Economist summary of the A G report on “smart meters”: astounding incompetence

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

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Ottawa-based economist Robert Lyman, who specializes in energy issues, has provided us with a summary of the highlights of the recently released Auditor General report, on the energy sector in Ontario. The government’s handling of this portfolio is astounding for its mismanagement, and wasted taxpayer and ratepayer dollars.

Read the summary from Mr Lyman Here: Ontario Auditor General Report on the Smart Metering Initiative

Realtors dispute economist study on wind farm neighbour property values

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

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Wind farm “monsters bad for Ontario: Realtors shoot back at property value study

Looks like a great place to live!!
Looks like a great place to live!!

Jennifer Paterson, Canadian Real Estate Wealth, December 18, 2014

A recent study by the University of Guelph, which found wind turbines do not have an impact on nearby property values, might have earned a big sigh of relief from investors – but the study’s results have been strongly criticized by members of the real estate industry.

“I have had several deals fall apart in this area because, in the appraisal report, it has been mentioned that there are windmills visible or adjacent to the property and, once a lender gets wind of that (forgive the pun), they will not fund a mortgage,” said Angela Jenkins, a mortgage agent at Dominion Lending Centres, who lives and works in the Melancthon region, where the study was conducted.

“If a person cannot get financing due to windmills, then how can this be a positive thing?”

The study, which was published this month in the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, analyzed more than 7,000 home and farm sales in the area, and found that at least 1,000 of these were sold more than once, some several times.*

John Leonard Goodwin, who has been a real estate broker for more than 10 years in the Grand Bend, Ont. market, asserted that wind turbines absolutely do affect property values. “Turbines complicate your property enjoyment, period,” he said. “That alone spells depreciated value(s).

“Turbines should be in remote, unpopulated locations. To all the folks who have turbines on their property: Enjoy your $18,000 per turbine per year, because you will be giving most of the lease payments back (in much lower property value) when you sell.

“These monsters are very bad for Ontario,” he continued. “We all pay to subsidize the electricity they produce and they will also cause a significant loss of real estate value.”

Lynn Stein, a sales representative at Hartford and Stein Real Estate, lives and sells real estate in Prince Edward County, where a large-scale wind turbine project is slated to begin.

“The turbines that are proposed here are quite large,” she said. “The majority of the population here very clearly doesn’t want them.

“Put simply, if you were to buy your future home, given the choice, would you buy where you would have noise, shadow flicker, an industrial view, potential health issues caused by the turbines, and the possibility of a very difficult resale, or would you spend your money elsewhere?”

Read the full story and comments here.

*Wind Concerns Ontario Editor’s note– The writer is incorrect: Vyn had a data set of 5,414 residences but very few, 124, were within 5 km of a turbine. Several were as far as 50 km from a turbine. This is a tactic designed to “dilute” any actual effect. Author Richard Vyn himself said that the limitations of this study (sponsored by MPAC, perhaps to buttress their own disastrous study on this issue earlier this year) were significant and should not be overlooked. Toward the end of his paper he admits, “…while the results indicate a general lack of significantly negative effects across properties examined in this study, this does not preclude any negative effects occurring on individual properties.”

The Realtors and financing professionals contacted for this article also did not note that Vyn failed to include expired listings, i.e., properties that were listed for sale, but never sold.

Legal actions against wind farms continue

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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This is a heavy duty week as Ontario communities fight back against the unwanted incursion of huge wind power generation facilities. As you know, the Green Energy Act removed local land-use planning powers for renewable power projects, so the environmental appeal process and ultimately the courts, along with a noise nuisance bylaw, is the only way communities can act to protect their residents.

(The new procurement process for large-scale renewable power projects still does not allow for a return of municipal planning powers; communities can have a say, as long as it’s not “no” and in fact, the regional energy plans are pre-designed by the province—in other words, if the province decides you’re getting a wind “farm” then you are. But we digress…)

This week:

Manvers/Pontypool: last few days of the appeal of the Sumac Ridge wind power project, part of which is on the Oak Ridges Moraine, a fragile and (formerly) protected environment. The Green Energy Act over-rode the Oak Ridges Moraine Protection Act, along with 20 other pieces of legislation.) The City of Kawartha Lakes is involved.

Plympton-Wyoming: again, the municipality is involved with the appeal of the Suncor Cedar Point wind power generation project. Today, the Environmental Review Tribunal hears a motion for a stay of proceedings, until experts can review the raw data from the Health Canada Wind Turbine Noise and Health study. (No report or article has yet been published from this study; there is only a brief summary and PowerPoint presentation.) The Health Canada study showed that 16.5% of people living within 2 km of a wind turbine were experiencing distress.

Niagara Region: Mothers Against Wind Turbines is a appealing the 77, 3-megawatt turbine Niagara Region wind power project, which will affect over 4,000 homes. Preliminary hearing is tomorrow in Wellandport.

Other appeals have been filed and several judicial reviews are in various stages, as well as private legal actions on property value loss and nuisance. Decisions are expected on the Ostrander Point appeal (lawyer Eric Gillespie), and the Drennan/Dixon appeal (the Constitutional challenge, lawyer Julian Falconer).

Ottawa Wind Concerns has retained a legal firm and is prepared to enact legal actions should another proposal come forward for a wind power project.

Contact us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com Donations welcome at PO Box 3, North Gower K0A 2T0

Wind farm property value study should not have been published: Queens prof

09 Tuesday Dec 2014

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You may have seen the Canadian Press story that surfaced on Sunday and Monday about a study done by a University of Guelph agricultural economics teacher, which was published in the Journal of Agricultural Economics. While the headlines said wind turbines caused NO effect on property value, the real study said otherwise: the co-authors noted that they had very little data, that expired listings (houses listed for sale that never sold) were not included, and neither were sales not on the open market, such as the properties purchased by wind power developers.

So the situation was: very few sales, houses not selling at all, and some houses that did sell changed hands many times. What’s wrong with that picture?

Well, plenty. Here’s a letter to the editor of the journal that published the study, released today. Too bad the damage has been done by the headline writers.

Letter to the Editors of Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics:

The paper by Vyn and McCullough (2014) should not have been published in its current form as the results are being misinterpreted and highly publicized in the press and in radio broadcasts. The core issue is the lack of power in the statistical tests, a problem partially acknowledged by the authors but then dismissed by their focusing attention on tests for the sensitivity of their model specification. The article appears to encourage the misinterpretation of its statistical findings.

Out of the 5414 sales, only 79 post-turbine sales are of properties within a 5 kilometer radius and the rest are within a 50 kilometer radius. The diversity of the houses in the sample is very large as indicated by their price range of ten thousand to two million dollars and by the relatively low R-squares (0.57) in the hedonic regressions. Given the small number of properties that may have been adversely affected and the great diversity of properties in the sample, it is not at all surprising that the regressions yield no ‘statistically significant’ results. The shortage of observations on properties close to the turbines cannot be overcome by extensive sensitivity testing of model form. The problem is with the lack of data not with model form and focusing on the form tends to obfuscate the issue.

The authors do recognize the data problem: “Unfortunately, there are relatively few observations in the post-turbine periods that are in close proximity to turbines” (p 375) and “Hence, these numbers of observations are likely too few to detect significant effects, which represents a major limitation of this analysis” (p 387). But there are three problems that should have been picked up and corrected through the peer review and editorial decision process.

First, the authors conclude:

“The empirical results generated by the hedonic models, using three different measures to account for disamenity effects, suggest that these turbines have not impacted the value of surrounding properties” (p 388). This is wrong for two reasons. First they could not discern an impact which is different from not having an impact. Second, they misuse the term ‘value’. If you have a choice between two identical properties, identical in all respects except that one is close to a turbine while the other is not and if you choose the far one, then the turbine has an effect on the value of the property. This hypothetical example tests the paper’s hypothesis using common sense rather than a statistical measure.

Second, the authors claim:

“The findings of this paper will provide evidence that may help to resolve the controversy that exists in Ontario regarding the impacts of wind turbines on property values” (p 369) and then proceed to do all they can to make a non-finding appear important and repeat the general statement that they found no significant impact. They correctly said in the CBC interview this morning that their study did not find a statistically significant price effect but the public and reporters, not being familiar with statistical terms interpret this as saying that there was no price effect. Not finding a statistically significant impact due to a data shortage does not mean that there was no significant (i.e. important) impact. This distinction was not made clear enough in the paper nor in the follow up interviews and newspaper articles.

Third, the reviewers and finally the editors should have insisted on the power of the statistical tests to be calculated and reported. I understand that editors in the major health science journals insist on this as their readers, doctors and other clinicians, are not always aware of statistical fine-points but they need to be fully aware of the qualifications before using the results to change their practice. Given the potential impact a misinterpretation of the findings could generate, the test of the power should be reported even in the abstract. The reader should be told how big an impact would have to be before it can be detected by a statistical test with this number of observations. Had the price of properties near the turbines been 10 percent lower than they actually were, would the model have yielded a statistically significant finding of a price decrease at say the 0.05 probability level? What about a 20 percent decrease, would it have been ‘statistically significant’? Answers to this type of question would have been easy to produce and far more relevant that sensitivity tests of the model form.

The paper deals with an important issue that can have serious policy implications affecting the wellbeing of many people. The results can affect the location of wind turbine farms and the compensation claims of affected parties. Incorrect information or interpretations can be very hard to correct. In such cases, it is the journal editors’ responsibility to ensure that results are presented in a manner that, at the very least, does not encourage the misinterpretation of the findings.

Sincerely,

Andrejs Skaburskis, Professor Emeritus

North American Editor: Urban Studies,

School of Urban and Regional Planning,

Queen’s University,

Kingston Ontario, Canada

 

___________________________________________________

Richard J. Vyn and Ryan M. McCullough (2014), The Effects of Wind Turbines on Property Values in Ontario: Does Public Perception Match Empirical Evidence? Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics 62 p. 365–392

 

MPP MacLeod: return local land-use planning control

02 Tuesday Dec 2014

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LISA MACLEOD MPP-NEPEAN-CARLETON
NEWS RELEASE
December 2, 2014
END THE RURAL-URBAN DIVIDE, RESTORE LOCAL DECISION MAKING: MACLEOD
(Queen’s Park)- Nepean- Carleton PC MPP Lisa MacLeod brought the fight against wind turbine developments once again to Queen’s Park today.
“One of the big challenges the government has is credibility in rural and remote communities across the province because of the Green Energy Act.  The government should restore local decision making to municipalities in an effort to signal they respect those communities”, said MacLeod
The Green Energy Act overrides 21 different pieces of legislation, including the Heritage Act and the Planning Act, so wind turbine developers can build projects without any push back from municipalities or their residents.
“The rural-urban divide in Ontario is very real as a result of disastrous policies like the Green Energy Act.  It is never too late for the Liberal Government to admit it is wrong and make wind turbine developers go through the same processes any other developer would have to in the Province of Ontario”, concluded MacLeod.
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For More Information Contact Jordan Milks
1-416-352-6351

 

What the Health Canada noise study means for North Gower

29 Saturday Nov 2014

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Health Canada study results show North Gower wind farm would have made more than 100 people sick

Many people were disappointed in the results contained in the summary of the Health Canada Wind Turbine Noise and Health study, which was released in a hurry on November 6th.

While the mainstream media picked up on the message as being “there is no association between wind turbine noise and health effects” what Health Canada actually said in its news release was this:

No evidence was found to support a link between exposure to wind turbine noise and any of the self-reported or measured health endpoints examined. However, the study did demonstrate a relationship between increasing levels of wind turbine noise and annoyance towards several features (including noise, vibration, shadow flicker, and the aircraft warning lights on top of the turbines) associated with wind turbines.

In fact, the study found that an average of 16.5% of people within 2 km of wind turbines, or a wind turbine (whether multiples were considered is not clear), had severe distress or “annoyance”. The closer people lived, the worse that result was: 25% of people at 550 meters or less (some people waived the setback as part of their contract with the wind power developers) had adverse health effects related to the distress or annoyance, annoyance being a medical term.

The adverse health effects from the annoyance listed by Health Canada were:migraine, tinnitus (chronic ringing in the ears), dizziness, sleep disturbance or disorder, and cardiovascular effects such as elevated blood pressure.

So, what would that mean for North Gower, if the wind power generation project proposed by Prowind in 2008 gone ahead (remember, it got as close as one could to a Feed In Tariff contract, before the government paused the subsidy program in the spring of 2013–it is NOT true that it would never have been approved, it was virtually there).

Thanks to volunteers who have mapped the area, using a schematic of the turbine locations which was leaked to us, we know this:

Number of homes within 800 meters of a turbine: 43

Number of homes within 1.6 km of a turbine: 234

TOTAL number of homes that would be most affected: 277

At an average of 2.5 people/home, that would be 692 people, and at an average of 16.5% affected by distress/annoyance, that would be 114 people.

This is considered to be a conservative figure as Health Canada did not do any follow up on the significant number of houses it discovered vacant or demolished in the study. These were “mature” turbine projects and as we know from the experience of people living in areas like Chatham-Kent, Clear Creek, Ripley and Kincardine, the people most affected leave within six months to a year.

114 people.

At least some of them children.

And yet the Ontario government continues to approve these power projects, despite evidence of harm to health, and the fact that Ontario does not need the power. And the wind power lobby group, the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) persists in the mythology that wind power is clean and good for the environment.

Health Canada is taking no action, despite these results, and has no intention of studying wind turbine noise further*. The people of North Gower have a right to expect more from the federal government, and from Health Canada, which is supposed to used sound science principles to protect citizens.

Our Member of Parliament is Pierre Poilievre at pierre.poilievre@parl.gc.ca if you have any comments on what the Health Canada study means to you and our community.

Ottawa Wind Concerns

PO Box 3, North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

*As per a personal meeting with the study team representatives, Ottawa, November 7.

Health Canada needs to take action on wind farms: noise study “too little, too late”

29 Saturday Nov 2014

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November 28, 2014 Canadian Medical Association Journal blog

Carmen Krogh, BScPharm (retired), is a peer reviewed IWT health researcher and formerDirector of Publications and Editor-in-Chief of the CPS.

R Y McMurtry is Professor Emeritus (Surgery) of Western University (formerly University of Western Ontario). Dr. McMurtry was also anADM at Health Canada 2000-02

Industrial wind turbines (IWTs) are being erected at rapid pace around the world. Coinciding with the introduction of IWTs, some individuals living in proximity to IWTs report adverse health effects including annoyance, sleep disturbance, stress-related health impacts and reduced quality of life. [i],[ii],[iii],[iv],[v],[vi],[vii],[viii],[ix],[x],[xi],[xii] In some cases Canadian families reporting adverse health effects have abandoned their homes, been billeted away from their homes or hired legal counsel to successfully reach a financial agreement with the wind energy developer.[xiii]

To help address public concern over these health effects Health Canada (HC) announced the Health Canada Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study (HC Study) 2 years ago and brought forth preliminary results November 6, 2014.

Here we briefly comment on the HC Study results and provide some historical context.

Acknowledgement of IWT adverse health effects is not new. The term “annoyance” frequently appears when discussing IWT health effects.

In a 2009 letter the Honourable Rona Ambrose, disclosed:

“Health Canada provides advice on the health effect of noise and low-frequency electric and magnetic fields from proposed wind turbine projects…To date, their examination of the scientific literature on wind turbine noise is that the only health effect conclusively demonstrated from exposure to wind turbine noise is an increase of self-reported general annoyance and complaints (i.e., headaches, nausea, tinnitus, vertigo).” [xiv]

In 2009, the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) sponsored a literature review which acknowledges the reported symptoms such as headaches, nausea, tinnitus, vertigo and state they “… are not new and have been published previously in the context of “annoyance”…” and are the “… well-known stress effects of exposure to noise …”[xv]

In 2011, a health survey of people exposed to IWTs in Ontario reported altered quality of life, sleep disturbance, excessive tiredness, headaches, stress and distress. [xvi]

In the same year, CanWEA posted a media release which advised those impacted by wind turbine annoyance stating “The association has always acknowledged that a small percentage of people can be annoyed by wind turbines in their vicinity. … When annoyance has a significant impact on an individual’s quality of life, it is important that they consult their doctor.”[xvii]

It turns out it’s not a small percentage of people annoyed by wind turbines. An Ontario Government report concluded a non-trivial percentage of persons are expected to be highly annoyed.

The December 2011 report prepared by a member of CanWEA for the Ontario Ministry of Environment states in the conclusions:

“The audible sound from wind turbines, at the levels experienced at typical receptor distances in Ontario, is nonetheless expected to result in a non-trivial percentage of persons being highly annoyed. As with sounds from many sources, research has shown that annoyance associated with sound from wind turbines can be expected to contribute to stress related health impacts in some persons.”[xviii]

The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges noise induced annoyance to be a health effect [xix] and the results of WHO research “…confirmed, on an epidemiological level, an increased health risk from chronic noise annoyance…”[xx]

HC also acknowledges noise induced annoyance to be an adverse health effect. [xxi],[xxii] The Principal Investigator of the recent HC Study also states “noise-induced annoyance is an adverse health effect”. [xxiii]

Canadian Government sponsored research has found statistically significant relationships from IWT noise exposure.

A 2014 review article in the Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine reports:

“In 2013, research funded by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment indicated a statistically significant relation between residents’ distance from the turbine and the symptoms of disturbed sleep, vertigo and tinnitus, and recommended that future research focus on the effects of wind turbine noise on sleep disturbance and symptoms of inner ear problems.” [xxiv]

Recently on November 6, 2014, HC posted on its website preliminary results of its HC Study[xxv]. Wind turbine noise “…. annoyance was found to be statistically related to several self-reporting health effects including, but not limited to, blood pressure, migraines, tinnitus, dizziness, scores on the PSQI, and perceived stress” as well as related to “measured hair cortisol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure.”

These troubling results come as no surprise. Since at least 2007 HC employees including the Principal Investigator of the HC Study recommended wind turbine noise criteria which they predict will result in adverse health effects. (i.e. result in an increase percentage highly annoyed).[xxvi],[xxvii],[xxviii]

Then turbines were built and HC spent 2.1 million dollars to find out it appears to have under predicted the impact of IWT noise. HC’s IWT noise criteria does not use a dose response based on IWT noise but rather road noise. But of course IWTs are not cars and peer-reviewed studies consistently document that IWTs produce sound that is perceived to be more annoying than transportation or industrial noise at comparable sound pressure levels. [xxix],[xxx]

IWT noise annoyance starts at dBA sound pressure levels in the low 30s and rises sharply at 35 dBA as compared to road noise which starts at 55 dBA. These findings are further supported by the HC Study’s preliminary results.[xxxi]

IWT noise characteristics that are identified as plausible causes for reported health effects include amplitude modulation, audible low- frequency noise (LFN), infrasound, tonal noise, impulse noise and night-time noise. [xxxii]

The logical solution would be to develop IWT noise criteria which will protect human health but that would present a barrier to wind energy development. Noise limits impacts IWT siting, cost of energy produced [xxxiii] and by extension corporate profits. The wind energy industry has actively lobbied governments to be granted IWT noise exposure limits which benefit their industry.

Canadians trying to understand this should be mindful the Government of Canada has invested and distributed significant amounts of public money to attract and support the wind energy industry. [xxxiv],[xxxv],[xxxvi],[xxxvii],[xxxviii],[xxxix],[xl],[xli] In addition to providing funding, the Government of Canada in collaboration with wind industry stakeholders has developed the Wind Technology Road Map (Wind TRM) [xlii] which Natural Resources Canada defined to be an “…industry-led, government supported initiative that has developed a long-term vision for the Canadian wind energy industry …”.[xliii]

Canada’s Wind TRM states “Members of the Steering Committee, government and our industry will be using this roadmap to direct the actions that are necessary for Canada to develop its vast wind resources.”[xliv] HC is a member of the Interdepartmental Wind Technology Road Map Committee [xlv] which was created to assist in the implementation of Canada’s Wind TRM. [xlvi] One of the “key action items” detailed in the Wind TRM calls for Government and Industry collaboration to develop and maintain government documents that address concerns raised about wind energy projects including that of noise, infrasound and other. [xlvii]

Some jurisdictions are trying to take action to protect their residents. For example, several municipalities in Ontario are trying to establish bylaws that protect from IWT noise. In Wisconsin, on October 14, 2014 the Brown County Board of Health unanimously approved a motion to declare the IWTs at a local project a Human Health Hazard. [xlviii]

It would appear HC’s research effort is too little too late. A non-trivial percentage of Canadians continue to experience adverse health effects. HC now has additional scientific evidence of the “conclusively demonstrated” effects from exposure to IWT noise. It is time for HC to take action to help Canadians maintain and improve their health.

Read the full posting here.

New bill proposes return of local land-use planning powers

27 Thursday Nov 2014

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MPP Jim Wilson, also the interim leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, put forward a bill to amend the Planning Act, to return the local land-use planning powers that were removed by the Green Energy Act in 2009.

The Green Energy Act actually superceded 21 pieces of legislation in Ontario, in order to ease the way for large wind and solar power generation projects, but mostly wind.

You may recall that, following a petition by residents in the North Gower-Richmond area to the City of Ottawa last year, Ottawa City Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting the residents’ declaration that the  community was Not A Willing Host to large-scale wind power projects, and asked the province to return local land-use planning powers.

Rideau-Goulbourn councillor Scott Moffatt responded to the news in an email to Ottawa Wind Concerns with this comment:

I am aware that this bill was introduced by MPP Wilson in 2013 and am pleased to see him re-introduce it today at Queen’s Park.  It certainly echoes the motion that was carried at Council last November.

Scott Moffatt

It is extremely disappointing that while the Ontario government, including Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli, has said communities could play a larger role in the siting of power projects and that community approval would be important, the newly released procurement process guidelines indicate that communities can still not say NO.

See the video clip of MPP Wilson here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKzbxexVqcA&feature=youtu.be

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Donations welcome to help us with expenses and to maintain our retainer for legal services: PO Box 3, North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

Expert panel says Health Canada noise study shows turbine noise causes adverse health effects

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

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Nobody home? Health Canada didn't bother to ask why

Nobody home? Health Canada didn’t bother to ask why

HEALTH CANADA NOISE STUDY A MISSED OPPORTUNITY TO FIND THE TRUTH: WIND CONCERNS ONTARIO

(Reposted from the Wind Concerns Ontario website)

Wind Concerns Ontario advises results summary and public pamphlet be withdrawn

November 25, 2014

On November 6, 2014, Health Canada released its long-awaited results of the $2.1-million, publicly funded Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study. Only, it didn’t: what was released in a whirlwind public relations effort was a summary of the study results—no data was presented, nor was there a full formal report, or a publication that had undergone the promised “peer” review, by scientists.

Wind Concerns Ontario immediately convened an expert panel to review the documents available (the summary plus a PowerPoint presentation, and basic study details available on the government website) and has produced a summary report of their comments. The panel consisted of several university professors with expertise in physics and acoustics, as well as an epidemiologist, and a health researcher.

The unanimous conclusion of the expert panel is that the study design was flawed; even so, there are clear findings of a relationship between wind turbine noise and adverse health effects.

Key findings from the review panel:

  • Study summary was released prematurely, without a full report, expected peer review, supporting data or analysis
  • Study design was to raise questions but Health Canada concludes inappropriately there is “no association” between turbine noise and adverse health effects; however, the study does find significant correlation between turbine noise and annoyance (an established adverse health effect)—these statements contradict
  • Population sample used included people who were getting a direct benefit from wind power development including money
  • A significant number of addresses were found to have vacant homes or houses that had been demolished—the reasons for this were not explored
  • Work on infrasound and low frequency noise is completely inadequate, say acoustics experts. One hour averages were used (in summer, the season of low wind); also industry-sourced estimates of yearly averages were used in place of actual in-home noise measurement
  • Numerous biases and other errors affect the credibility of some of the study results, as presented in the summary

As the stakeholder group in Ontario, a coalition of community groups and individuals concerned about the impact of industrial-scale wind power generation projects on human health, the environment, and the economy, Wind Concerns Ontario wishes to express its disappointment in Health Canada, which has as its goal the protection of the health of Canadians, using sound science.

Wind Concerns Ontario sent a letter today to the Minister of Health, the Honourable Rona Ambrose, together with the summary of our review panel comments, and a series of recommendations.

We recommend that:

  • Health Canada should remove the summary findings from the Health Canada website in their current version
  • Health Canada should release the final report only after it has gone through the normal peer-review process and been accepted for publication in a recognized academic journal
  • Health Canada should return to the study areas and present the study findings in a series of public meetings, as befitting a publicly-funded research project
  • Health Canada should rescind the “pamphlet” in its current form and if such a publication is deemed necessary, remove the claims about the “comprehensive” nature of the study, and further, affix the disclaimer more prominently.

Please read the full commentary document based on our review panel input here. WCO-HCanResponseNov25

windconcerns@gmail.com 

Wind turbine noise and health: what the wind lobby doesn’t want you to know

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

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The wind industry is dangerous to human health, posing risks to everything from dizziness and nausea to chronic stress and heart conditions

Lawrence Solomon, FR Comment, The Financial Post, November 25, 2014

A Canadian court will soon decide if wind turbines violate Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms by posing a risk to human health. Charter case decisions can be convoluted but the fundamental question of health at issue here is straightforward. Wind turbines, from all that is today known and by any rational measure, represent a risk to those living in their vicinity.

Although the wind industry and its government backers tend to dismiss concerns, the evidence of harm in communities that host wind turbines is overwhelming. Literally thousands of people around the world report similar adverse health effects, some so serious that owners abandon their homes. Studies of noise from turbines — though few in number, short in duration, tentative in their findings and conducted by interested parties — point to dangers. As if these weren’t enough, basic science sounds the alarm on wind turbines.

Wind turbines produce audible sound waves known to cause what medical science calls “annoyance,” a state of health that can lead to a constellation of illnesses called wind turbine syndrome (WTS). As Health Canada reported earlier this month, following a Statistics Canada survey it commissioned of people living in the vicinity of wind turbines, “[wind turbine noise] annoyance was found to be statistically related to several self-reported health effects including, but not limited to, blood pressure, migraines, tinnitus [ringing in the ears], dizziness” and sleep disorders. The annoyance was also found to be statistically associated with objective measurements of chronic stress and blood pressure. Health Canada’s bottom line: “the findings support a potential link between long-term high annoyance and health.”

The audible sound waves — these have a frequency above 20 Hz — may be the least of the worries faced by those living near wind turbines. The turbines also produce copious amounts of sound waves below 20 Hz, making them inaudible to the human ear and thus, say wind proponents, harmless. Yet sound at this low frequency, known as infrasound, should not be thought of as faint or weak. The U.S. military has studied the use of infrasound in non-lethal weapons. Many mammals — giraffes, elephants, whales — communicate with each other at infrasound frequencies, even when many kilometres apart. Powerful infrasound waves, in fact, explain how animals sense the coming of earthquakes well before humans do — and why animals fled to safety during the calamitous Sumatran and Japanese tsunamis of recent years.

Read the full article and comments here.

The wind power project that was proposed for the North Gower area was to be 8-10, 2.5 megawatt wind turbines. 1,000 homes would have been within 3 km of the turbines. No new project has yet been proposed under the new “procurement” process for large renewable power projects (which we don’t need)  in Ontario.