that the wind farms were producing sounds at a frequency too low to hear, but damaging to the health of those who lived nearby.

Noel Dean became convinced his symptoms were caused by soundwaves from the massive wind turbines.

He bought his own audio equipment and approached Graeme Hood, at the nearby University of Ballarat, to investigate. Hood is an electrical engineer with a physics degree.

(Loud crackling noise)

GRAEME HOOD, ASSOCIATE RESEARCHER, UNIVERSITY OF BALLARAT: And so this is, we understand, is the noise directly from the turbine.

This graph up here clearly shows that the bulk of the noise comes from a range of frequencies that aren’t very well heard. You know, it's a fairly high level of noise and yet you won’t perceive that as being loud.

ANDREW FOWLER: His recordings revealed a high level of sound at low frequencies which are difficult for the human ear to detect.

GRAEME HOOD: Well, The brain thinks it's quiet but the ears may be telling you something else, or the body may be telling you something else. It's much louder

ANDREW FOWLER: But what he didn’t find was high levels of so-called infrasound, sounds at a frequency so low they can’t be heard at all.

A Danish study published last year came to similar conclusions.

It was infrasound that Noel Dean believed was damaging his health.

GRAEME HOOD: We were looking for something in the order of 110 to 120 decibels.

ANDREW FOWLER: So the levels that you found, was that the level that would do damage to people?

GRAEME HOOD: No, I don't think so, no.

ANDREW FOWLER: Like Noel Dean, his neighbours the Stepnells, remain unconvinced by Graeme Hood’s findings.

They’re sure that there’s something more to turbine noise and it's making them sick.

DR SARAH LAURIE: You just tell your story. That's what people need to hear.

ANDREW FOWLER: Much of what they’ve learnt came from Dr Sar Laurie.

DR SARAH LAURIE: Have you found that the symptoms have got better?

SAMANTHA STEPNELL: Yes, especially of a night. I think sleep’s number one and you can, you know, to know that you can drive away and get a good night’s sleep.

ANDREW FOWLER: Dr Laurie’s been in regular contact with the Stepnells and others in Waubra, reinforcing her belief that wind turbines can make people sick.

DR SARAH LAURIE: The reason I became aware was because we'd had a neighbour tell us that there were wind turbines proposed for the hills near my home, and there was mixed views amongst the neighbours. Some were very concerned, others were less so.

I certainly was in the group not concerned about the turbines. I was unaware that there were any health implications at all.

ANDREW FOWLER: Originally Dr Laurie, an unregistered doctor from South Australia, was in favour of wind farms.

(Photos of Dr Laurie's children at a pro wind farm demonstration)

She took her two young children on a demonstration supporting them.

She says she only became aware of health issues when she learnt of work by a British GP, Dr Amanda Harry. Dr Harry claims to have discovered problems among some residents living near a wind farm in south west England.

DR SARAH LAURIE: She found that people developed a range of symptoms, which varied between individuals in a household, but they only came on when the turbines were operating. And these people didn't have the symptoms either when they were away from the turbines or when the turbines were not operating.

And they ranged from chronic severe sleep deprivation, headaches, nausea, tinnitus or ringing in the ears.

ANDREW FOWLER: There was someone else keenly interested in work being done overseas investigating possible links between illness and wind farms.

Not far from Waubra stands the stately home of Mawallok. It’s been in the hands of Peter Mitchell’s family for decades.

PETER MITCHELL, WAUBRA FOUNDATION: The garden was designed by Guilfoyle and Guilfoyle was renowned for his sort of landscapes.

ANDREW FOWLER: Its gardens are listed as some of the world’s most beautiful but there were plans to build wind farms on the hill tops beyond the lake.

PETER MITCHELL: Well you can see that ridge up here between ourselves and the mountains, and it's not very far away, that ridge. That was to be covered with turbines so that they would stand well above any of those trees.

So the minute you'd start walking down the garden, they'd be in your face.

ANDREW FOWLER: What was worse for Mitchell, they would also be placed close to the border of the property. He didn’t want his family to have to leave. He decided to fight.

PETER MITCHELL: Farmers love their houses. They love being on their property. They don't want to be anywhere else.

But they leave and what happens? When they leave the symptoms disappear. They come back to work the property, the symptoms reappear.

Now it isn't very hard to join the dots there

ANDREW FOWLER: Mitchell was better prepared than most to fight the turbines. He’s a company director with a history of charity work. He was president of the National Stroke Foundation and a board member of the World WildLife Fund.

Mitchell put his considerable skills together to stop the turbines. Last year he founded a body called the Waubra Foundation designed to against wind farms on health grounds.

PETER MITCHELL: We are trying to bring to people's attention - developers, bureaucrats, government ministers, that wind turbines are dangerous to residents' health.

And that's what I'm on about.

ANDREW FOWLER: And the anti-wind campaign is starting to gather momentum. In Collector, three hours south west of Sydney, locals became worried about plans to build almost a thousand turbines in the district.

TONY HODGSON, FERRIER HODGSON: What’s going to happen if one of those turbines over there chucks off a piece the size of a Commodore and hits on to the Hume Highway, hits the grid, hits the train line?

ANDREW FOWLER: Tony Hodgson, co-founder of insolvency accountants Ferrier Hodgson has a country property near a proposed site. Originally, a self confessed NIMBY, he didn’t want one in his backyard.

ANDREW FOWLER: So was there any moment when you decided that you were against the turbines? Was it a NIMBY for you in the first place?

TONY HODGSON: In the first place, absolutely because you know, visually, I think they're a horrible looking thing. There's no degree of beauty about them.

But then I thought I had an obligation to enlighten myself as to what was behind them and how they worked. And the more I started looking into it, the more concerned I became on health, public safety, you know visual amenity.

ANDREW FOWLER: With up to 80 turbines proposed close to his property, Hodgson began researching the issue. He discovered the anti wind farm lobby was a tight network.

TONY HODGSON: I started by getting on the internet and I found a crowd in Ontario in Canada, and read all they had and corresponded with them and then they put me in touch with Sarah Laurie - Doctor Laurie in South Australia - so I started talking to her.

Then I got in touch with Peter Mitchell.

ANDREW FOWLER: What is your view of the medical science presented by Doctor Laurie?

TONY HODGSON: Well... I'm swayed by it quite dramatically otherwise I wouldn't be you know involved with her in the Waubra Foundation. But I want to see, as Sarah says, I want to see the research done.

The- you know, I want to see the peer review research done here in Australia allied with the research that's been done round the world to establish the position.

I actually think that the position she's put forward will be established with the research but till it's done, nobody's going to accept anything that she says.

(Noisy community meeting)

ANDREW FOWLER: Hodgson teamed up with other locals to fight the wind farms.

They joined forces with an anti wind turbine group, the Landscape Guardians. Just down the road from his property, they organised a public meeting in Yass – part of a national campaign.

Star billing at the meeting went to Dr Sarah Laurie, the medical director of the Waubra Foundation.

(Film strip showing wind turbine being blown up and falling)

ANDREW FOWLER: Highly provocative images showed turnbines in flames, an unusual event but one that alarmed the audience.

To ram home the message, they were also warned about the potential of bushfires.

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE 1: If a car is faulty, it gets withdrawn from the market. If a drug goes on the market and it is found to be causing health problems, it gets pulled off the market.

So what will it take for wind farms to be pulled off the market? What sort of evidence will it take?

MAN IN AUDIENCE 1: These wind turbines have set farmer against farmer, friend against friend.

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE 2: Everyone has got to think, there is a thousand of them. Nobody has ever done it to this scale and plonked people in the middle of them.

ANDREW FOWLER: The meeting taps into fears that no one is listening to their complaints.

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE 3: We feel like democracy has left us high and dry.

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE 1: What would it take, as far as evidence and research goes, for have those turbines shut down, everywhere, just shut them down.

(Applause)

DR SARAH LAURIE (to meeting): This is not new...

ANDREW FOWLER: Dr Laurie warns, among many things, that wind turbines are linked to high blood pressure and even heart attacks. Her rather startling assertion plays to the mood of the meeting.

DR SARAH LAURIE: I actually believe that we know enough now to say "We need to adopt a precautionary approach".

I’m finding that people 10 kilometres away from existing turbines, 3 mega watts, on cleared hills in South Australia and smaller turbines here are causing symptoms that are directly related to turbine operations over that distance of 10 kilometres.

ANDREW FOWLER: At the end of the meeting the feeling in the room was overwhelming.

MAN: I wouldn't mind asking for a show of hands of all those people that would actually support a commission of inquiry into the wind turbine industry.

(Everyone raises their hand)

Anyone against?

(All hands fall)

WOMAN AT MEETING: I think it’s similar to the asbestosis or tobacco industry situation where if we don’t act now we’re going to find too late that people have been very severely affected.

ANDREW FOWLER: As the meeting winds up, many are clearly distressed by what they’ve been told about the potential dangers of wind farms.

(To woman) Is health an issue for you?

WOMAN AT MEETING: Absolutely. I have got two young children and it is an issue, not only for myself, and my husband, for my four and six year old children that I am bring up.

ANDREW FOWLER: As well as public meetings around the country, the anti wind lobby has funded what its critics call a scare campaign.

(Excerpt from Anti wind turbine lobby ad)

(Two young girls sit on a log in the country, wind turbine blades slice menacingly through text on a blue sky)

SCREEN TEXT: High blood pressure.

GIRL 1: It's our future, our health and our wildlife at risk.

(Blades slice through text)

SCREEN TEXT: Headaches... Sleep deprivation

GIRL 2: It feels to me like our community is splitting apart becuase of these wind turbines.

(Blades slice through text)

SCREEN TEXT: Ear pain... motion sickness.

Is this fair?

PROFFESSOR GARY WITTERT, HEAD OF THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE: If you whip up anxiety, people will generate many of these symptoms. There's fear of the unknown, there's activists creating concern among the population.

We all get headaches from time to time. Now if someone comes along and tells you that your headaches are because there are wind turbines, " now I know why I've got headaches".

CARL STEPNELL, WAUBRA FARMER: This is real. This isn't just in our heads. This was a real problem and it just was horrible. You could see- I could see Sam getting worse and worse.

ANDREW FOWLER: Many leading medicos and public health experts seriously question any links between sickness and wind farms, and the research cited to support the case.

PROFESSOR SIMON CHAPMAN, PUBLIC HEALTH, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: People who cite or refer to that research are the same people who publish it so it's, if you like, a kind of a self-citation phenomenon. It's a disease which is certainly not recognised by mainstream medicine, and the people who are pushing it appear to be a fairly small circle of people.

PROFESSOR GARRY WITTERT: I think I would have to be very concerned with the quality of evidence that is masquerading as medicine and health and public health that is nothing more than activism, notwithstanding the fact that some people are distressed.

ANDREW FOWLER: What's your response to the assertion that many of the people that are ill have a problem that is psychosomatic, it's self-induced?

DR SARAH LAURIE: Okay. Look I know that argument's there. However, the interviews that I've had with affected residents and had with their treating doctors suggest that there is in fact a very serious clinical problem, or problems, going on.

ANDREW THOMSON, ACCIONA: Look I think the way Sarah Laurie has applied herself to this is deeply disturbing. I mean, it's deeply disturbing to us and the rest of the industry.

She's a medical qualified person and she's travelling the country far and wide making all sorts of allegations about the sorts of health impacts that people should expect from wind farms, which includes nowadays things like diabetes, heart attacks.

I mean, she's making claims that wind farms will cause these sorts of things in people and she's travelling around the country meeting with community groups spreading this message and and in our view it's highly irresponsible. And in itself, it's causing mass hysteria.

ANDREW FOWLER: Despite the criticism, Dr Laurie says she has seen enough anecdotal evidence to support her claims after talking to those affected.

DR SARAH LAURIE: Some of the information that came out of those conversations really worried me in terms of not just the range of health problems that people were having, but also the severity of them.

And a couple of things that were highlighted in those conversations were these episodes of acute hypertensive crisis, where people developed symptoms - often, you know suddenly...

ANDREW FOWLER: That's blood pressure?

DR SARAH LAURIE: Yes, blood pressure. So, remarkably elevated blood pressure -dangerously so. And the symptoms that one particular individual described - severe onset of sudden headache, accompanied by nausea, a sensation of his heart wanting to leap out of his chest, and just feeling as if he was going to- about to die

ANDREW FOWLER: Professor Gary Wittert rejects the links to illness and questions Dr Laurie’s reliance on anecdotal evidence.

Professor Wittert, the head of Discipline of Medicine at the University of Adelaide, has given expert evidence for ACCIONA in a recent court case.

But he has also completed one of the first independent studies that found there’s no connection between wind farms and sickness.

PROFESSOR GARY WITTERT: We looked at two wind farm areas in Victoria. We looked at Waubra and Yambuk. And we looked at Snowtown and Hallett Hill in South Australia.

ANDREW FOWLER: How many people did you look at?

PROFESSOR GARY WITTERT: The total number of people would be 10 to 12,000, I guess, maybe a bit less.

So what we did was we drew a 10 kilometre zone around the wind farm. This is the 10 kilometres that Dr Laurie tells us is the danger zone, so we thought that was reasonable to choose.

ANDREW FOWLER: Using data from the the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Professor Wittert compared the number of medical prescriptions issued to people living in areas with and without turbines.

PROFESSOR GARY WITTERT: I can tell you from a preliminary look - and we will send this to peer review as soon as it's fully analysed - there is no hint of any effect on a population basis for an increased use of sleeping pills or blood pressure or cardiovascular medications whatsoever.

RANDALL BELL, PRESIDENT, LANDSCAPE GUARDIANS (on phone): Charlie, it's Randall here. How are you?

ANDREW FOWLER: Though health is the latest issue to be used against wind farms, the history of opposition goes back years.

RANDALL BELL (on phone): Have you organised anything about meeting with the Minister yet?

ANDREW FOWLER: Victorian solicitor Randall Bell led the anti wind farm campaign when he was chairman of the Australian National Trust.

It had some wins, preventing wind farms from being sited in areas of natural beauty.

But it was when he left the National Trust in 2003 and set up the Landscape Guardians which drew its inspiration from an English group, the Country Guardians, who are vehemently opposed to wind farms, that the fight became ideological.

ANDREW FOWLER: The Federal Government has a target of 20 percent renewable by 2020. Are the Landscape Guardians doing their best to see that this is not provided by wind power?

RANDALL BELL: Well, it's the Government's target. It's their choice, it's their decision. All we will say is that wind will never deliver on it, not in a 100 million years. The only thing that would deliver on it would be gas.

And they ought to wake up to that.

They know. They know very well that wind is not going to deliver.

ANDREW FOWLER: Four Corners has been told that two members of the conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs have been influential in a committee advising the Landscape Guardians.

Are you surprised that the Institute of Public Affairs is actively involved in giving advice to the people that are opposed to wind farms?

MARK DREYFUS: Uh... I could say that nothing the Institute of Public Affairs does surprises me. They've played a very active role in supporting what I would treat as climate change scepticism or denial of the science of climate change.

ANDREW FOWLER: But there's people you have here...

RANDALL BELL: Yeah.

ANDREW FOWLER: ..do have links and have worked for the IPA.

RANDALL BELL: A lot of them have two arms and two legs as well.

ANDREW FOWLER: Unlike some prominent members of the IPA, Randall Bell says the Landscape Guardians don’t have a position on global warming.

RANDALL BELL: I have said countless times that it is one of the great debates that we need to have of our time.

ANDREW FOWLER: So you're a sceptic?

RANDALL BELL: I'm becoming, sadly, more sceptical about it because... that seems to be the conclusion. Instead of...

ANDREW FOWLER: For Randall Bell and the Landscape Guardians, the battle against wind farms is no longer purely a scientific argument.

RANDALL BELL: It's always political. It always was. I never got it until very late in life that it was always going to be about votes.

ANDREW FOWLER: So it's a battle. It's a political battle.

RANDALL BELL: Yes.

ANDREW FOWLER: And you use any weapon you can to win that ?

RANDALL BELL: Yes.

ANDREW FOWLER: To win that fight?

RANDALL BELL: Yeah.

(Senate enquiry, many people with protest signs behind the seats)

SENATOR RACHEL SIEWERT, CHAIR OF SENATE COMMITTEE: Now I understand that each of you would have been given information about parliamentary privilege and the protection of witness and evidence...

ANDREW FOWLER: The anti wind lobby has played its politics well, managing to get a Senate inquiry into the health impacts of wind farms.

Last month Carl Stepnell gave emotional evidence before the inquiry.

CARL STEPNELL: ..but a power line is going through. Then they'll turn up through another area of our farm which is wall to wall native trees. All those trees will be cut down and there's a magic word of offsets so they can do what they want.

Um... (voice cracks) it's very disturbing.

(Long pause)

Sorry about this.

SAMANTHA STEPNELL (pats her husband): It's okay.

ANDREW FOWLER: The inquiry recommended that further scientific studies be carried out.

SENATOR RACHEL SIEWERT: We have found that there have been adverse health effects found in some people near wind farms.

However - and this is a very important however - we have not found that that is necessarily associated with noise or vibration. That is particularly important.

ANDREW FOWLER: While Australia may still be having the debate, overseas in Europe, Scandinavia and North America they’ve already made up their minds.

ANDREW THOMSON, ACCIONA: I think, for people that are unsure about the benefits they should look to other parts of the world where the industry has been developed successfully.

In this country, I think we're at in the very early stages of change and for some people that's easy to deal with, and for others it's it's difficult.

DR MARK DIESENDORF, INSTITUTE OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS, UNSW: Yes, well I think Denmark has been a fantastic success story. It is the country with the greatest proportion of electricity coming from wind.

Last year 21 per cent of Danish electricity came from the wind. This year, with a new wind farm built off shore, it will probably be 25 per cent of Danish electricity from the wind

PROFESSOR GARY WITTERT: You take countries like Scandinavia, Scotland, Germany where there is a fairly reasonable density of wind farms, there is no evidence of a whole scale effect of adverse consequences for human health.

(Speeded up shot of turbines spinning)

ANDREW FOWLER: If Australia is to reach its target of 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020, wind farms have to be part of the equation.

A challenge will be overcoming growing fear in the community that they pose a health problem.

And for its part, the anti wind farm lobby will have to produce sound scientific evidence if their claims are to be taken seriously.

KERRY O'BRIEN: In the meantime, those concerns represent another political headache for Julia Gillard to manage.

Next week on Four Corners, as the 10th anniversary of September 11 edges closer, we present a story on the notorious Guantanamo Bay US military prison, and how it impacted on the lives of three people – all intimately involved with the prison and all casualties of George Bush’s war on terror.

Until then, goodnight.