Better Plan, Wisconsin

Click on the image above to hear a sworn statement regarding turbine related impacts to human health. Dr. Herb Coussin's June 30, 2010 testimony to the Public Service Commision, June 30, 2010

TRANSCRIPT

EXAMINER NEWMARK: All right. Let me  swear you in.

 HERB COUSSONS, PUBLIC WITNESS, DULY SWORN

EXAMINER NEWMARK: Have a seat. Just state your name and spell your last name for us.

DR. COUSSONS: It's Herb Coussons, C-O-U-S-S-O-N-S.

EXAMINER NEWMARK: I'm going to start  the timer. Go ahead.

DIRECT TESTIMONIAL STATEMENT

DR. COUSSONS: I'm Herb Coussons, M.D. I'm a physician. I live in the town of  Wrightstown in Brown County and I have been  practicing in Green Bay for eight years, in private practice for 15 years, women's health and  primary care, mainly.

 I also have an interest -- a special interest in spatial disorientation because I'm an aerobatic and commercial pilot.

I've studied the literature and listened to the testimony of both affected and non-affected  residents of the wind turbine projects, and I'm  concerned that any setbacks of less than half a  mile will have adverse consequences on the people  that live near them, primarily because of noise --with noises in those shorter setback ranges over 45 and approaching 55 decibels.

I believe that based on currentliterature and testimony of others that any levels  above 40 decibels will cause chronic sleep disturbance in up to 50 percent of the people that live close to them.

By increasing the setback, noise deteriorates over distance, and this would alleviate some of these problems.

 I've heard Dr. McFadden speak from the Wind Siting Council, and I agree that there is no causal evidence now to directly link turbines to  health problems, but I do know that noise such as that measured as audible and dBC will disturb sleep.

And exhaustive literature support shows that extensive disturbed sleep does have an adverse impact on health, primarily in the areas of hypertension, cardiac disease, weight gain, diabetes, lowered immunity, increased problems with falling asleep, accident rates, and maybe  even poor school performance.

 I'm afraid that so far what I've read from the PSC, the Siting Council, and the legislature has been willing to proceed without finding out if there is truly a causal relationship and, if so, what can be done about it.

Sample studies such as home sleep studies, like those done for sleep apnea patients, can provide some direct evidence of people living in wind turbine areas currently. Evaluations such as lab and sleep data on both wind and control patient -- patients that suffer from wind problems as well as those who live outside of turbine areas can also provide much needed information.

Otherwise we're doomed to repeat the same experiment as other wind projects in Wisconsin, around the United States, and the world.

I'm also concerned that by stating that there is no proof of adverse health consequences, as Dr. McFadden has in his presentation, that we give the media, the less informed in the wind industry, license to lie about safety.

In the Brown County Board of Health meeting, Invenergy, a wind developer in the state, stated that due to studies in Wisconsin, wind was safe and beneficial. When paired with Dr. McFadden's conclusions, there seems to be no argument against the industrial wind turbines. But there are no good trials that support their relationship and, if so, what can be done about it.

  In the Brown County Board of Health  meeting, Invenergy, a wind developer in the state, stated that due to studies in Wisconsin, wind was safe and beneficial.

When paired with Dr. McFadden's conclusions, there seems to be no argument against the industrial wind turbines. But there are no good trials that support their statement or the safety of industrial wind turbines.

 It is equally wrong to claim safety  based on the literature. It was misleading and there is more case report data showing deleterious effects than beneficial case reports.

In the drug industry, the manufacturers of drugs are required to provide safety information at their own expense prior to  releasing drugs in the market. The FDA and governmental oversight regulates this, and I think that the same model could be used with the wind industry as well, as the expense to have some of these studies may be overwhelming for our governmental agencies.

Not only do the health issues concern  me, but the economics of wind energy do not make  sense. In Europe, Canada, and now the U.S., government subsidies and increased power rates are the only way to make it a viable industry.  Reports from Europe continue to caution  the U.S. to not go down the road of heavily subsidized alternative energy pathways.

I may disagree with that and I may believe that subsidies are an acceptable cost, but human health is not an acceptable cost.

The effect on adjoining property rights and values is also disturbing. I own 40 acres in Brown County and live there. My sister and brother-in-law put a house on the market in southern Brown County and had an accepted offer on the house pending the sale of another home. As  soon as the groundswell of words about the wind  industry came, they withdraw their offer, and in the past six months, they've had no lookers.

In conclusion, the wind industry itself in the Beech Ridge project said that setbacks up to a mile would mitigate complaints from sound and shadow flicker. The World Health Organization said sound sleep -- on sound sleep and health stress that a plausible biologic model is available with sufficient evidence for the elements of a causal chain. Thank you.

EXAMINER NEWMARK: Thank you.

COMMISSIONER AZAR: Judge, I want to ask a few questions. I don't usually do that.

EXAMINER NEWMARK: We haven't been doing  that yet.

COMMISSIONER AZAR: Okay. Then never mind.

DR. COUSSONS: It's fine with me.

EXAMINER NEWMARK: I have been asking a few questions of witnesses, so I can allow that
 for now.

COMMISSIONER AZAR: I just have a question with regards to epidemiological studies, which is what I've been hearing a lot about thus far, and the fact that there's a lack of evidence in epidemiological studies.

DR. COUSSONS: Right.

COMMISSIONER AZAR: If you could describe sort of how -- how do I even ask this question? I would imagine there needs to be a lot of folks that are affected for something to essentially hit on the radar with regards to an epidemiological study.

DR. COUSSONS: Possibly, but not necessarily. I mean -- and you know, it depends on, well, if you have a thousand people in our community, and if I use that for an example -- or I'm not sure how many live in the Fond du Lac area, but that development down there. But if you3 have a thousand people and in self-reported comments or publications or surveys or things like that, if 15 or 35 or 45 percent are self-reported that's still not an epidemiologic, you know, study as far as a cause-and-effect type of thing.
But it's almost impossible to design that kind of study, because how can you sort of blind someone that they're living in this noise environment? You know, it's very impossible. And so from a medical standpoint, you know, after talking with Dr. McFadden, I feel like self-reported is all that we have to go on.

But if we do self-reported and try to get some objective data, like home sleep studies in their natural surrounding about people that do report problems, do the same types of studies on people in the area that don't report problems, and then  back up a mile, a quarter -- you know, a half a mile, five miles and do the same studies, you can show some kind of link to noise and sleep disturbance.

 It would take 20 years to show cardiac effect, you know, or hypertension or weight gain or diabetes, and we don't have time for that. We  don't have the time or the money or resources to do it.

 But I think a short-term study based on distance, some objective data with some self-reported data would be -- I think it would be very telling on adding some validity to some of these people's concerns. And maybe even small numbers. Maybe 20 or 40 people in each group.

COMMISSIONER AZAR: Great. Thanks.

EXAMINER NEWMARK: All right. Thank you very much.

DR. COUSSONS: Thank you.

  WHAT'S THE PROBLEM THE WIND INDUSTRY SAYS IS NOT A PROBLEM?

Presentation to the Hammond (NY) Wind Committee

BY NINA PIERPONT, MD (JOHNS HOPKINS)
PHD (PRINCETON: POPULATION BIOLOGY)
MS (PRINCETON: POPULATION BIOLOGY)
BA (YALE: BIOLOGY)
Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Former Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics
College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University, NY

July 5, 2010

My name is Nina Pierpont. I am a physician in Malone, NY, and author of a book called Wind Turbine Syndrome: a Report on a Natural Experiment, published in December 2009.

My M.D. is from the Johns Hopkins University. My PhD, in population biology, is from Princeton University. Population biology has extensive overlap with epidemiology. In fact, one of my doctoral committee members, Robert May, is a prominent theoretical epidemiologist, who subsequently became president of the Royal Society of London and scientific advisor to the Queen of England. He pronounced my Wind Turbine Syndrome study to be "impressive, interesting, and important."

A PhD in science is a research degree. I was specifically trained to do research on free-living, uncontrolled animal populations, including methods for structuring observations to turn the observations into quantitative and analyzable data.

I used this research training in my study of wind turbine health effects, to structure and analyze the information I gathered from affected people. I used my classical medical training from Johns Hopkins to actually gather the information.

A good patient history, we were taught (and my experience has borne out), provides a doctor with about 80% of the information he needs to diagnose a problem. I conducted thorough, structured clinical interviews of all my study subjects, directly interviewing all adults and older teens, and interviewing the parents of all child subjects.

My bachelors degree, also in biology, is from Yale University. I am a board-certified pediatrician and have had postgraduate training in behavioral medicine. I have been a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University School of Physicians and Surgeons.

Wind turbine syndrome.

I introduced this term in testimony before the Energy Committee of the New York State Assembly in 2006. The National Academy of Sciences cited my testimony in their 2007 report, Environmental Impacts of Wind Energy Projects, and asked for more information about the physical effects I described.

A syndrome, medically, is a consistent collection of signs and symptoms. This is what I observed in people exposed to large, 1.5 to 3 MW wind turbines constructed since 2004. The first purpose of my study was to document the consistency of symptoms or problems among affected people, and to show, by a simple, practical method, that these symptoms are due to wind turbines.

I will come back to this in a moment. The second purpose was to examine why, given the same exposure, some people are more affected than others.

I did not, and could not given my limited resources, study what proportion of people are affected or how much exposure is needed to affect people. However, I have some preliminary data on proportion of people affected.

I called my study a case series. I knew it was more than a case series, however, and described what else I did with regard to subject selection and data gathering. Recently an interested epidemiologist has provided the terminology for what I actually did. I chose families who had at least one severely affected adult family member, and who had done two things: first, they had gone away from their homes and the wind turbines and seen their symptoms go away, and had come back and seen the symptoms return, generally several times. In epidemiology this is called a "case-crossover" design. It's very useful in situations like this one when both the exposure and the disease are transitory.

Second, I chose families who had spent or lost a lot of money to get away from the turbines, by selling their homes for reduced amounts, renting or buying a second home, renovating their homes in an attempt to keep out the noise, or outright abandoning their homes. I know of active legal cases in at least three states and two provinces in which the homeowner, after home abandonment, is suing either the wind turbine company or a state regulatory agency for recompense. In epidemiology, this is called a "revealed preference measure." The people who are suffering show by their actions that their health problem is worth more than the many thousands of dollars they have lost in trying to escape the exposure, and thus distinguishes their experiences from what might be dismissed as subjective or fakery.

My study had 38 subjects, in 10 families located in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Italy. I have interviewed further families in the US and Canada and have a larger case-crossover study paper in preparation.

The symptoms caused by turbine exposure are as follows:

1. Sleep disturbance, with a special kind of awakening in a state of high alarm. This applies to both adults and children. Severe sleep deprivation.

2. Headaches. Exacerbations of migraines, brought on by either noise or by light flicker. This refers to the strobe-like effect in rooms when turbine blade shadows repetitively pass over a window. People without a history of migraine also got severe headaches from turbine exposure.

3. Pressure and pain in ears and eyes. Tinnitus or ringing in the ears. Distortions of hearing. Buzzing inside the head.

4. Dizziness, vertigo, unsteadiness, and nausea, essentially seasickness on land.
Pierpont to Hammond (NY) Wind Committee July 5, 2010 Page 2 of 4

5. Sensations of internal pulsation or movement, in the chest or abdomen, associated with panic-like episodes, in people who had no previous episodes of panic. These episodes occurred while awake or asleep, awakening the affected people from sleep.

6. Problems with memory and concentration. Irritability and loss of energy and motivation. School and behavior problems in children. Increased aggression in both adults and children.

In the book, I document these symptoms for all study subjects, in 66 pages of structured, before-during-after accounts divided for each subject into organ systems or functions, such as sleep, headache, cognition, mood, balance and equilibrium, ears and hearing, eyes and vision, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, respiratory, etc.—before-during-after for each category.

It is critical that I interviewed people as much about their past medical history as about their current symptoms, to distinguish which symptoms were actually due to the exposure, and to identify the subjects’ risk factors for experiencing certain symptoms.

I then examined the relationships between medical factors before exposure and the tendency of subjects to have certain symptoms during the exposure, using simple and straightforward statistics. This was one of the reasons that I collected information on all family members, not just the most affected, so that I would have some equally exposed but less affected people in the sample, who had been gathered according to a consistent rule (collect data on all family members without regard to symptoms present or absent).

I found strong and statistically significant relationships:

1. Between the panic-internal pulsation symptoms and pre-existing motion sensitivity,
2. Between severe headaches during exposure and pre-existing migraine disorder, and
3. Between tinnitus during exposure and previous inner ear damage from noise or chemotherapy.

Equally as significant, I found no statistical association between pre-existing mental health disorder and the tendency to get panic-like episodes during exposure.

From these results I hypothesize about physiologic mechanisms for the effects, using an extensive review of the literature on low-frequency noise effects and on the neurophysiology of the balance system. This part, on how the wind turbines may be exerting their effects, is hypothetical. It is a proposal that inner ear specialists find it very interesting, but it is still hypothetical.

What is not hypothetical is that the turbines cause the symptoms (case-crossover design) and that the degree of illness caused is of such magnitude that people spend or forfeit many thousands of dollars to avoid the exposure (revealed preference data).

To get a preliminary idea of the proportion of people who may be affected, local affected residents around the Waubra wind farm in Victoria, Australia counted the numbers of households with affected people who had made their symptoms publicly known, the numbers of households that had abandoned their homes, and the total number of households within a radius of 3.5 km, the maximum distance at which there were affected people in this setting.

There were 153 total households. Two households had moved completely and a third was staying elsewhere because of their symptoms, or about 2% of households moved. An additional 19 households, another 12%, were affected but remained in their homes despite their chronic insomnia, etc.
Pierpont to Hammond (NY) Wind Committee July 5, 2010 Page 3 of 4

My study has attracted attention. The American and Canadian Wind Energy Associations published a critique without reading the study, since its paper was released within days of my book’s publication. The British Wind Energy Association has also issued a critique.

Carl V. Phillips, a Harvard-trained PhD in public policy and epidemiology, states that these and other industry-commissioned critiques "don’t represent proper scientific reading" of the evidence that there is a problem, my study among them.

Quoting from his testimony last week before the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, "The reports that I have read that claim there is no evidence that there is a problem seem to be based on a very simplistic understanding of epidemiology and self-serving definitions of what does and what does not count as evidence." He explains in a more detailed written report "why these claims, which probably seem convincing to most readers" at first glance, "don’t represent proper scientific reading." He points out that "the conclusions of the reports don’t even match their own analyses. The reports themselves actually concede that there are problems, and then somehow manage to reach the conclusion that there is no evidence that there are problems."

One industry critiques states that people become ill around wind turbines by power of suggestion, and that I was the person doing the suggesting. I was not: people became ill, made their decisions, and temporarily left their homes or moved out or renovated their houses before I ever found them. I found them because they had in some way made public what they had done.

When I found myself interviewing people who had not connected certain symptoms to the turbines and had not spent significant time away from their homes, I did not offer interpretations or advice or persist in questioning in those areas, nor did I include these families in the study.

The adults in the 10 families in my study are all practical, regular people. There are three fishermen, two teachers, two nurses, a physician, a home health aide, a farmer, a professional gardener, a computer programmer, a milk truck driver, and a number of homemakers. There were several retired disabled people. People like this don't disrupt their lives and spend or forfeit thousands of dollars for imaginary illness.

Again, the “revealed preference measure” shows us what is not purely subjective or fakery in the accounts of illness.

With regard to my mechanistic proposals, these have been taken up by the cochlear physiology laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Professors Alec Salt and Timothy Hullar have just published a paper in the journal Hearing Research regarding physiologic mechanisms by which the low-frequency noise affects the inner ear, both the cochlea (hearing organ) and the vestibular (balance) organs.

One possible mechanism is by low-frequency noise inducing endolymphatic hydrops, or increased pressure and distortion of membrane positions and tension within the inner ear (as in Meniere’s disease). There are also differences in the functioning of inner and outer hair cells in the cochlea that may prevent us from hearing low-frequency noise that is indeed having a physiological effect on the ear.

Dr. Salt had already found effects of low-frequency noise on the inner ear experimentally, and explicitly incorporates references to wind turbine low-frequency noise and to my research in his paper.

This being an area of active research and new findings, one cannot rely on the out-of-date assumption that if people can’t hear a sound, it cannot have any other effect on them—one of the premises wind industry consultants rely on to assert that the low frequency noise produced by wind turbines is at too low a level to have any physiological effects. This premise is out of date.

WIND SITING HEARING NOTICE

Tuesday  July 6, 2010, beginning at 1:00 p.m and 6:00 p.m.

Docket 1-AC-231

Public Service Commission of Wisconsin
First Floor, Amnicon Falls Room
610 North Whitney Way, Madison, Wisconsin

 [Click here for map]

Audio and video of the meeting will be broadcast from the PSC Website beginning at 1:00.

CLICK HERE to visit the PSC website, click on the button on the left that says "Live Broadcast". Sometimes the meetings don't begin right on time. The broadcasts begin when the meetings do so keep checking back if you don't hear anything at the appointed start time.

MEETING NOTICE
Wind Siting Council
Docket 1-AC-231

Agenda

1) Welcome/Review of today’s agenda
2) Review and adoption of meeting minutes of June 21, 2010 & June 23, 2010
3) Straw proposal amendment ballot results
4) Straw proposal revisions based on ballot results
5) Additional revisions to straw proposal prior to end of public comment period
6) Next steps/Discussion of next meeting’s time, place and agenda
7) Adjourn

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE WIND SITING COUNCIL STRAW PROPOSAL

Noel Dean has a farm at Waubra but he and his family moved out 13 months ago when their headaches worsened.

“Sore ears, pain in and around the eyes, pain on top of the head, pain in the back of the head, behind the ears and early this year, we started to get throbbing pain at the back of the head and tinnitus,” he said.

“We couldn’t stay there another night – it was that bad.” 

RESIDENTS REJECT WIND FARM HEALTH FINDINGS

SOURCE: ABC News, www.abc.net.au July 5 2010

By Kellie Lazzaro,

Campaigners against wind farms have rejected a report finding no scientific evidence to link wind turbines to health problems.

The National Health and Medical Research Council, which advises the Federal Government, found that there was no evidence that the turbines’ low frequency noise or shadow flicker made people sick.

But residents of Waubra in Victoria’s south-west who live near the state’s largest wind farm, say they are sick and are convinced that wind turbines are to blame.

Noel Dean has a farm at Waubra but he and his family moved out 13 months ago when their headaches worsened.

“Sore ears, pain in and around the eyes, pain on top of the head, pain in the back of the head, behind the ears and early this year, we started to get throbbing pain at the back of the head and tinnitus,” he said.

“We couldn’t stay there another night – it was that bad.”

Mr Dean first complained to the Waubra wind farm operator Acciona in May last year, but the company refused to give him access to the outcome of its investigation.

He then commissioned an independent report into noise levels at his property at a cost of more than $40,000.

He has just received that report by Noise Measurement Services and says it confirms there is a link between the low frequency noise from wind farms and adverse health effects.

“Anything from 1 to 20 hertz can cause adverse health effects and that is what we have found in a pulsing motion. It is a pulsing motion that makes the effects just a lot worse,” he said.

But in a rapid review of existing studies, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has found there is no published evidence of direct pathological effects from wind farms.

The director of the council’s evidence and advice branch, Professor John McCallum, says they have brought together opinion and evidence from all around the world.

“Shadow flicker is the flicking on and off of wind turbine shadows as the blades rotate. It is the glint off the surface of the blades and those are now minimised by treatment of the blades that prevents reflective glint as well, and they are the kind of four main areas that people talk about health effects from,” he said.

He says World Health Organisation (WHO) studies have found no reliable evidence that sound below the hearing threshold will produce physiological or psychological effects.

The NHMRC report refers to a study of three wind farms in the UK that found if people are worried about their health, they may become anxious and suffer stress-related illnesses.

For this reason Professor John McCallum says people who believe they are experiencing health problems should consult a GP, but he says the report commissioned by Noel Dean about noise levels on his farm would need to be further tested.

Donald Thomas also lives at Waubra and was a big supporter of the wind farm, until he too started getting headaches, heart palpitations and high blood pressure.

“We’ve invited the Health Minister and top health officials to actually come out to Waubra to talk to us and see what the problem is first hand, but none of them have bothered to do that. They just look at overseas studies and pick the ones that suit them,” he said.

The National Health and Medical Research Council acknowledges the health effects of renewable energy generation have not been assessed to the same extent as those from traditional sources and recommends authorities continue to monitor research.

The National Environment Protection and Heritage Council has met in Darwin today to consider national wind farm development guidelines.

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: Acciona has several projects in the works in Wisconsin, but we've had no luck getting them to tell us what their plans are for our communities.

 

 

WIND SITING HEARING NOTICE

Tuesday  July 6, 2010, beginning at 1:00 p.m and 6:00 p.m.

Docket 1-AC-231

Public Service Commission of Wisconsin
First Floor, Amnicon Falls Room
610 North Whitney Way, Madison, Wisconsin

 [Click here for map]

Audio and video of the meeting will be broadcast from the PSC Website beginning at 1:00.

CLICK HERE to visit the PSC website, click on the button on the left that says "Live Broadcast". Sometimes the meetings don't begin right on time. The broadcasts begin when the meetings do so keep checking back if you don't hear anything at the appointed start time.

 

MEETING NOTICE
Wind Siting Council
Docket 1-AC-231

Agenda

1) Welcome/Review of today’s agenda
2) Review and adoption of meeting minutes of June 21, 2010 & June 23, 2010
3) Straw proposal amendment ballot results
4) Straw proposal revisions based on ballot results
5) Additional revisions to straw proposal prior to end of public comment period
6) Next steps/Discussion of next meeting’s time, place and agenda
7) Adjourn

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE WIND SITING COUNCIL STRAW PROPOSAL

Click on the image below to watch Representative Zigmunt's testimony to the PSC

STEPPING BACK FROM THE LEDGE

SOURCE: The Daily Reporter, dailyreporter.com 

July 2 2010

By Paul Snyder

Unrest among Brown County neighbors of what would be Wisconsin’s largest wind farm is reason enough for the state to consider alternative projects, said a lawmaker from the area.

State Rep. Ted Zigmunt, D-Francis Creek, said the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin should consider energy projects such as geothermal and solar hot water for individual properties and commercial buildings as alternatives to the Ledge Wind Farm, a $300 million, 100-turbine project proposed by Chicago-based Invenergy LLC that would touch three towns.

“I’m not trying to kill the project,” Zigmunt said. “I’m neutral on Ledge. But a lot of constituents have been contacting me with concerns about the project, and I’m putting these things out there as an alternative.”

Kevin Parzyck, Invenergy’s development manager, called Zigmunt’s proposal for alternatives an apples-to-oranges comparison with building a power plant.

“It’s not a this-or-that scenario,” he said. “The PSC is looking at power needs across the state and the means by which to best achieve those needs.”

Invenergy last year submitted its proposal to the PSC for Ledge, which would include 100 turbines spread across the towns of Wrightstown, Holland and Morrison in Brown County. The proposed project would generate 150 megawatts of electricity.

However, Parzyck said, Invenergy is waiting to provide a more detailed analysis of the project until the PSC issues a new set of turbine placement rules for Wisconsin. The setback distances from properties established in those rules could alter Invenergy’s proposal, Parzyck said.

“We think we’ll be able to provide greater clarity on the project and a timeline in the next few months,” he said.

Invenergy’s proposed project has drawn opposition from such local groups as Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy. Zigmunt said Brown County has put a moratorium on wind development until more research on health effects is available. Zigmunt said final approval of such significant projects should not be in the state’s hands.

“It’s always been my feeling that it should be up to local communities and governments to decide if they want these things there,” he said. “Counties and towns know the lay of the land a lot better than the state.”

If any of the proposed turbines interfere with property or cause problems for residents who oppose the project, Zigmunt said, Wisconsin should have a backup plan.

But putting energy projects in the hands of homeowners and businesses is different from providing new power sources that can last decades, Parzyck said.

“Obviously, we look for broad-based support on any project we do, and we know there are those who oppose this project,” he said. “But we also have in excess of 120 landowners signed up to take part in this project.

“We’re very confident that once this is fully evaluated, the PSC will determine Ledge is safe and a good economic engine for the community.”

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE BROWN COUNTY CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBLE WIND ENERGY WEBSITE

SECOND FEATURE

PORTLAND SCHOOL TURNS OF WIND TURBINE TO HALT SEABIRD SLAUGHTER

 Dorset Echo, www.dorsetecho.co.uk 

July 3 2010

By Laura Kitching,

A £20,000 wind turbine brought in to make a Portland primary school more environmentally friendly has been turned off because it was killing seabirds.

Headteacher Stuart McLeod, of Southwell Community Primary School, said they ‘tried everything’ to solve the problem but had no choice but to shut it down.

In the past few months the nine metre high generator has taken the lives of 14 birds – far higher than the manufacturer’s estimate of one per year.

The wind turbine was installed at the school around 18 months ago, thanks to grant funding, to provide six kilowatts of power an hour.

Mr McLeod said: “We’ve got the ideal location for wind power but unfortunately seagulls kept flying into it.

“We were told by the manufacturer to expect maybe one fatality a year but it killed 14 in six months so we took advice and made the decision to turn it off.

“If it had happened at night time you could understand that the birds couldn’t see the blades, which rotate at 135mph but it was happening at all different times of the day.”

Mr McLeod came into school early to clear up the fatalities but when the deaths happened at playtimes and lunchtimes, the children got upset and he worried about the impact on the birds.

He said: “The school governors investigated putting scaffolding up but that would impact on its performance, we thought about painting the blades a dazzle yellow but the manufacturer said that couldn’t be done.

“We’ve even gone as far as Stansted Airport to investigate bird-scaring plastic owls and we spoke to herring gull eyesight experts at the Natural History Museum.

“We’ve tried so hard to be eco-friendly but now we can’t turn it on.

“We can’t get rid of it either because we bought the turbine we had to apply for grants and the grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change states that it has to stay on site for five years.”

The school is now negotiating with Dorset County Council about the future of the wind turbine.

Click on the image below to hear testimony from an epidemiologist whose conclusion is that improperly sited wind turbines have a negative impact on human health.

This is contrary to the findings of Dr. Jevon McFadden who assured the Wind Siting Council that turbine related health impacts were nothing to be concerned about.

Transcript of this testimony which was given on June 30 at the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin is posted below.

PSC: Please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Carl V. Phillips: Yes, I do.

PSC: OK, spell your name.

PHILLIPS: Carl V. Phillips, C-A-R-L, initial V as in Vincent- Phillips- P-H-I-double L-I-P-S

PSC: All right, go ahead.

I’m an epidemiologist and policy researcher.  I’m specifically expert in how to optimally derive knowledge for decision making from epidemiologic data.

I have a PhD in public policy from Harvard University, and I did a post doctoral fellowship in public health policy and the philosophy of science.

I’ve spent most of my career as a professor of public health and medicine, most recently at the University of Alberta and I currently direct an independent research institute.

I reviewed the literature on health effects of wind turbines on local residents, including the reports that have been prepared by industry consultants and the references therein, and I have reached the following conclusions which I present in detail in a written report that I believe will be submitted [to the commission].

First, there is ample evidence that some people suffer a collection of health problems, including insomnia, anxiety, loss of concentration, general psychological distress, as a result of being exposed to turbines near their home.

The type of studies that have been done are not adequate to estimate what portion of the population is susceptible to the effect, the magnitude of the effects, or exactly how much exposure is needed before the risks become substantial, but all of these could be determined with fairly simple additional research.

What is clear is there is a problem of some magnitude.  The evidence may or may not be enough to meet the burden of a tort claim about a specific disease, but in my opinion it’s clearly enough to suggest that our public policy should not just be to blindly move forward without more knowledge.

The best evidence we have—which has been somewhat downplayed in previous discussion—is what’s known as “case cross-over data,” which is one of the most useful forms of epidemiologic study when both the exposure and the disease are transitory.  That is, it’s possible to remove the exposure and see if the disease goes away, then reinstate it and see if the disease recurs, which is exactly the pattern that has been observed for some of the sufferers who physically moved away and sometimes back again.

With that study design in mind, we actually have very substantial amounts of data in a structured form, contrary to some of the claims that have been made.  And more data of this nature could easily be gathered if an effort was made.

Moreover, people’s avoidance behavior—their moving from their homes, and so forth—is a clear (what’s called) “revealed preference measure” of their suffering.  Such evidence transforms something that might be dismissed as a subjective experience or perhaps even fakery, to an objective observation that someone’s health problems are worth more than the many thousands of dollars they’ve lost trying to escape the exposure.

My second observation . . . is that these health effects that people are suffering are very real.  The psychologically mediated diseases that we’ve observed, and in fact overall mental well being, are included in all modern accepted definitions of either individual health or public health.  It’s true that they are more difficult to study than certain other diseases, but they probably account for more of the total morbidity burden in the United States than do purely physical diseases.  Therefore [they] should not be in any way dismissed.

Third, the reports that I have read that claim there is no evidence that there is a problem seem to be based on a very simplistic understanding of epidemiology and self-serving definitions of what does and what does not count as evidence.  I don’t think I can cover too much of this in the available time right now, but I explain it in detail in my report—why these claims, which probably seem convincing to most readers prima facie [at first glance], don’t represent proper scientific reading.  Moreover, the conclusions of the reports don’t even match their own analyses.  The reports themselves actually concede that there are problems, and then somehow manage to reach the conclusion that there is no evidence that there are problems.

And my final point, as I’ve already alluded to, is it’s quite possible to do the studies it would take to resolve the outstanding questions, and they could actually be done very quickly by studying people who are already exposed.

This isn’t the type of circumstance where we cannot really know more until we move forward and wait for years of additional exposure.  The only reason we don’t have better information than we do is that no one with adequate resources has tried to get it.

That’s the conclusion of my points.

HAVE YOU REACHED OUT AND TOUCHED YOUR PSC TODAY?

The PSC is asking for public comment on the recently approved draft siting rules. The deadline for comment is July 7th, 2010.

The setback recommended in this draft is 1250 feet from non-participating homes, 500 feet from property lines.

CLICK HERE to get a copy of the draft siting rules approved by the commissioners on May 14th, and to find out more about the Wind Siting Council

CLICK HERE and type in docket number 1-AC-231 to read what's been posted so far.

CLICK HERE to leave a comment on the Wind Siting Council Docket