Better Plan, Wisconsin

 What is Wind Turbine Syndrome?

Pediatric Physician Dr. Nina Pierpont has been researching the effects of living close to wind turbines on human health. Her completed study will be published in the next few months. Here is a summary of the report: (download a pdf of this abstract by clicking here)

    Wind Turbine Syndrome is a consistent, often debilitating, complex of symptoms which occur during residential exposure to large industrial wind turbines.
    Symptoms include sleep disturbance, headache, tinnitus [ringing in the ears], ear pressure, dizziness, vertigo, nausea, irritability, and problems with concentration and memory. Panic episodes associated with sensations of internal pulsation or quivering arise in the daytime or during sleep.

Symptom intensity varies in concert with the direction turbine blades are turned, the rate of spin, or the presence of certain sounds. Panic episodes show no statistical association with previous history of anxiety or other mental health disorders and a highly significant association with pre-existing motions sensitivity [car-sickness, motion sickness]. Headache shows a significant association with preexisting migraine disorder. Secondary clusters of symptoms involve the chest and eyes. 

Methods: Case series of 10 affected families with 38 members age 0-75 exposed to turbines erected since 2004. All adults were interviewed and information obtained on all family members in a pre-exposure, during exposure, post exposure format.
Five families moved away from their homes within 6 weeks before the interviews or between the first and second interviews, one family significantly reduced its time in the home 3 months before the interviews, and other families spent periods of time away from the home during exposure.

Conclusions: Core symptoms of Wind Turbine Syndrome are best explained as a vibratory disturbance of thoracic organs creating a disturbance to position and motion sense via visceral graviceptors. Anxiety and panic arise in previously unaffected but motion sensitive people due to direct neurologic linkages between balance and position sense and brain centers mediating fear, anxiety, autonomic effects and adversive learning. There are also direct effects on ears. Secondary symptom clusters suggest other effects on tissues inside body resonant spaces, but require further research. Syndrome recognition is important for control of turbine placement and compensation of affected persons.

NOTE FROM THE RESEARCH NERD:Read what it's like to live near industrial wind turbines:   (Download a pdf of noise log of a Wisconsin family living amid industrial windturbines by clicking here) 

Visit the website of the wind developer who proposes to place 67 turbines in Magnolia township and 3 in Union township by clicking here The picture above is from their website.  

 "The situation with our son continues and the number of days a week he experiences problems increased when the turbines closest to our home came online in May.  We have learned to cope by having him use earplugs during the day and we run a fan on high at night in his room.  As for the headaches, our family has noticed a sharp decrease in them since the weather got cold. We are not outside as much and the windows are closed."

Today we feature excerpts from the story of a family we've been corresponding with in rural Illinois. In our first email from the mother of this family, we learned there were three industrial wind turbines located about 1500 feet from their home and a dozen or more half a mile away.

She writes:

We have had unofficial noise readings at the North wall of our home near 90dBA at times and have experienced headaches, sleeplessness, nausea, heart palpitations, increased blood pressure, a general feeling of being unwell, mild  depression, and extreme pressure in our ears...

...If you had even told me last fall, (the turbines near us have been operational since May, 2007), that we would be having the type of problems we are having, I wouldn't have believed it. We knew last summer their were times it was uncomfortable, but the winter weather conditions have given me a whole new perspective of what it's like to live with turbines."

   This was sent to us by the Taylor family of Illinois on February 21, 2008. They first heard of the possibility of a wind farm coming to their area in June of 2004 and attended an informational meeting presented by the developers.

        The following is an excerpt of the Taylor family story:

    "My husband and I went to the table with the township map of our area to see where turbines would be in location to our home. Nothing appeared to be too close, just a few little red dots north of our property. We introduced ourselves to the gentleman at the table and told him we were buying a farm in the area in a few days and we showed him where we were going to move to on the map. He told us we would be “Neighbors” to the project and that someone would stop by and talk to us in a couple weeks.
    Knowing what we know now, warning bells should have been going off. Instead, in trusting Midwest fashion, we left feeling like this was a good thing for the community and thinking what nice people the developers were." 

  (The Taylor family received the contract for neighbors to the wind farm in September)

Rene writes, "Upon reading the documents, we were shocked to see the list of items that we would be giving easement for. We were not experts on this type of thing, but it seemed like we would be signing away a lot of our rights as property owners. Nothing in the documents said anything about where or how many turbines or other facilities would be near us. In our opinion, the money they offered, ($250 upon executing the document, $250 when construction began, and $1000 per year for 30 years), was not worth the loss of our rights.We decided not to contact the developer to have the documents put in our name as we had no intention of signing away our rights.  We decided to take a “wait and see attitude” and filed away the documents.
    In June of 2005, we received a letter from McLean County Building & Zoning letting us know that [the developer] had filed a request for permits for the Wind Farm and that a public hearing would be held in a month.  It also stated that [the developer] was requesting variances on the height and setback limits of some of the turbines.
    At the time we did not know, but these types of notices are only sent out to people within 1000 feet of a purposed project. We had never had any dealings with the zoning process and were totally ignorant about how it worked.
    About a week before the hearing, I contacted [the developer] by phone to try and find out what was going to be near us and how close it would be.  I told him up front we were trying to decide if we would be opposing the project or not.  He told me we would have one turbine 1500 feet from our home and that we would be able to see a couple more on the ridge.  I asked him about the location of the substation. I told him we did not want to live by one because of the noise and the possible health effects from electro magnetic fields.  He told me the substation was to be located near Arrowsmith, about 2 ½ miles from us. We felt a little reassured, but decided to attend the hearing to try and get a better feel for what was going on.
    The hearings were scheduled to be held over two evenings in early July. There were only a small number of objectors to the project, I believe three. We listened carefully to all sides and again felt the wind company had answered our concerns. We decided not to testify against the project. The zoning board voted to approve the project with some of the requested variances and the official number of turbines to be built was 240 in two phases."

     (In early 2006 the developer sold the project to another company and the Taylors received a notice from the Zoning Board of Appeals that the new company was requesting permission to buy a farmstead about a mile from their home to use as a visitor center and for operations and maintenance. They were also requesting to move an approved substation to much closer to the Taylor home.)       

 "It was at this point we became very concerned. We attended the hearing in early April, still unfamiliar with the zoning process. [The wind developer] and their local attorney [name] were sworn in and gave information on the proposed amendments to their Special Use Permit.  Some board members seemed upset that the soil scores were so high in the area of the proposed substation and even asked if they couldn’t locate the facility in an area with poorer soil. [The developer] replied they really needed to use this area as it was closer to the center of the project and that they had been working with the farmer for over a year to purchase this location.
  My husband and I were in shock. Nine months earlier we were told by this same gentleman not to worry because the substation would not be near us, now he says he’s known for more than a year they were trying to move it.  When the board was done reviewing documents and asking questions, I was allowed to ask questions.
    I asked how close the substation would be to our property line.  [The developer] responded “about ½ a mile.” I then asked what kind of noise we could expect and was told it would be unlikely we would be able to hear the substation above the wind. While we were not happy, we voiced no further objections and the board voted to approve the changes. The County Board still needed to vote to approve the project on April 18 [The developer] spoke to us after the meeting and said they would have someone do a noise study and get the information to us.
    A day or two after the zoning hearing, we observed workers staking out and area just east of our home. There was no way this area was a half mile away. My husband and I took a wheel and measured from the east edge of our property line to the west edge of the area being staked out.  The measurement was 870 feet, a big difference from the half mile we were told at the zoning hearing."

 The Taylor Family story continues--- we'll feature further excerpts in upcoming days.

GOT TURBINE TROUBLES or CONCERNS? JUST PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL 1-888-732-7234! The Coalition for Wisconsin Environmental Stewardship (CWESt) is a grass roots organization of made up of people concerned about the responsible placement of wind turbines. CWESt's primary goal is to provide a central source for both  gathering and giving out reliable information about industrial wind plant siting, issues relating to the industrial wind turbines and the effects on residents.  CWESt will take your concerns and information to our legislators in Madison. The number is good 24/7! The BPRC applauds CWESt for providing us with this very helpful resource.

What is five feet long, three feet wide, five to 6 inches thick, weighs several hundred pounds and can’t be broken by three adults jumping up and down on it?

 What roars loudly and sounds scary and makes you instinctually want to stay away?

What did the technical expert say to the turbine salesman?

Wait---is this supposed to be a joke?
Find out by reading this email!

It was sent from John Zimmerman, the president of VERA to some members of the American Wind Energy Association. The AWEA’s stated goal is to promote wind power growth through advocacy, communication, and education.

VERA provides and manages tasks and technical issues considered in commercial scale wind project development. Mr. Zimmerman’s experience is in performing technical due diligence and risk assessment across a variety of technologies.
The following email was written in January of 2000

Subject: Ice Shedding from Turbines and Public Safety

Dear [member names]
I’ve watched over the wind turbines GMP has had installed in Vermont over the last 10 years and I have several thoughts that [may] be useful to this discussion

Here in Vermont, and elsewhere in the northeastern US, the winds blow strongest at the mountain tops, where it is also the most icy. A common first question to wind developers in this region is ‘why don’t you put the wind turbines at the ski areas (where there is human development)’? The answer is because of the danger to public safety due to ice throws. Ski areas are not a good place for wind turbines.

Back in the mid 1980s one of the windy areas that was being considered for wind development was near to ski trails. Boeing and/or Hamilton Standard did some work to determine how far we must stay away from the ski trails to be safe from ice being thrown from their turbines (the MOD 5b was the [B]oeing machine at the time). Without going back to dig up those papers, and if I remember correctly, the distance was between .25 and .5 miles away, down wind. It’s a function of blade tip speed, so applicable to present day turbines too.

While the Boeing study was academic, the danger from ice being release[d] from rotor blades overhead is real—and a hard hat is not going to provide you with much comfort. I have stood near the turbines GMP had on Mt. Equinox in the early 1990’s and more recently the Zond 500 KW turbines in Searsberg VT during and after icing events. When there is heavy rime ice build up on the blades and the machines are running you instinctually want to stay away. They roar loudly and sound scarey. (sic) Probably you would feel safe within the .5 danger zone however.

One time we found a piece of ice near the base of the turbine that was pretty impressive. Three adults jumping on it couldn’t break [it] It looked to be 5 or 6 inches thick, 3 feet wide and about 5 feet long. Probably weighed several hundred pounds. We couldn’t lift it. There were a couple of other pieces nearby but we wondered where the rest of the pieces went.

In the winter, icing is a real danger and GMP therefore restricts public access to the site(s). Maintenance workers have developed protocol for working on turbines during icing conditions, though I am not familiar with the details. I’ll ‘dig into it’ if you want.

Regards,

John Zimmerman,
VERA

Note From the BPRC Research Nerd: For extra credit, read the following comment on the above. It’s from an email written by Randy Swisher, executive director of the AWEA since 1989.
This was written in February of 2004

Dear [name]

Here is a comment from John Zimmerman. He states that wind turbines don’t belong in ski areas, but I think it is really just a question of what is the appropriate setback. John describes some of the ice they have seen at the Searsburg site and it sounds pretty intimidating but manageable with proper setbacks.

I think that is the last of the information I have on the topic. It isn’t a lot but I hope you’ll find it helpful. Please let me know if you need anything else, and feel free to consult our website at www.awea.org as well.

Thanks for your interest. I hope next time I’m riding my bike in the Northeast Kingdom I will actually have a chance to see a few wind turbines!

Randy Swisher

Click here to visit the VERA website

Click here to visit the AWEA website

Click here to visit windaction.org where we found this document 

FOR EXTRA EXTRA CREDIT READ ABOUT RIME ICE:
What is it?
Hard rime is a white ice that forms when the water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects. It is often seen on trees atop mountains and ridges in winter, when low-hanging clouds cause freezing fog. This fog freezes to the windward (wind-facing) side of tree branches, buildings, or any other solid objects, usually with high wind velocities and air temperatures between 28 °F and 18 °F.

GOT TURBINE TROUBLES or CONCERNS? 

Call 1-888-732-7234! The Coalition for Wisconsin Environmental Stewardship (CWESt) is a grass roots organization of made up of people concerned about the responsible placement of wind turbines. CWESt's primary goal is to provide a central source for both  gathering and giving out reliable information about industrial wind plant siting, issues relating to the industrial wind turbines and the effects on residents.  CWESt will take your concerns and information to our legislators in Madison. The number is good 24/7! The BPRC applauds CWESt for providing us with this very helpful resource.

GOT TURBINE NOISE? PART TWO:

Today we feature the second chapter of a noise log kept by a Brownsville family who live 3/4 miles east of South Byron in Fond Du Lac County, Wisconsin. The new wind turbines have just gone on line there in March.

They aren't the only family we've heard are having turbine troubles. Since posting the first diary entry We've heard from several families. Children seem to be especially affected by the turbine noise and resulting headaches.

If you are having problems with turbines it's important you start a day-to-day diary right away so you will have a record of what is happening to you. And please let us know how you are doing! We will do all we can to get your story to our legislators and to others who may be able to help. CONTACT US!
The Diary Continues: 

April 12, 2008–

At breakfast asked (my son) if he could hear the  turbines in the house. “Yes, and I hear them in my room”, he said. “Some nights I can’t sleep”. His room is upstairs on the SW corner of the house. As I sit below his room (inside the house) I can hear the turbine at this moment.

9:30PM #4 not running, however I can hear the jet sound of #6.

I didn’t realize how feisty the wind people are.... Two farmers I have talked to are really angry about how they were treated. That is, once the contract was signed it meant the contractors could go where ever they wanted to on the farmer’s land.  One also had issues as to the placement of the tower road, he wanted it on the fence line or to take out the fence line to minimize land loss. He was told it would cost too much to re-survey the land. He told me that if they wind people came to his door now, he would tell them to leave.

The farmers said they were not told about the interduct or collection system that would be going through their land. Any complaints made to (the wind developer) was met with “it’s in your contract.”

April 13, 2008–
6AM #4 jet sound. Light wind but can hear #6. 10PM
#4 turning but sound is quiet.

April 14, 2008

– 9AM No turbines going and all is quiet. Very nice. No sound, like that of the plane  grounding after 9-11. All 86 turbines were still. Thought there must be problem.

Late afternoon--
They began turning again. By 10PM the noise of the jet flyover was back.

April 15 2008 

Turbine #4 not turning. #73 is loud. I could hear it in the house. I felt something unusual at the base of the back of my neck. Too loud.

3PM #4 turning. My wife says the sound, “Is loud”.

It may have happened before, however today is the first day that I noticed that our dog stopped  while walking from the house about 20 feet down the sidewalk to look North at the turbine.

April 16 2008–

During the day the wind is strong. The weather man says the wind will be 25-35 miles per  hour. So strong that I don’t hear the turbines very much.

From 6PM to 10PM the turbines were loud. I could hear #’s 4, 73, and 74a. Jet sound or like waiting for two trains to crash. We house a 360 (cubic inch) sprint car at our house. Tonight it was run for the first time this year. One of the guys mentioned he could hear the turbine (#4) over the sound of the race car engine while it idled. He was standing between the tire and the engine or right next to the engine. The car has no muffler.

Earlier my wife said she worked outside all afternoon in the wind and her ears were fine. When the wind died down and could hear the three of the turbines her ears hurt. She also mentioned the whooshes between turbines were out of sync.

It is 11:27 PM. I am at the computer and can hear #73 from inside my house with no windows open. When I went to bed my head felt “different”. I felt lightheaded or dizzy with my stomach not feeling quite right as well. We had spent much of the evening raking leaves and cleaning the yard.

April 17, 2008 - Jet sound some of the day.

April 18, 2008 – Fairly quiet.

April 19, 2008 – Wind from the North very slow so the sound is quiet.

April 20, 2008 – There is a little wind, sound fairly quiet jet sound at 6AM

April 21, 2008-
6AM. The sound had been quiet over the weekend. Now it is back to it’s irritating sound.    
10:30 PM can hear #73 like a train winding down the tracks. #4 sounds like a jet flying over.Only a slight wind on the ground.

April 22, 2008 –
6AM some sound.
3PM, sounds like a train. Could also hear # 73. 10PM like a train under a
load pulling a load of heavy cars up the Byron hill.

That hill is about 2 miles away.  

(Scroll down to the April 15th posting to read Part One of this diary. The BPRC sends our deepest thanks and concern to the family who shares this diary with us.)

A note from the BPRC Research Nerd: Want to see the very 40 story turbines that are causing this family and others trouble? You can see them being constructed if you go to the WE Energy website by clicking here.

Then scroll down to the entry below and read page 3 from the "instruction manual" which came with the turbines.  Then contact your legislators and ask them why the state of Wisconsin says it's OK to live 1000 feet from one of these 40 story machines when workers are advised by the manufacturer to always stay at least 1300 feet away unless necessary. And they have hard hats and safety gear! 

While you wonder about that, just for kicks, stroll down smoke-filled memory lane to watch another video from the days when another major industry promoted something they knew was harmful as something that caused no problem. Remember the Chesterfield Man? Click here to see him again!

GOT TURBINE TROUBLES or CONCERNS? JUST PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL 1-888-732-7234! The Coalition for Wisconsin Environmental Stewardship (CWESt) is a grass roots organization of made up of people concerned about the responsible placement of wind turbines. CWESt's primary goal is to provide a central source for both  gathering and giving out reliable information about industrial wind plant siting, issues relating to the industrial wind turbines and the effects on residents.  CWESt will take your concerns and information to our legislators in Madison. The number is good 24/7! The BPRC applauds CWESt for providing us with this very helpful resource.

THE MYSTERY OF THE 1000 FOOT SETBACK!

Where did it come from?

Although the state of Wisconsin says bringing up your kids 1000 feet from a 40 story turbine is safe, a handbook of Safety Regulations for Industrial Wind Turbine Operators and Technicians says this:

"Do not stay within a radius of 400m (1300ft) from the turbine unless it is necessary.
 If you have to inspect an operating turbine from the ground, do not stay under the rotor plane but observe the rotor from the front.
Make sure that children do not stay by or play near the turbine."

    (from Vestas Safety Regulations for Operators and Technicians: V90-3.0MW / V100-2.75MW, page 3) (Click here to read original document) (The Vestas turbines are almost identical to the Acciona turbines being proposed for Rock County)

BUCKY WANTS TO KNOW!

Why does the state of Wisconsin believe it is safe for our kids to live 1000 feet from these things when even the turbine manufacturer says to stay at least 1300 feet away unless it is necessary? An open records request revealed the state can't produce a single document that supports the safety of the 1000 foot set back.

So what is the answer to the mystery of Wisconsin's 1000 foot setback?

Why not contact your legislator and ask for a clue?

They want to hear from you!

(Click Here to Find Your Legislator's Contact Information)

( The BPRC thanks National Wind Watch. Visit them and learn more: click here) 

CLICK HERE TO READ THE THE ARTICLE FROM SATURDAY'S JANESVILLE GAZETTE ABOUT THE GROWING CONCERN OVER THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF LIVING TOO CLOSE TO INDUSTRIAL WIND TURBINES