Tag Archives: health impacts wind farms

Wind farm documentaries show community impact of power projects

13 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

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As the residents of Stormont Dundas and Glengarry come to terms with the proposal for a large wind power project in their communities, they are interested in receiving more information, and learning about the experience of other Ontario communities.

Several important documentary films have been made in recent years.

WIND RUSH-CBC

Wind Rush was aired in 2013 by the CBC and may be viewed online here. In the new documentary film WIND RUSH, produced for CBC Doc Zone by Toronto’s 90th Parallel Productions, the battleground for the pro and anti wind forces is southern Ontario. The government there pledged to wean the province off coal fired generation plants and replace them with green wind energy.

But as soon as the turbines went up in places like Wolf Island, Amaranth and Bruce County, people realized they could hear them. Sometimes it was like a whisper, but other times it sounded more like a jet taking off.

And then it got worse.

New turbines started coming in at two and three times the size of the old ones. And they were even louder. It led to chronic sleeplessness for many people living close by—and that can lead to diabetes, depression and heart disease. Others were affected in their inner ears by low-level sounds that set off their equilibrium. Doctors started seeing patient after patient complaining of the same sets of symptoms. And then people started to realize that no one had done any significant human health studies before giving the green light to the turbine farms.


The Hammonds, wind farmers

WIND RUSH takes viewers to southwestern Alberta, where wind has been an energy staple for more than twenty years. There is plenty of room for humans and windmills to coexist—a stark contrast to Ontario, where the same prairie technology was installed in a dramatically different landscape. The film then moves to Denmark, a country long considered the poster-child for the wind energy movement. But as WIND RUSH reveals, the relationship between the Danes and turbines has soured.

WIND RUSH talks to people on either side of the turbine divide, and then turns to scientists to try and determine what has gone wrong. In the next several years the turbines will double in size again—bigger, louder and more powerful. But without sufficient research have the people who live among the wind farms been forgotten?

BIG WIND-TVO

See this film here.

“Big Wind” explores the conflict over the controversial development of industrial wind turbines in Ontario. It is a divisive issue that at times pits neighbour against neighbour, residents against corporations, and the people against their government.

DOWN WIND-Sun Media

See a preview of this video and purchase/download here.*

The green energy scam: how corporations are making millions while Ontario communities are being changed forever.

*Ottawa Wind Concerns owns a copy of this DVD and would be pleased to offer it in a public showing. Contact us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

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Proof of health problems from wind turbine noise, say public health doctors

11 Monday May 2015

Posted by in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

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Drs Ian Arra and Hazel Lynn, together with several associates, have now published a peer-reviewed article based on their literature review of studies on wind turbine noise and health impacts.

Their conclusion: we have demonstrated the presence of reasonable evidence (Level Four and Five) that an association exists between wind turbines and distress in humans. The existence of a dose-response relationship (between distance from wind turbines and distress) and the consistency of association across studies found in the scientific literature argues for the credibility of this association.

Read the complete article here.

The wind power development lobby insists there is not relationship between wind turbine noise, inaudible noise/low-frequency noise/infrasound, and often implies that people who claim such effects are actually ill-informed or not receiving money. A spokesperson for the Ontario Federation of Agriculture told an audience at this year’s Rural Ontario Municipalities Association meeting that anyone claiming to experience health impacts from turbine noise had questionable mental health stability and that the listener should “just cough on them.” His remarks were withdrawn by the OFA with an apology shortly thereafter.

Wind farm health and property value impacts: what the developer isn’t telling you

11 Monday May 2015

Posted by in Wind power

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Two information events were held in North Stormont last week; a panel discussion on wind power issues, hosted by the Lions’ Club in Finch on May 6, and in Crysler on May 7, the first Open House on the North Stormont wind “farm” hosted by power developer EDP Renewables.

We have already reported on the Lions’ Club event and doubtless the media will be along shortly, too; we have reports from people who attended the EDP event.

Apparently, the power developer had brochures available on health and property value impacts. Here is the “other side” on these issues.

Health

The wind power lobby is focusing on the Health Canada study which, they say, claims no “causal link” between wind turbine noise and health effects. The truth? The Health Canada study was not designed to find a causal link, so, surprise! What it DID find, however was that significant numbers of people are distressed by the turbine noise and infrasound (low frequency or inaudible sound). In Health Canada’s  PowerPoint presentation of its results, the following points were made:

  • as wind turbine noise levels increased, so did respondents’ annoyance (distress)…this was a statistically significant finding
  • in comparison to aircraft, rail or road traffic noise, annoyance/distress due to wind turbine noise was found to begin at lower levels, e.g., ~35dBA
  • the prevalence of wind turbine noise annoyance/distress was higher in Ontario than in PEI (the other area studied) and,
  • wind turbine noise annoyance/distress in the Ontario sample persisted up to distances between 1 and 2 km–in PEI this was restricted to

In fact, the Health Canada study found,16.5% of people within 1 km of a turbine experienced annoyance/distress, and at 550 metres, that went up to 25%

More recently, the Council of Canadian Academies released their report, a literature review on wind turbine noise, with the following important findings:

  • the evidence is sufficient to support a causal association between exposure to wind turbine noise and annoyance
  • standard methods of measuring sound may not capture low-frequency sound characteristic of wind turbine noise (in other words, the way Ontario is measuring turbine noise–and not measuring infrasound at all–is not adequate to protect health)
  • there is limited evidence to establish a causal relationship between exposure to wind turbine noise and sleep disturbance (which is known to cause health effects), and
  • knowledge gaps prevent a full assessment of health effects of wind turbine noise–proper population studies, especially studies of sensitive populations such as children, have not yet been done.

Did EDP Renewables present these facts at their Open House?

Property values

We’ll keep this short: we’re betting EDP brandished the recent study done by Richard Vyn of the University of Guelph, which is supposed to prove that property values around wind turbines don’t change. Aside from the fact that this is nonsense, and Vyn’s study was poorly structured—that’s not what he says!!! In fact, Vyn cautions the reader that there were significant limitations in how he went about his study and this [his conclusion] does not preclude any negative effects from occurring on individual properties. Read more analysis of the Vyn report at Wind Farm Realities.

The wind power developer is taking care to be seen to address the issues of health and property values, but they are being very selective in their choice of reference material (and in the coming federal election, you might ask candidates WHY the federal government used taxpayer money to create a misleading, attractive colour brochure to help the wind industry)

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

NOTE: This post certainly got us a lot of attention from the wind power industry. A wind industry communications officer from the UK accused us of causing harm to people by putting this information out there (he claimed people with real illnesses would not seek treatment because they will think instead it’s just wind turbine noise–absolutely unjustified and frankly, stupid); he was seconded by pro-wind physician George Crisp from Australia, and they were joined on Twitter by Chris Young, board member with the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association and employee of NorSun Energy in Ottawa. Mr Young pronounced us as “irrelevant.”

The wind power lobbyists get rich: David Frum

27 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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Excellent summary of what wind power in Ontario is really all about from columnist David Frum. Using the example of the egregious project proposed –and now approved–for Prince Edward County and Ostrander Point, Mr Frum says wind power is harming the environment, not helping it.

Add to that the health impacts for residents nearby wind power generation facilities (they’re not “farms”) and you have a lose-lose situation.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/26/david-frum-expensive-power-ruined-landscapes/

Expensive power, ruined lands

David Frum

Must we despoil Ontario’s environment in order to save it?

On Feb. 8, the Environmental Review Tribunal will consider an application to build nine large wind turbines on one of the most scenic points in one of Ontario’s most scenic places.

Ostrander Point Road bisects the small peninsula leading to the Prince Edward Point National Wildlife Area. The peninsula is an open area of meadows and wood thickets, bounded to north and south by the Lake. It’s a true beauty spot, but it also happens to get a lot of wind. Which is why the Ministry of the Environment has approved a project to generate up to 22.5 megawatts of electricity from wind turbines 200-300 feet tall.

This project is the first of many planned for Prince Edward County. This uniquely beautiful region of Ontario — now enjoying an economic revival thanks to winemaking, artisan farming and tourism — is to be spiked with turbines to realize the McGuinty government’s green-energy ambitions.

Moving Ontario off coal is a laudable aspiration. But moving to power that flunks the market test is no boon to the environment. Money is a limited resource, too, and money that is wasted on projects that don’ t make sense is money unavailable for other purposes: hazardous waste clean up, water purification, land conservation.

Wind energy continues to flunk the market test. Ontario buys wind energy at a price 50% higher than it would have to pay for electricity from natural gas. (A new natural gas facility can make money selling electricity at 7-8 cents a kilowatt-hour. Ontario buys newly installed windpower at prices of about 11 cents per kilowatt-hour.)

Worse, unlike solar power, windpower is not likely to become more economic in the future. The main items in the cost of wind are the cost of acquiring the ground underneath the turbines, the cost of wiring turbines to the grid, and the cost of maintaining those wires — in other words, land and labor. Solar power can at least promise to slide down a cost curve. Wind can’t.

Yet Ontario already has installed 1,500 megawatts of wind capacity and is committing to more. Why? There are cheaper and less landscape-blotting ways to go green. But a series of bad decisions in the past have pushed Ontario into a cul-de-sac demanding more and more bad decisions in the years ahead.

The cheapest and cleanest of all energy sources is hydropower. That was true in the past, and it remains true now. Canada has abundant hydro potential — and in fact Manitoba and Quebec have abundant hydro for sale right now.

But if Hydro is cheap in the long run, it requires big investments in the here and now: big investments not only in dams and other facilities, but also big investments in the transmission wires to move the electricity to market.

Those investments must be financed by debt, and Ontario flinches from piling new debt atop its terrifying mountain of existing debt.

Here’s the real beauty of windpower from the McGuinty government’s point of view: The higher cost of wind electricity can be hidden from view, tucked into Hydro consumers’ bills, hidden by gimmicks that few people notice and fewer people understand.

In exchange for receiving a higher price for his power — a much higher price — the wind power producer shoulders the capital cost of financing new electricity capacity. The transaction has the same loan-shark logic as “rent to own” vs. borrowing to buy: You pay more over the life of the product in return for not tapping your dwindling credit.

The bad decision is pushed along by a heavy seasoning of ideology: wind good! dams bad!

And of course lobbying and interest-group politicking exert their own sway over Queen’s Park: A power source that costs 50% more than its next competitor can always find a few hundred thousand dollars to hire and reward friends and supporters.

Wind enriches lobbyists. It satisfies certain varieties of environmentalists. And it protects the McGuinty government from awkward financial realities. That’s a win-win-win all around, except for the over-charged power customers (who won’t know what’s happening until it’s too late) and the people who live upon the brutalized landscape of Prince Edward County (and how many of them — us! — are there anyway)?

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