Better Plan, Wisconsin

HEALTH REVIEW BLASTED FOR ITS BIAS

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE www.goderichsignalstar.com

June 1, 2011

"Dr. Colby was issued a warning by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons not to make public statements or allow anyone to believe that he had expertise on the subject of wind turbine related health problems, since his expertise lies not in this area but in the field of microbiology and infectious diseases."

The letter extolling Dr. Colby’s virtues was written by several who stand to greatly benefit financially from the installation of industrial wind turbines.

They infer Dr. Colby is a credible expert on the subject. The College of Physicians and Surgeons disagree.

Dr. Colby was issued a warning by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons not to make public statements or allow anyone to believe that he had expertise on the subject of wind turbine related health problems, since his expertise lies not in this area but in the field of microbiology and infectious diseases.

The writers also state he was Chair of an international committee reviewing the health effects of wind turbines. They neglected to mention that this so-called “committee” was assembled, bought and paid for by the wind industry lobbyists including CanWEA and AWEA.

This “review” was designed to promote the wind industry and has been blasted for its bias and lack of scientific method by UK’s National Health Service, the Acoustic Ecology Institute, the Society for Wind Vigilance, among others.

Dr. Colby, with his evangelical zeal with wind power, refuses to even meet or speak to the people who are actually having problems in Ontario, including those in Chatham Kent.

In my opinion, Dr. Colby is abusing his interim position as CMO by using it to further his ideological agenda at the expense of those being forced to live (or forced to leave) in industrial wind complexes.

Sincerely,

Maureen Anderson

From Australia

UNIVERSITY TO INVESTIGATE REDUCING TURBINE NOISE

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE:  AdelaideNow, www.news.com.au

June 1, 2011

By Clare Peddie

“Wind turbine noise is very directional. Someone living at the base might not have a problem but two kilometres away, it might be keeping them awake at night,” Dr Doolan said.

Silencing wind turbines is the aim of a new project at the University of Adelaide.

Engineers are studying the causes of turbine noise to make them quieter and solve the problem of `wind turbine syndrome’.

They want to understand how air turbulence and the blade edge, or boundary layer, interact to make the noise louder than it could be.

A computer model will predict the noise output from wind farms so the team can accurately and quickly assess the effectiveness of noise-reducing designs and control methods.

Research leader Dr Con Doolan, of the University’s School of Mechanical Engineering, said the noise generated from wind turbines was “trailing edge or airfoil noise” – the same sort of noise generated at the edge of aircraft wings.

“If we can understand this fundamental science, we can then look at ways of controlling the noise, through changing the shape of the rotor blades or using active control devices at the blade edges to disrupt the pattern of turbulence,” he said.

Dr Doolan said further complicating factors came from the way the noise increases and decreases as the blades rotate.

The computer model will look at the noise from the whole wind turbine and how multiple numbers of wind turbines together, as in a wind farm, generate noise.

“Wind turbine noise is very directional. Someone living at the base might not have a problem but two kilometres away, it might be keeping them awake at night,” Dr Doolan said.

“Likewise this broadband `hissing’ noise modulates up and down as the blades rotate and we think that’s what makes it so annoying.

“Wind turbine noise is controversial but there’s no doubt that there is noise and that it seems to be more annoying than other types of noise at the same level. Finding ways of controlling and reducing this noise will help us make the most of this very effective means of generating large amounts of electricity with next to zero carbon emissions.”

From Ontario

TURBULENT TIMES AHEAD FOR ONTARIO'S WIND INDUSTRY

 READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Better Farming, www.betterfarming.com

May 31, 2011

PAT CURRIE

With research into emerging technologies underway, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture joins the call for a moratorium on wind development

A probe into the health effects of new energy technology, sanctioned by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment at the University of Waterloo, has been underway for six months.

The Canadian Wind Energy Association (CWEA), representing 480 companies that are riding on the coat-tails of the boom in Ontario renewable-energy projects, reported this month that with 2,125 megawatts of signed contracts already in place under Ontario’s Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program, applicants have lined up to seek approval from the Ontario Power Authority to add another 6,672 MW of renewable energy projects to the grid.

Scott Smith, vice-president of policy at CWEA, said one recommendation “is for up to 10,700 MW of renewable power in Ontario by 2018.”

In the meantime, at least 76 Ontario municipalities plus other entities such as health boards and conservation authorities continue to demand a moratorium on such projects until an independent and unbiased third party has completed a study on health effects of wind turbines. And, as of last month the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has joined the push.

“I’m 100 per cent for a moratorium,” said Ontario Federation of Agriculture director Wayne Black, a Huron County grain grower, who says aging residents of heritage family homesteads may be especially vulnerable to noise and vibrations of nearby wind turbines. Some turbines set up before the Green Energy Act established minimum setbacks are almost 200 metres within the current 550-metre setback minimum, he said.

“The energy companies’ answer to that has been to resort to buying the homesteads with no value placed on the heritage factor. That could be devastating,” Black said.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Arlene King, concluded there is no link between wind turbine noise and health effects.

But in a report last fall, Dr. Hazel Lynn medical officer of health and head of the Grey Bruce Health Unit, stated: “It is clear that many people, in many different parts of Grey Bruce and Southwestern Ontario have been dramatically impacted by the noise and proximity of wind farms.

“We cannot pretend this affected minority doesn’t exist,” Lynn stated.

Lynn welcomes an environment ministry announcement that it was allocating $1.5 million for a study by a task force headed by Dr. Siva Sivoththaman, a University of Waterloo professor of electrical and computer engineering, into health effects of all types of renewable power.

However, Jonathan Rose, press secretary to Environment Minister John Wilkinson, dashed hopes that the five-year study will be accompanied by a moratorium.

“We are not considering a moratorium at this time,” he told Better Farming.

Rose also cited a Superior Court of Ontario ruling that “upheld our requirements as being based on peer-reviewed science. . . . That is exactly why we are funding the independent academic research chair at the University of Waterloo to study emerging energy technologies around renewable energy. We will review his (Sivoththaman’s) research to make sure our requirements continue to be protective,” Rose said.

Drew Ferguson, spokesman for the Grey Bruce Health Unit, said that Dr. Lynn and the Grey Bruce public health board were concerned that the King report sported several omissions.

“They identified eight areas that needed further study, but no action was taken,” Ferguson said.

Lynn’s report recently helped trigger a renewed call by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture for a moratorium on wind-turbine developments. At its meeting in April, the Federation’s board supported motions from the Huron and Haldimand County Federations of Agriculture to lobby the province for the moratorium.

FROM FLORIDA

FLORIDA WIND FARM KICKING UP DUST

READ ENTIRE STORY AT SOURCE  www.politico.com

June 1, 2011

By Bob King

“These are migratory flight paths — not just [for] our birds,” said Rosa Durando, a longtime activist with the local Audubon chapter in Palm Beach County. “Birds from the Northern Hemisphere, they go to Mexico, they fly through Florida. The whole thing is sickening to me.”

Florida is the latest battleground for greens anguished about the ecological costs of green power.

This time, a proposal for a sprawling wind farm just north of the Everglades is facing blowback from environmental groups that worry it could become an avian Cuisinart for the wading birds, raptors and waterfowl that teem in the sprawling marshes nearby.

At least one statewide conservation organization has come out against the project by the St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group, which would feature as many as 100 turbines as tall as the Statue of Liberty stretched across a 20,000-acre swath of sugar cane and vegetable farms in western Palm Beach County.

The National Audubon Society’s Florida affiliate is also taking a hard look at the wind proposal, although it has yet to take a position.

“We think alternative energy is absolutely necessary,” said Jane Graham, Audubon’s Everglades policy associate. “You see what’s happening with coal plants and climate change. … But as far as the location of this wind farm, that has raised serious concerns.”

That location would place the turbines near the northernmost remnants of the Everglades, as well as the South’s largest lake and a series of man-made cleanup marshes that have become magnets for egrets, herons and ducks. The region is also the epicenter of a $15 billion Everglades restoration effort that federal agencies hope will revive the throngs of wading birds that once crowded the skies over South Florida.

“There are literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of ducks in a 100-mile radius or less of this location,” said Newton Cook, executive director of United Waterfowlers-Florida, a roughly 1,000-member group whose board voted in April to oppose the project. “These whirling blades could, in our opinion, be devastating.”

The WCG said it is committed to addressing the environmental concerns, and it has drawn praise from activists for reaching out to the green groups well before applying for permits. It has also started a yearlong study of bird and bat populations and behavior on both the project location and in the surrounding area, WCG Senior Vice President Sarah Webster told POLITICO.

“We respect this environmentally unique area,” Webster said, adding that the company expects to have “supportive relationships” with most of the environmental groups.

“When proposing any large-scale project, you’re never going to bring everyone along with you, but we’re working hard to engage with the many environmental groups in the area to understand and address their concerns with strong research and science,” she said.

The WCG has yet to apply for state and federal permits but hopes the roughly $250 million project will be up and running by the end of 2012.

Webster said the initiative has implications for national energy policy: The 150-megawatt project would be perhaps the first commercial-scale wind farm in the Southeast, where a dearth of renewable energy sources has complicated proposals for addressing the region’s climate impacts. It could also provide needed jobs in western Palm Beach County’s impoverished farming region.

In a presentation earlier this year to local planners, the WCG said modern turbine designs will significantly reduce the risk to birds. The rotors spin more slowly than in older windmills, and the turbines’ smooth, monopole bases don’t offer the potential nesting spaces that older lattice designs did.

Worries about bird deaths have plagued a number of wind projects, especially after tens of thousands of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks and other species fell prey to the blades of a sprawling, decades-old wind farm in the mountains near San Francisco.

Last summer, the Bureau of Land Management reacted to those types of concerns by suspending the issuing of wind permits on public lands until companies submit eagle protection plans. More recently, The Denver Post reported that the Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing an eagle conservation plan that has some in the wind industry concerned that the safeguards could add years to the time it takes to carry out a project.

John Anderson, director of siting policy for the American Wind Energy Association, said modern, properly sited projects haven’t posed major threats to birds. He added that wind turbines kill far fewer birds each year than do feral cats, power lines or telecommunications towers.

In particular, he said, post-construction studies of bird mortality show that only a low percentage of wading birds and waterfowl collide with the blades.

“The reality is that everything we do as humans has an impact on the natural environment,” Anderson said. Still, he said the hazards posed by wind energy “are far exceeded by impacts created by other forms of energy generation.”

Indeed, the proposed wind farm may be by far the cleanest energy initiative to have targeted South Florida’s marsh- and farm-laden interior in recent years — especially compared with a coal plant that NextEra Energy’s Florida Power & Light subsidiary tried to build in neighboring Glades County during the past decade. FPL is also putting the finishing touches on a natural gas plant in central Palm Beach County that inspired a 2008 blockade by more than 100 environmental protesters, who objected to emitting greenhouse gases so close to the Everglades.

Besides putting out emissions, traditional power plants also require a lot of water for cooling, an increasing concern for drought-prone Florida. But wind turbines don’t need water.

Still, some conservationists said they don’t think the WCG’s studies go far enough. They fear that the location alone is a recipe for feathery havoc.

“These are migratory flight paths — not just [for] our birds,” said Rosa Durando, a longtime activist with the local Audubon chapter in Palm Beach County. “Birds from the Northern Hemisphere, they go to Mexico, they fly through Florida. The whole thing is sickening to me.”

Others are taking a wait-and-see attitude about the turbines.

“I’m kind of too unknowledgeable yet to say whether I support them or don’t,” said Joanne Davis, a planner for the environmental group 1000 Friends of Florida, who serves with Durando on a local land-development board that is considering rules for the wind project.

Besides awaiting results from the company’s studies, Davis said she’s interested in what conclusions agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will draw when they study the proposal.

“I’m all for renewable energy,” Davis said. “If it’s feasible, if it’s not going to slaughter the wildlife, if it will work — then great.”

Wind isn’t the only form of renewable energy to face environmental challenges. Green groups have joined American Indian tribes in suing over plans to build sprawling solar-thermal power plants in the California desert, charging that they will disrupt habitat for desert wildlife, as well as burial sites.

Nathanael Greene, renewable energy policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The Associated Press earlier this year that resolving these types of eco-disputes poses “a broad challenge to us as a country.”

“How do we rapidly deploy the renewable energy technologies and transmission infrastructures to stave off catastrophic climate change and local and regional air pollution that comes with burning fossil fuels?” Greene asked. “Even the best-sited projects have impacts on the landscape.”

Wisconsin Wind Farm Sold to Duke Energy

Company Will Surpass 1,000 Megawatts of Wind Power

PRESS RELEASE: CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) will acquire a 20-megawatt wind farm in operation in Wisconsin.

Duke Energy Renewables, a commercial business unit of Duke Energy, agreed to purchase the Shirley Windpower Project from a subsidiary of Central Hudson Enterprises Corporation on May 24. The wind farm is located on approximately 500 acres of leased land in Glenmore, roughly 30 miles southeast of Green Bay.

The Shirley Windpower Project, which began commercial operation in December 2010, sells all of its output and associated renewable energy credits to Wisconsin Public Service Corporation under the terms of a 20-year power purchase agreement. The eight Nordex 2.5-megawatt (MW) wind turbines that comprise the Shirley Windpower Project are capable of generating enough electricity to power approximately 6,000 homes.

"Our strategic acquisition of the Shirley Windpower Project not only helps us reach the 1,000-megawatt milestone, it serves as a springboard for growth in a new region of the United States," said Greg Wolf, president of Duke Energy Renewables.

The deal is expected to close this summer. The purchase price was not disclosed.

With the addition of the Shirley project, Duke Energy Renewables will own 1,006 MW of generating capacity at 10 U.S. wind farms – four in Wyoming, three in Texas, one in Colorado, one in Pennsylvania, and one in Wisconsin.

On May 24, Duke Energy Renewables announced plans to start construction of a 168-MW wind power project in Kansas in the fall of 2011.

Since 2007, Duke Energy has invested more than $1.5 billion to grow its commercial wind and solar power businesses.

About Duke Energy Renewables

Duke Energy Renewables, part of Duke Energy's Commercial Businesses, is a leader in developing innovative wind and solar energy solutions for customers throughout the United States. The company's growing portfolio of commercial renewable assets includes nine wind farms and four solar farms in operation in five states, totaling approximately 1,000 megawatts in electric-generating capacity.

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is a Fortune 500 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK. More information about the company is available on the Internet at: www.duke-energy.com.

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: The Enz family abandoned their home in this wind project because of turbine related problems. The project, which has been on line for less than a year, has already been sold twice. Read about the Enz family and why they left their home by clicking here.

·FROM AUSTRALIA

From:  George Papadopoulos, Pharmacist
To:  Jillian Skinner MP, NSW Minister for Health; Brad Hazzard MP, NSW Planning Minister
Regarding:  Wind Turbine Syndrome victims of the “Crookwell 1 Trial Wind Turbine” site, New South Wales (Australia)
Date:  May 24, 2011

Dear Ministers,

I am a trained and registered, practising health professional (pharmacist).

Yesterday, I met two elderly ladies from the Crookwell region who have been for years quietly suffering the effects of what has been described as Wind Turbine Syndrome.

These ladies have been quietly suffering for years. Their local medical practitioners are unable to do much beyond prescribe antidepressants, sleeping tablets and other medication, or recommend that they move.

There is a lack of “published peer reviewed evidence” that these health problems exist, as the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NH&MRC) “Rapid Review” report pointed out.  But that does NOT mean there is no health problem, which is what the wind developers and many individuals in government have been wrongly inferring or assuming from the NH&MRC’s report. They have ignored the NH&MRC’s advice to “adopt a precautionary approach.”

I asked one of these ladies why she hasn’t taken the matter further—why she isn’t discussing the matter with the locals. Well, surprisingly, the locals have ostracised her for making comments that might affect the tourist business in Crookwell. So she decided to shut up and suffer, or otherwise become a social outcast.

So who is listening to these quiet victims of this “innovative,” original New South Wales (NSW) wind turbine trial? Why is it that the suffering of these quiet victims has not affected the planning process of newer wind turbine developments?

Strange isn’t it? What was the point of this trial site?

I then decided with two companions to pay my own visit to the local trial industrial wind turbine site—situated amongst rural blocks. I have never been so close to a wind turbine site before. In fact, so close (within 250 metres) thanks to a third victim of this development, who allowed us to access their property. This third victim also needs sleeping pills to sleep and is unduly chronically ill due to Wind Turbine Syndrome.

Well, our experience was absolutely stunning! Almost immediately, pressure sensations in the head abruptly started—plus blocked ears that could not be relieved by swallowing or yawning. We couldn’t hear any loud deafening noises, but the constant whooshing noise was phenomenal—enough to drive you mad.

We were ultimately compelled to leave the site due to severe nausea in all three of us. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to get so close to the turbines. Eventually it was only at 5km away that we finally felt totally relieved and normal—we had finally escaped this whirlpool of disaster.

My dear politician, I am not having a joke. This is no good story. It is a very sad reality of what is happening here in Australia, in our meant-to-be progressive, clean democracy where the rights of the individual should be upheld against the little, if any, good that can be found in these developments.

Why are our planning departments ineffective in drafting policies to protect public health? Why aren’t our health departments effective in monitoring the health of individuals surrounding these industrial power sites? Why are the local medical practitioners and other local health professionals so slow in protecting these most sweet, kind-hearted elderly souls?

The reason is, despite these problems being reported globally, no government has listened to its citizens and ensured that appropriate independent acoustic and medical research is commissioned and funded, to help find out why these problems are occurring and how to prevent them. Or, in plain terms, research which will determine the safe distance between turbines and homes and workplaces.

If this were a drug, these experiences would be reported as “Adverse Events” and the drug would be withdrawn, pending further investigation until its safety from unanticipated side effects could be guaranteed. The equivalent in this situation is to immediately instigate a moratorium where turbines are close to homes, and fully investigate these occurrences.

It’s time to do something about it. The recent Federal Senate Inquiry has heard many stories such as the one above, in both written and oral testimony. I hope you feel compelled as a publicly elected official in a democratic country to do something about this great injustice—and stop it from happening again and again in different sites around NSW and the rest of Australia.

From Maine

WIND POWER NOISE DISPUTE ON TRANQUIL MAINE ISLAND INTENSIFIES

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: HUFFINGTON POST

May 24, 2011

By Tom Zeller Jr.

While thousands of wind power enthusiasts and industry representatives gather in Anaheim Calif. for Windpower 2011, the American Wind Power Association's popular annual conference and exhibition, some 3,300 miles due east, wind power is tearing a tiny island community asunder.

In the latest turn, an attorney representing several homeowners living closest to a three-turbine wind installation on the tiny island of Vinalhaven in Maine's Penobscot Bay filed a formal complaint with the Maine Public Utilities Commission on Monday.

The complaint charges that the Fox Island Electric Cooperative, the local utility, and Fox Island Wind, the developer of the wind installation which is owned by the utility, have engaged in repeated harassment of the homeowners, who have argued since shortly after the turbines came online in late 2009 that the machines have been in violation of state noise ordinances. That assertion was subsequently supported by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The developer has repeatedly disputed those findings, and the majority of the island's residents support the wind farm, which is seen as a source of eco-pride and sensible thrift, ostensibly saving the island from the need to import pricier power from the mainland.

But Monday's complaint states that the residents nearest the turbines have legitimate concerns that have long gone unheeded, despite multiple attempts to resolve the issue through negotiation, and that instead the local utility has recently upped the rhetorical ante by placing two separate "inserts" inside all islanders' utility bills. The inserts claim that legal expenses associated with the neighbors' noise complaints were costing the cooperative hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that as a result, a 5 percent increase in utility rates was needed.

The announcement caused the neighbors, perhaps not surprisingly, to suffer "retribution, harassment and hostility" from fellow Vinalhaven residents who are not within earshot of the turbines, according to the complaint. The utility's tactic also amounted to what the complaint called "intimidation and an abuse of the powers of a utility."

Vinalhaven became a flashpoint last year for a small but persistent backlash against industrial wind power, as residents living nearest the spinning behemoths became vocal about their experiences.

Like nearly all residents of the island, they supported the idea of a wind farm at first. Yet the Fox Island Wind Neighbors, as the loosely knit group of a dozen or so residents dubbed themselves, said they soon began to worry about the noise, being within a one-mile radius of the project site.

Representatives of Fox Island Wind assured them the noise would be minimal. But as Art Lindgren, one of the neighbors, told this reporter last year, their worst fears were confirmed once the turbines were switched on.

“In the first 10 minutes, our jaws dropped to the ground,” he said. “Nobody in the area could believe it. They were so loud.”

Lindgren's lament has been echoed in jurisdictions across the land, as an increasing number of communities come to weigh the innumerable collective benefits of wind power -- clean, non-toxic, no emissions, climate-friendly, water-friendly, renewable, sustainable -- against some of the downsides experienced by those living nearby.

Indeed, proximate residents around the country have cited everything from the throbbing, low-frequency drone to mind-numbing strobe effects as the rising or setting sun slices through the spinning blades:

Others have gone so far as to describe something called "wind turbine syndrome," arising from turbine-generated low-frequency noise and "infrasound," and causing all manner of symptoms -- from headache and dizziness to ear pressure, nausea, visual blurring, racing heartbeat, and panic episodes -- though the science on these claims is still thin.

And there are still lingering and long-standing concerns over hazards presented by turbines to migrating birds and bats.

At Vinalhaven, for example, a 28-month study conducted by ornithologist Richard Podolsky, who was hired by Fox Island Wind, the project's developer, recently declared the turbines' impacts on local eagle and osprey populations to be negligible.

But in March, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent a letter to attorneys representing the Fox Island Wind project, lambasting those conclusions. The letter questioned the study's methodologies for studying eagle, bat and bird collision assessment and mortality, suggesting that they needed to be more rigorous and better-defined and described.

The wildlife regulators asked that new studies be conducted before a permit necessary to allow the project to proceed -- despite the potential for incidental harm to bald and golden eagle species in the area -- is issued. Both are protected by federal legislation.

Meanwhile, the complaint filed on Monday asks the Maine Public Utility Commission to sanction the Vinalhaven utility and Fox Island Wind for the utility bill inserts, and urges them to prevent any similar communications with ratepayers in the future.

It also asks that the state commission prevent the island utility from attempting to raise rates to cover expenses from its dispute with the affected homeowners going forward -- characterizing such expenses as "the product of mismanagement, and reckless conduct."

Queries sent to officials at Fox Island Wind and the Vinalhaven electric cooperative were not immediately returned Tuesday morning. This report will be updated if they respond.

From New York State

HEALTH CONCERNS RISE FOR PROPOSED WIND FARM 

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: The Daily News Online

May 20, 2011

By Sally Ross

Horizon, sponsor of the proposed Alabama Ledge Wind Farm, held an open meeting on March 17 at the Alabama Town Hall to respond to environmental concerns raised by the impact of industrial wind turbines. Surprisingly, their collective effect upon local residents’ health was unexplored. Therefore, this overview will attempt to summarize a recent inquiry into the impact of wind turbines upon persons and animals.

Preston G. Ribnick and Lilli-Ann Green, from Wellfleet (Cape Cod), Mass., own a medical consulting agency, advising hospitals and clinics throughout the United States. They have spent almost a year trying to understand the complexities of wind energy. Two foci of their attention have been the wind farms in Falmouth, Mass., and Vinalhaven, Maine. Early this year, Ribnick and Green were the guests of Sarah Laurie, M.D., of Waubra, Australia. Dr. Laurie and her medical colleagues have been compiling files on dozens of persons whose health has been seriously compromised by the Waubra Wind Farm. Ribnick and Green interviewed a sample of the patients.

Waubra, 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Melbourne, is primarily an agricultural community of growers who raise livestock — cattle, poultry and sheep — as well as a variety of crops. It isn’t uncommon for farms to have been in families for two or more generations, and like much of Australia, drought conditions have prevailed for nearly a decade. Wind turbines seemed like a godsend; a stable source of rental income to accompany the precarious economy.

The Waubra Wind Farm is an installation of 128 turbines in as many miles; one turbine to one mile. After the industrial wind turbine complex was up and running in 2009, dozens of previously healthy persons reported serious health issues with themselves and their animals. Here are some common complaints. They are not age-specific. They occur in children as well as in mature adults.

People — dangerously high rates in blood pressure, racing heartbeats, stroke, heart attack, sleep disturbance, involuntary neurological “upper lip quiver,” ringing in ears, inability to concentrate, severe headache, eye pain, and dizziness.

Animals — chickens laying eggs without shells, nearly one-half of the lambs expiring shortly after birth, disoriented sheep, dogs as well as birds displaying extremely agitated and abnormal behavior, and the virtual disappearance of bats.

Conditions inside of homes were worse than those outside, because houses vibrated. As a result, some people have left hearth and home and now consider themselves to be “industrial refugees.” How far away were these physiological complaints reported? Up to 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) distance from the wind turbine installations. By inference, these data should raise our local concern for those residents in Genesee, and nearby counties, who live well beyond the proposed sites for turbine installations in the town of Alabama.

The results of Ribnick, Green and Laurie’s work is widely available. A hard copy of the article upon which this summary [can be downloaded by CLICKING HERE]. Anyone opting for an electronic link, as well as additional scientific information, place contact me.

Sally Ross, Ph.D., lives in Oakfield. Write her via e-mail at srladygrail@gmail.com.

From Malone, Wisconsin

LIFE IN A WIND FARM

Thank you for the information about wind farms. We live in one and life has changed.  Quite frankly, it has been somewhat of a nightmare. We have to deal with bad tv reception, flicker and loud swoshing noises at times. We could have been part of this project as they approached us about using our land but we declined because we didn't feel educated enough. They went up anyway.

From Massachusetts

FALMOUTH DREAMS TURNED NIGHTMARE

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Cape Cod Times, www.capecodonline.com

May 24, 2011

By ELIZABETH ANDERSEN

"The 7½-ton, 135-foot-long blades of the turbine slice through the air every second, creating a sound pressure that feels like the pounding of a bass instrument coming through the walls day and night. Just try to imagine that sound always there in your yard and in every room in your house, with no opportunity to turn it off. You go insane!"

"What we have so painfully learned this year is that there has been no place to go for help. Not our town hall, nor state representatives; not the police, not the DEP, nor the Department of Public Health. What is happening wasn’t supposed to happen. So we wait and suffer while it is “figured out.”

My husband and I met in 1976 and bonded over a shared love of nature. We have long considered ourselves conservationists, not only because our wonderful Depression-era parents taught us to use things up and wear them out, but because we learned our lesson from the oil embargo of the ’70s.

This awareness of the Earth’s declining natural resources led my husband, some 30 years ago, to start one of the first alternative energy construction companies on the Cape. And when we built our home on Blacksmith Shop Road 20 years ago, we designed it to be an energy-efficient system in itself. We also recycle, compost, drive small cars, use fluorescent bulbs, turn off lights when not in use, unplug appliances using phantom electricity, keep our heat down to 60 degrees in the winter and repurpose many things that would otherwise be thrown away.

Yet we, and our neighbors, have been criticized and made to feel guilty for complaining about ill health effects directly related to the size and proximity of utility-size wind turbines to our homes.

My husband and I were aware that the town Falmouth had been exploring the use of turbines for years, and we thought this was a good idea. However, when two turbines, already turned down by two other towns, became available, Falmouth officials chose to ignore the Falmouth windmill bylaw already on the books and erected two 400-foot mechanical machines, one 1,320 feet directly north of our home.

We, and our neighbors, were intentionally shut out of a special permitting process so that we would not hold up financing or construction in any way. Consequently, we have been living a nightmare ever since the turbine went online last year.

The 7½-ton, 135-foot-long blades of the turbine slice through the air every second, creating a sound pressure that feels like the pounding of a bass instrument coming through the walls day and night. Just try to imagine that sound always there in your yard and in every room in your house, with no opportunity to turn it off. You go insane!

At first we naively thought our Falmouth administrators would be concerned for us when informed of our health problems. Since April 2010, we and our neighbors have continually called, written, emailed or spoken in person to our town officials and begged them for some relief. The response we got for one year: no response. We contacted our building commissioner, zoning board of appeals, selectmen, and especially our board of health: no response.

Unfortunately for us, town administrators, in their haste to be “green,” did not research the negative impacts of utility-scale turbines near residential areas, and were taken by surprise by all of our complaints. Because the town of Falmouth owns the turbine, the administrators, again, chose to shut us out. We finally were forced to go to court just to get them to acknowledge us.

We wish we could list all the details of the cruel indifference we have been subjected to for a year, but the log we keep is pages too long. It was not until my husband and I were so exhausted from the ill treatment of turbine and town that we had to be civilly disobedient at a town meeting to plead for some relief. The Falmouth selectmen finally helped by way of a temporary shutoff when wind speeds reach 23 mph.

What we have so painfully learned this year is that there has been no place to go for help. Not our town hall, nor state representatives; not the police, not the DEP, nor the Department of Public Health. What is happening wasn’t supposed to happen. So we wait and suffer while it is “figured out.”

My husband and I still wholeheartedly embrace the movement toward alternative energy, but, once again, both the Massachusetts government and our town government put the cart before the horse and did not do all they could have done to protect the people. And from the looks of things going on in other towns, it is going to be up to the townspeople to fight for responsible turbine siting, to protect the health of their fellow man.

Elizabeth Andersen lives in Falmouth.

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: NextEra, (formerly Florida Power and Light)currently has wind developers prospecting around Wisconsin, most recently showing up in Rock County in the Towns of Spring Valley and Magnolia. This diary, kept by a family with four children, details life in a NextEra wind project and paints a clear picture of what NextEra's response has been to their problems with wind turbine noise, shadow flicker and lack of sleep.

(CLICK HERE to see where wind developers are prospecting in our state)

DIARY: LIFE IN A WIND FARM

Checking in with a family living in a Next Era wind project in DEKALB, ILLINOIS

"[NextEra] is stating that any complaint will be addressed and they do an exhaustive analysis that helps in design. once again this looks good on paper, but we are living a different reality."

-diary entry on May 13, 2011

Thank you for visiting our blog.

Our home in rural DeKalb County, IL is where we wanted to stay for good.

We have put so much into our home to make it a place where we would love to live and raise our children, and unfortunately we are being forced to live differently.

We have been bullied by a large industrial wind company (NextEra Energy, a subsidiary of Florida Power and Light (FPL) and sold-out by the DeKalb County Board.

FPL told residents that these wind turbines only "sound like a refrigerator."

Well, we have found that this is not the case.

Often times our yard sounds like an airport. We hear and feel the low frequency sound on our property as well as in our home. We are bothered by the noise, whistling, contant swirling movement, and shadow flicker.

Complaining is not something that our family is known for doing and we teach our children to look for the positive aspects of life, but this has gone too far with the turbines.

Someone needs to speak up. These industrial wind turbines should not be built close to homes. They should be at least a mile away to avoid these issues. We have 13 within a mile. The closest 2 are 1,400 feet away.

READ ENTIRE DIARY AT SOURCE:http://lifewithdekalbturbines.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

shadow flicker

this morning we had shadow flicker in our home and on our property for approximately 55 minutes. we will have videos posted later today.

Posted by Our Life with DeKalb Wind Turbines at 7:00 AM

Monday, May 16, 2011

Noisy Tonight!

we went for a family walk tonight and were in a tunnel of noise walking down our non-busy country road. the turbines were pitched into the wind and creating droning chopping sounds....over and over again. it is an unnatural mechanical noise. we remember taking walks (pre-turbine) and it being so peaceful. tonight, we can hear the turbines from inside our home.

Posted by Our Life with DeKalb Wind Turbines at 11:01 PM

Labels: noise

perspective

here is a photo from the back of our home taken in March of this year. it gives some perspective on the actual size of these industrial machines. the distances given are approximate from the foundation of our home.

Posted by Our Life with DeKalb Wind Turbines at 7:35 PM

Labels: picture

Shadow flicker again

We had shadow flicker again this morning. The noise has been up and down the last few days. Current the skies are sunny with a north breeze and the noise is at a 4.

Posted by Our Life with DeKalb Wind Turbines at 6:46 AM

Labels: noise, shadow flicker

Friday, May 13, 2011

what we were told - part two

here is a slide (from exhibit K) taken straight from the dekalb county public hearing. this slide was in Nextera Energy's powerpoint presentation at one of the hearings. this slide is stating that any complaint will be addressed and they do an exhaustive analysis that helps in design. once again this looks good on paper, but we are living a different reality.

Posted by Our Life with DeKalb Wind Turbines at 5:23 PM

Labels: shadow flicker

Double Shadow Flicker

This video was taken this last Sunday am. Both turbine #30 and #31 are creating shadow flicker on our property. This lasted about 40 minutes start to finish.

FROM ONTARIO

MPP CALLS FOR ACTION ON AMARANTH TRANSFORMER STATION

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE:, www.orangeville.com

May 16, 2011

By Richard Vivian

During the TransAlta meeting, Whitworth said the company presented them with three options: live with it and adapt, sell your homes and move, or file a lawsuit.

The problem is too bad to stay, he said, and no one would want to buy their house given the situation. Nor do they have the money to file a lawsuit against a multi-national corporation.

For years now, two Amaranth families have endured a long list of ailments they claim are caused by “electrical pollution” from the neighbouring transformer station.

With no solution in sight, MPP Sylvia Jones is calling on Minster of the Environment John Wilkinson to step in and help them out.

“It’s gone on too long,” Jones, who made her request to the minister on May 6, said. “The minister must take responsibility and ensure this matter is resolved.”

It appears, however, like a resolution isn’t coming anytime soon — at least not one that satisfies the Kidd and Whitworth families.

Wilkinson insists his ministry has already taken steps to address their concerns and, in a statement provided to The Banner, made no commitment to do more.

“They changed the transformer to a quieter model, implemented acoustic barriers, landscaped the area for additional screening and provided three years of acoustic measurements,” the minister said.

“The transformer is now in compliance with our stringent noise requirements. We have not heard from either family about noise issues in over a year.”

The 10th Line families point the finger for their nausea, headaches, loss of balance, diarrhea and more at the nearby TransAlta transformer station, which connects 137 industrial wind turbines to the electrical grid.

“Finally, somebody is willing to try to do something to help us,” Terry Kidd said of Jones, not giving up hope an end is near. “I hope she’s able to do something.”

So far, attempts by Terry and Theresa Kidd, as well as Ted and Cheryl Whitworth, to find a solution to their situation — they now want to be bought out and compensated — have failed.

Representatives of TransAlta, which purchased the substation from Canadian Hydro Developers, deny any responsibility for the families’ illnesses.

According to Ted Whitworth, they’ve only met with TransAlta once, and all the changes referred to be Wilkinson were implemented by Canadian Hydro.

During the TransAlta meeting, Whitworth said the company presented them with three options: live with it and adapt, sell your homes and move, or file a lawsuit.

The problem is too bad to stay, he said, and no one would want to buy their house given the situation. Nor do they have the money to file a lawsuit against a multi-national corporation.

A consultant hired by the Kidds suggests there is a problem at their home.

“It appears that there is cross contamination of electrical pollution from the wind farm generation onto the electrical distribution system that supplies power to neighbouring homes,” David Colling, who brought in equipment to measure the electricity in the air, states in a reported dated Feb. 8, 2010, but based on measurements taken the previous April.

“What your family has been suffering from is likely electrical hypersensitivity,” it adds.

“You have 10kHz micro surges being introduced into your home, therefore it compares to living inside a microwave oven environment.”

After receiving the report, Terry and Theresa left their home, moving in with family near Dundalk. As a result, they said their symptoms have abated.

The Whitworths, however, have not left their home and continue to experience health issues.

Provincial legislation approved since the station was installed require they have a minimum setback of 500 metres from the nearest residence. The Kidds’ home is 390 metres from the station and the Whitworths’ is 490.

“Their family physician has said there is a problem,” Jones said, noting the doctor has the “added credibility” of being a former medical officer of health for the Region of Peel.

“(Wilkinson) kept bouncing it back to the regional office of the Ministry of the Environment,” Jones added of the concerns raised.

“He can’t continue to put it back onto the civil service.”



From Australia:

TURBINE TURMOIL AS ILL WIND BLOWS

 READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: The Advertiser, www.adelaidenow.com.au

May 14, 2011 Penelope Debelle,

Wind farms are providing clean power — but are they also making people sick?

“I’ve been there 42 years in the town, never wanted to move, but you just cannot go without sleep.”

First the dogs on Andy Thomas’s farm start to howl. They sense a change in the air as the three 45m turbine blades turn into the wind. Then the blades begin to revolve. Depending on the weather and distance, they can sound like an approaching windstorm, an oncoming train or a jet engine revving for takeoff. At best they make a rhythmic, pounding swoosh.

Thomas runs a 283ha sheep farm near Burra in the Mid-North. He is a no-nonsense bloke whose family has been in the Hallett area for 150 years. The nearest 80m- high turbine is just over a kilometre away but he is close enough to hear more than 10 of them as they create electricity from the wind along the Bald Hill Ranges. “There are probably around 12 that impact on a fella,” Thomas says.

Like many country people, he supported the idea of a wind farm. It was hard to argue against harnessing the wind to generate green electricity for the national grid while bringing economic benefits to the region.

The Hallett No. 2 wind farm is on Hallett Hill, close to the township of Mt Bryan where Thomas lives. The 34 turbines started up in May last year and his life has not been the same since. Neighbours had warned him. “I knew some people who were near Hallett No. 1 who said, ‘where you’re living, you’re going to have a hell of a noise problem’,” Thomas says. “That has proved to be the case.”

His problem – like many I spoke to – is chronic sleep deprivation. Thomas is woken by the noise anywhere from 2am to 4.30am and is unable to get back to sleep. Then he rises, exhausted, to face another day of physical work. “I’m talking about three or three-and-a-half hours of broken sleep,” he says. “When you get up and sit at the table yawning you know damn well you’re having a heck of a day.”

Australia is investing in wind energy at an incredible rate. The Gillard Government wants 20 per cent of the nation’s power to be green by 2020 and rewards those who invest in renewable energy. Before 2003 South Australia had one large wind turbine, at Coober Pedy. Eight years later there are 14 farms, some with 30 or more turbines. The state’s move into wind farms has been so rapid that as of late last year, more than half of Australia’s installed wind power was here – enough capacity, in theory, to provide 30 per cent of our electricity. Yet the only restriction in SA on how far a turbine can be built from a house is on the measurable noise that they make. Western Australia has mandated a 2km buffer zone between turbines and the nearest house, as has Victoria, where the Liberal Premier, Ted Baillieu, last year campaigned in support of those who were struggling with living near them. “These are people with real issues, they’re in real locations with real lives and real problems,” Baillieu said.

Here in SA, the Environment Protection Authority’s head of science and sustainability, Peter Dolan, argues our reliance on noise limits offers greater protection than a blanket setback rule. “We have the most onerous guidelines in the country,” he says.

The problem, however, is not just the sound but an alleged condition – denied by the turbine owners – called wind turbine syndrome, which is a cluster of complaints triggered not just by noise but by infrasound. The noise is inaudible but there are fears that the pulsating low frequency soundwaves can cause a malaise not unlike seasickeness. And like seasickness, it strikes some people and not others.

“Wind turbine syndrome is a uniform collection of signs and symptoms experienced by a significant proportion of people living near large wind turbines,” the American author of Wind Turbine Syndrome, Dr Nina Pierpont, told a Senate inquiry into wind farms in March. “It is also well known to physicists who have worked with low-frequency noise and infrasound in military, naval and space program settings.”

SOUTH of Mt Bryan at Waterloo, 30km south-east of Clare, residents are leaving town. Drive through the sleepy hamlet – the home of former Birdsville Track mailman Tom Kruse whose picture is on the town’s sign – and there are protest signs on gates in the main street. The 37 turbines at the Waterloo farm dominate the dry and stony landscape. They run for about 15km along a ridge 4km west of the Tothill Belt, and each has a 3MW generator, 30 per cent bigger than those at Mt Bryan. Their size and proximity to the town may explain why the Waterloo farm, more than any other in SA, seems to be tearing a local community apart. The turbines have to be close to the mains supply because wind power cannot be stored; it has to go straight into the grid. Most of Waterloo’s problems can be traced to its location near the Robertstown power interconnector, a grid intersection point.

There are those to whom the turbines make no difference; they sleep as normal, like the way they look, and welcome the green investment. Others seem to be struggling to survive.

“I wake up in shock, my heart pounding, then I get no sleep,” says Andreas Marciniak, who lives about 3km from the Waterloo ridge. “The sound goes through you. If you’ve ever had seasickness, it’s like that, when you feel like you’re going to throw up but you know you’re not. It’s a lot worse than people think it is.”

Marciniak and his brother Johannes have serious pre-existing conditions, including angina, diabetes and high blood pressure. They separately bought property in Waterloo hoping to live a simple, almost self-sufficient life, but Johannes has walked out of a rundown service station he was renovating, claiming to fear for his life. He is staying in a friend’s caravan at Manoora, about 15km away. “I had blood pressure before but about six months ago I lost control of it, and the diabetes,” Johannes says. “I can’t stay here. After the two spells I had yesterday and the day before, I’ll be dead by the middle of this year.”

After 42 years in Waterloo, Roger Kruse, who is a great-nephew of mailman Tom, is furious at what he says the wind farm has done to his life. He hears one or more whenever the wind is easterly. “I’m waking up at three, quarter to four, quarter to five, six o’clock,” he says. “It’s very noisy. The house vibrates, you can actually feel it.” In March he bought a house at Saddleworth, about 30km south. When the wind is blowing the wrong way, he will leave town with his wife and three children and stay at Saddleworth, he says. “I don’t want to move and that’s buggering me so bad,” he says. “I’ve been there 42 years in the town, never wanted to move, but you just cannot go without sleep.”

There is a serious body of anecdotal evidence in SA that says living close to wind turbines is at very least disruptive to lifestyle and potentially damaging to health. Small pockets of anger and resentment are bubbling away at toxic levels in Mt Bryan, Waterloo and parts of the South-East, as it is in communities in Victoria and New South Wales. Similar stories have come out of the UK, Canada and Europe.

There is no scientific evidence that wind farms, when properly installed, are harmful. But something is clearly going on. What alarms some people – particularly those living in the turbines’ shadow – is that there is no reputable scientific evidence to say that living close to a wind farm is not harmful to health. The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council conducted a literature review and concluded that there was nothing supporting a conclusion of adverse effects.

The wind farm companies argue there is no problem. “We do not accept that wind turbine syndrome exists,” says AGL’s head of wind energy in Australia, Steven Altschwager. Acciona, which is behind the proposed Allendale East wind farmin the state’s South-East, says there is a small number of anecdotal reports that have not been backed by scientific or medical research, or diagnosis.

They have Premier Mike Rann’s support. When protesters turned out at the opening of the Waterloo farm in February, he dismissed their concerns. “There are 100,000 turbines around the world and there has been study after study and there have been no negative health impacts,” Rann said.

However the SA branch of the AMA wants a local study to be urgently done, particularly because in Australia wind farms are larger in scale and the turbines tend to be bigger. “We are certainly not saying there is any evidence there is such a thing as wind turbine syndrome but what there isn’t is any information to look at the health effects,” state president Andrew Lavender says. “A proper process would be for a medical study to be organised independent of both the interest groups and the wind farm providers.” Lavender is looking to the CSIRO or to the NHMRC to commission a study and believes that everyone will benefit from certainty. “There isn’t really any medical study out there in the Australian context,” he says. “The other thing is, if there is such a thing as wind farm syndrome, are some people susceptible and not others? That may well be the case, just like some people are susceptible to car sickness and motion sickness and some aren’t.”

Protesters are calling for a moratorium on any more wind farms until the medical issues have been conclusively resolved. Last year a former rural GP from Crystal Brook, Sarah Laurie, founded the Waubra Foundation, a national wind farm protest group named after the Victorian wind farm near Ballarat which has more than 100 turbines. Last month a former Liberal Minister for Health, Michael Woolridge, became a director. His presence is something of a coup for the group’s credibility. “Being a doctor he is aware of the problem; being a former health minister he understands completely what it takes to change the views,” says fellow director Peter Mitchell, an engineer.

Laurie says she is not anti-wind farm but wants them to be sited appropriately so they’re not driving people out of their homes “and out of their minds as well”. “I think there should be a temporary halt in further approval and construction of wind farm developments that are closer than 10km,” she says. “Wind farms that are further than that, go for it. But 10km is the limit at which people are expressing symptoms.”

Turbines have become political and late last year Family First MP Steve Fielding successfully moved for a Senate inquiry into their effects. “For too long the concerns of those who are sick have been dismissed,” Senator Fielding said in November. “Given the mounting physical evidence from those living near wind farms, I think it’s only fair for the Parliament to have a look at what is happening.”

The committee is due to report next month and so far more than 800 submissions have been received. One is from Richard Paltridge, a dairy farmer who last year challenged Acciona in the Environment Resources and Development Court over the proposed $175 million, 46-turbine wind farm near his dairy at Allendale East. At least six of the turbines will be less than 1km from his dairy and at night his cows will be in a paddock 500m away. He is worried about the impact of shadow flicker from the rotating blades, turbine noise and infrasound on the milk production of his herd. A decision is expected this month.

The opposition to wind farms is not about greenies versus the rest. Ally Fricker would seem to be a prime candidate for embracing wind energy. A pioneer of the anti-pesticide movement, in the 1970s she opened Stall 72, the first organic food stall at the Adelaide Central Market. She later formed the Organic Food Movement which developed some of the first guidelines for organic produce. She is a greenie who remains implacably opposed to nuclear energy. In 1996 she and her partner, Bob Lamb, bought a small property near Waterloo in an area where there was still natural bush.

In August last year, the wind farm started up. “I heard a noise and thought it was a big wind storm coming from some distance away,” says Fricker, who lives 10km from the nearest turbine. “It was dead calm at our place. After I while I thought, ‘that’s odd, that wind never got here’. Eventually the penny dropped and I realised I was hearing the wind farm.”

She and Lamb have become a rallying point for the Stop Industrial Wind Turbines movement. It was not what Fricker planned at this stage of her life; she thought her days of protest were behind her. Her pamphlet – named in a nod to her hippy past, The Answer is Blowing in the Wind – urges people to speak out. She knows this goes against the grain for country folk, many of whom cherish the simple life and don’t want trouble with their neighbours. “People have loose networks based around church or social groups and they’re not used to organising in any social action sense,” she says. “They are very worried about it causing division in these very small communities where everyone literally knows everyone else’s business.”

Stories circulate in these communities about gag clauses that stop those who sign contracts for turbines from speaking against them. While confidentiality surrounds the commercial deal done between the power company and the landowner on whose property a turbine will be built, the claims that people cannot speak out are denied.

Acciona, a large Spanish-owned company, says their contracts contain no such clause. “There is nothing in any or our contracts that would impose any confidential obligations on people to speak about any health concerns they might have,” says Acciona communications director, Tricia Kent. The company also denied having intervened to prevent a former Waubra resident, Trish Godfrey, from giving evidence early this year in the Allendale East case. “We took no action to prevent Mrs Godfrey from testifying,” Kent insists.

Julie Quast joined the protest campaign with great reluctance. The Waterloo wind farm has destroyed her personal dream. She and her husband bought on the ridge six years ago when plans for the wind farm were in abeyance. She says she saw paperwork from the company saying it was not going ahead. They intended to build on the hill and use the land for crops, sheep and alpacas. Not long after, the wind farm was revived.

“We could not build on our land because we would be 1200m from the closest turbine in a direct line,” she says. She and her husband now rent a house owned by his employer, just over 2km from the nearest turbine. She can see them and, at night in particular, she is affected by them. “It gets very distressing at night because I’ll wake up sometimes with my ears pounding – not all the time,” she says. “Sometimes it may not be that windy but some nights you’re bombarded with noise if it’s an east wind.” She is resigned to living with them but says her community is being torn apart. “We are members of a church and there is a real split in the church. We have heard of families being split,” she says. “I don’t know how this community will recover.”

Fricker says in her area families are divided and neighbour is against neighbour. “Most of our neighbours don’t speak to us any more. It really is incredibly divisive and people hate that in these little communities,” she says. “They hate going into the pub and being shunned.”

Money is partly driving this division. It is widely agreed that the power companies pay landholders about $10,000 a year to place a turbine on their property. So far, none of those who are being paid have complained. But the unequal spread of rewards has contributed to the bitterness. Julie Quast refuses on principle to allow one on her land, saying she would feel hypocritical. So someone else is being paid for the wind turbines that are causing her problems.

Ben and Kerry Heinrich are paid about $30,000 a year for three turbines at Waterloo and the nearest is less than 500m from their back door. Heinrich, whose mixed farm is just off the Barrier Highway, says his family is not bothered by them. “Maybe sometimes when you’re lying in bed you can just hear it but it doesn’t affect us. We all sleep like babies,” he says. But he agrees the money is important.

Heinrich, who has a young daughter, Emmison, understands the community division and says he would not have allowed the turbines so close without a financial incentive. “I can understand people who aren’t getting paid but who have them nearby getting a bit funny about it, if they can hear them,” he says.

Greens MLC Mark Parnell is committed to wind power as an essential element in a renewable energy future but says a new industry is feeling its way. “At that level it looks very unfair,” he says of the payments. “I don’t know if there are ways to spread the love around a bit more.”

The opposition is not universal. At Snowtown, the wind farm has been trouble-free. “I’m absolutely at a loss to see what the problem is,” says Snowtown farmer Paul McCormack, who has a turbine about 600m from his house. “It hasn’t affected our TV reception and the flashing lights – we pull the blind and go to bed. I think they’re wonderful.”

In the case of Andy Thomas, the sound from AGL’s turbines at Mt Bryan exceeds EPA levels and they have been working with him for more than a year trying to lower the noise. The problem is what the company calls “tonality”, a discernible tone coming out of the gearbox. They also, Thomas says, removed the flashing red lights. Late last year AGL shut down six machines for two weeks and packed foam inside to deaden the noise. It didn’t work. Next they experimented with shutting down six turbines when the wind reached certain speeds. It helped but is a temporary solution. “We see (shutting down turbines) as a temporary solution to keep Andy in a position to be able to enjoy his property without us interfering with him,” says Altschwager.

The rush to wind power in SA may be self-limiting, at least in the short term. Accessing the national grid is getting harder and the latest infrastructure report by Engineers Australia says congestion is already a problem. Networks in the Mid-North and South-East are already struggling to cope and – not unlike a traffic jam of electricity signals – the lines clog up when the wind blows.

But Roaring 40s plans to build two more wind farms near Waterloo, one at Stony Gap to the north on a continuation of the Tothills, and another at Robertstown to the east. If it happens, Fricker says she will leave. “We consider those areas like a buffer to the Tothill Belt and they contain patches of remnant peppermint gum which is highly endangered as an ecosystem,” she says.

She will not go without a fight. She and Bob Lamb are part of a claim recently lodged in the Environment Court protesting against a new wind mast at the proposed Stony Gap farm. “If these next two go ahead we would find it very hard to imagine staying here,” she says. “But we won’t go easily, that’s for sure.”