Tag Archives: infrasound

Australian wind farm noise study shows neighbours at risk for health problems

29 Thursday Jan 2015

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This is a story provided by Wind Watch, which has access to a subscriber-only report from The Australian.

Turbines may well blow an ill wind over locals, ‘first’ study shows

Credit:  By: GRAHAM LLOYD. From: The Australian. January 21, 2015. ~~

People living near wind farms face a greater risk of suffering health complaints caused by the low-frequency noise generated by turbines, a groundbreaking study has found. The study by acoustics expert Steven Cooper is the first in the world in which a wind turbine ­operator had fully co-operated and turned wind turbines off completely during the testing. It opens the way for a full-scale medical trail that may resolve the contentious debate about the health impact of wind farms.

Funded by wind farm operator Pacific Hydro, the study was conducted at Cape Bridgewater in southwest Victoria where residents have long complained about headaches, chest pains and sleep loss but have been told it was all in their minds.

As part of the study, residents living between 650m and 1.6km of the wind turbines were asked to ­diarise what they were experiencing, including headaches, pressure in the head, ears or chest, ringing in the ears, heart racing or a sensation of heaviness. Their observations were separated into noise, vibration and sensation using a one to five severity scale.

“The resident observations and identification of sensation indicates that the major source of complaint from the operation of the turbines would appear to be related to sensation rather than noise or vibration,” the report says. “For some residents experiencing adverse sensation effects, the impact can be exacerbated by bending over rather than standing, with the effect in some cases being reported as extremely severe and lasting a few hours.”

Mr Cooper said it was the first time that sensation rather than audible noise had been used as an indicator of residents’ perception of nearby wind turbines.

The report found offending sound pressure was present at four distinct phases of turbine operation: starting, maximum power and changing load by more than 20 per cent either up or down. Mr Cooper said the findings were consistent with research into health impacts from early model wind turbines conducted in the US more than 20 years ago.

The relationship between turbine operation and sensation demonstrated a “cause and effect”, something Pacific Hydro was not prepared to concede, he said.

Survey participant Sonja Crisp, 75, said the first time she experience discomfort from the wind turbines, “it was like a thump in the middle of the chest.

“It is an absolute relief, like an epiphany to have him (Mr Cooper) say I was not crazy (that) when I am doing the dishes I feel nausea and have to get out of the house.”

David Brooks, from Gullen Range near Goulburn, NSW, said health concerns from wind farm developments were not confined to Cape Bridgewater. The findings should be used as the basis for a thorough health study of the impacts from low frequency noise, he said. “Until this is done, there should be a moratorium on further wind farm developments,” he said.

Pacific Hydro and Mr Cooper agree that more widespread testing is needed. Andrew Richards, executive manager external affairs at Pacific Hydro, said: “While we acknowledge the preliminary findings of this report, what they mean at this time is largely unclear.

“In our view, the results presented in the report do not demonstrate a correlation that leads to the conclusion that there is a causal link between the existence of ­infrasound frequencies and the ‘sensations’ experienced by the residents.” Mr Cooper said the findings had totally discounted the so-called “nocebo” effect put forward by some public health ­officials, who said symptoms were the result of concerns about the possibility of experiencing them.

The Cape Bridgewater study included six residents over eight weeks in three houses. One hearing-impaired participant had been able to identify with 100 per cent accuracy the performance of wind turbines despite not being able to see them.

Another Cape Bridgewater resident Jo Kermond said the findings had been “both disturbing and confirmation of the level of severity we were and are enduring while being ridiculed by our own community and society.”

Mr Cooper said residents’ threshold of sensations were experienced at narrow band sound pressure levels of four to five hertz at above 50 decibels. The nominal audible threshold for frequencies of four to five hertz is more than 100 decibels. Mr ­Cooper said an earlier investi­gation into health impacts of wind farms by the South Australian EPA had been flawed by limiting the study to only one-third octave bands and not looking at narrow band analysis.

“By looking at high sensation and narrow band I have developed a methodology to undertake assessments using narrow band infrasound,” he said. “We now have a basis on how to start the medical studies,”

Mr Cooper was not engaged to establish whether there was a link between wind turbine operation and health impacts, “but the findings of my work show there is something there,” he said.

Mr Cooper said Pacific Hydro should be commended for allowing the work to proceed. “It is the first time ever in the world that a wind farm has co-­operated with a study including shutting down its operations completely,” he said.

Mr Cooper has coined the term Wind Turbine Signature as the basis of the narrow band infrasound components that are evident in other studies. He said the work at Cape Bridgewater had established a methodology that could be repeated very easily all over the world.

Pacific Hydro said it had conducted the study to see whether it could establish any link between certain wind conditions or sound levels at Cape Bridgewater and the concerns of the individuals involved in the study.

“Steven Cooper shows in his report, for the limited data set, that there is a trend line between discrete infrasound components of the blade pass frequency (and harmonics of the blade pass frequency) and the residents’ sensation observations, based on his narrow band analysis of the results,” Pacific Hydro said.

“However, we do not believe the data as it currently stands supports such a strong conclusion.”

The report has been sent to a range of stakeholders, including government departments, members of parliament, environmental organisations and health bodies.

The report may be downloaded from the following links:

The Results of an Acoustic Testing Program – Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm
Appendices A to H
Appendices I to J
Appendices K to M
Appendices N to P
Appendices Q to S
Appendices T to V

Source:  By: GRAHAM LLOYD. From: The Australian. January 21, 2015.

See also a story from January 21 in The Standard, here.

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

29 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

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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.

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.

Health Canada study results summary released today

06 Thursday Nov 2014

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

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Health Canada has released a summary report of its results from the Wind Turbine Noise Study, available here: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/noise-bruit/turbine-eoliennes/summary-resume-eng.php

Note that the full study results will NOT be available; Health Canada plans to release reports with detailed analysis over the coming months.

At first glance the results are extremely disappointing, and difficult to reconcile with the experiences in Ontario communities.

ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

 

Big Wind: losing the PR battle

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

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Thanks to an Alert Reader in North Gower for sending this to us.

Big Wind: losing the PR battle

This excellent commentary details how Big Wind has sought to drive all discussion toward it as the answer for everything from air pollution to energy independence and economic prosperity and, now, climate change.

This commentary is by Mark Whitworth, who is the executive director of Energize Vermont.

Big Wind has a big public relations problem. A new WCAX poll shows public support for wind plummeting from 66 percent in 2013 to 50 percent now.

Wind developers may search for clues about this reversal of fortune in a UVM honors undergraduate thesis written by Neil Brandt. Mr. Brandt says that media coverage of ridgeline wind in Vermont dropped in favorability from 47 percent in 2003 to a measly 26 percent in 2012.

One of Gov. Shumlin’s aides didn’t need a university study to see this: “We are losing the water cooler debate about wind.” This may be why the governor’s talk of renewable energy now emphasizes solar, not wind.

(Of course, if Mr. Brandt were to conduct a similar study of solar, he’d find that poor siting choices are creating a backlash against solar that’s reflected in the state’s media. How long before that shows up in statewide polls?)

In carrying out his ridgeline wind study, Brandt collected 10 years’ worth of relevant news stories from the Caledonian Record, Burlington Free Press and the Associated Press’ Vermont bureau. He broke each of the stories down into individual statements and classified each statement in a variety of ways: who made the statement, what issue it addressed, and did it support or oppose wind.

He identified trends in Big Wind’s media messaging as well as trends in public attitudes.

For example, between 2003 and 2012, Big Wind stopped emphasizing energy independence. The argument must not have been working. Were Vermonters skeptical of the claim that small amounts of electricity produced at random times would make them independent? Was it David Blittersdorf’s pronouncement that he needed 200 miles of ridgeline wind in Vermont?

Brandt says that local economic gain was once the dominant pro-wind theme. Not anymore. Now we know that the wind jobs were temporary. And the good ones went to out-of-state specialists. Heck, even the driver that tipped over his tractor-trailer on his way to Lowell was a specialist from Texas. Any of my neighbors could have driven that truck off the road. I would have been proud to do it myself.

Brandt analyzed coverage of aesthetics. For years, Big Wind has tried to ridicule opponents by calling them NIMBYs (Not in My Back Yard) who selfishly imperil the planet in order to preserve scenery. Brandt dismisses the NIMBY characterization: “…local opposition to renewable energy development is multi-faceted and based on more than a knee-jerk NIMBY reaction.” Brandt says that aesthetics arguments were prevalent in 2003, but in 2012, only 12 percent of anti-wind statements related to aesthetics.

While aesthetics arguments were falling, human health arguments were rising. By 2012, 33 percent of anti-wind statements involved human health impacts. Interestingly, he found no statements about health impacts from state government. This is not surprising—both the governor and the Department of Health have been missing in action on wind’s health impacts. The department has met with neither turbine neighbors nor the doctors who treat them. But, that hasn’t deterred the department from announcing that negative health impacts result from bad attitudes and are thus the fault of the sufferers themselves.

Big Wind knows that their turbines create ill health because the U.S. Department of Energy told them so. A study conducted for the DoE from 1979 to 1985 investigated complaints of families living near a single 200-foot tall wind turbine. (Picture this pathetic little turbine amidst Lowell’s 459-footers.) The cause of the complaints was found to be infrasound.

Vermont turbines are not monitored for infrasound; only audible noise is monitored. And it’s not monitored continuously. Turbine operators can choose who does the monitoring; they only hire firms that will swear everything is ok. In Vermont, this is easy because the standards are so lax.

Big Wind uses audible noise as a red herring to divert attention away from infrasound. They compare turbine noise to rustling leaves. But neighbors describe turbine effects that cut right through rustling leaves — concussive, more felt than heard. That’s how it is with infrasound.

Brandt found that Big Wind has latched on to climate change in a big way and it now dominates their sales pitch.

Brandt found that Big Wind has latched on to climate change in a big way and it now dominates their sales pitch. It’s used in conjunction with a technique called “the fallacy of the excluded middle” – the oldest advertising gimmick in the book: Chew Clorets and have lots of fabulous lovers. Don’t chew Clorets and watch Gilligan’s Island — alone.

It’s the same technique that Texas Gov. Rick Perry uses to talk about immigration, terrorism, and Ebola.

Here’s how it goes: If we don’t convert our ridgelines into wind power plants, we’re going to get wiped out by another tropical storm Irene.

Whoa. This proposition excludes more than the middle:

1. We cannot reverse climate change just by reducing our carbon emissions.

2. Climate change or not, next big storm will come; industrializing our ridgelines will only worsen storm damage.

3. Healthy ridgelines are crucial for enabling climate adaptation and survival for a wide range of species. Our best response to climate change is to preserve essential wildlife habitat.

4. If we’re serious about reducing carbon emissions, we should first focus our limited resources on weatherization: bigger payoff, less cost, no environmental destruction, no disasters. No big money for Big Wind.

Do industrial wind turbines reduce carbon emissions? Can they even erase their own carbon footprints? During the last legislative session, one Senate committee entertained a bill that would have required developers to account for carbon emissions over the life of a wind project—from manufacture to decommissioning. Vermont’s leading faux-environmental group opposed the bill, calling it “anti-renewable.” I guess it wouldn’t serve the public interest to question industry propaganda.

Big Wind probably won’t just pack its bags and leave—there’s too much money to be made off Vermonters. The energy independence and economic growth arguments haven’t worked, so Big Wind will make its last stand in Vermont by turning up the heat on climate change.

Be on the lookout for the excluded middle — that’s where Big Wind hides its inconvenient truths.

New research: wind farm infrasound can cause hearing damage

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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Living close to wind farms could cause hearing damage

New research published by the Royal Society warns of the possible danger posed by low frequency noise like that emitted by wind turbines

Camilla Turner, The Telegraph, October 1, 2014

Living close to wind farms may lead to severe hearing damage or even deafness, according to new research which warns of the possible danger posed by low frequency noise.

The physical composition of inner ear was “drastically” altered following exposure to low frequency noise, like that emitted by wind turbines, a study has found.

The research will delight critics of wind farms, who have long complained of their detrimental effects on the health of those who live nearby.

Published today by the Royal Society in their new journal Open Science, the research was carried out by a team of scientists from the University of Munich.

It relies on a study of 21 healthy men and women aged between 18 and 28 years. After being exposed to low frequency sound, scientists detected changes in the type of sound being emitted from the inner ear of 17 out of the 21 participants.

The changes were detected in a part of the ear called the cochlear, a spiral shaped cavity which essential for hearing and balance.

“We explored a very curious phenomenon of the human ear: the faint sounds which a healthy human ear constantly emits,” said Dr Marcus Drexl, one of the authors of the report.

“These are like a very faint constant whistling that comes out of your ear as a by-product of the hearing process. We used these as an indication of how processes in the inner ear change.”

Dr Drexl and his team measured these naturally emitted sounds before and after exposure to 90 seconds of low frequency sound.

“Usually the sound emitted from the ear stays at the same frequency,” he said. “But the interesting thing was that after exposure, these sounds changed very drastically.

“They started to oscillate slowly over a couple of minutes. This can be interpreted as a change of the mechanisms in the inner ear, produced by the low frequency sounds.

“This could be a first indication that damage might be done to the inner ear.

“We don’t know what happens if you are exposed for longer periods of time, [for example] if you live next to a wind turbine and listen to these sounds for months of years.”

Wind turbines emit a spectrum of frequencies of noise, which include the low frequency that was used in the research, Dr Drexl explained.

He said the study “might help to explain some of the symptoms that people who live near wind turbines report, such as sleep disturbance, hearing problems and high blood pressure”.

Dr Drexl explained how the low frequency noise is not perceived as being “intense or disturbing” simply because most of the time humans cannot hear it.

“The lower the frequency the you less you can hear it, and if it is very low you can’t hear it at all.

“People think if you can’t hear it then it is not a problem. But it is entering your inner ear even though it is not entering your consciousness.”

Read the full article and comments here.

Read the full paper published by the Royal Society KugleretalInfrasound2014.

Brinston wind farm noise prompts MoE investigation

11 Monday Aug 2014

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Turbine neighbour prompts noise probe by ministry

By Nelson Zandbergen – AgriNews Staff Writer, August, 2014

Ontarios Ministry of Environment and Climate Change installed the basketball-sized microphone atop a temporary 30-foot listening post in her backyard, along with a smaller meteorological tower.BRINSTON Leslie Disheau has her ear to the ground in South Dundas, and for 10 days last month, a very powerful ear trained on the sky around her Brinston home as well.

The ministrys move was prompted by Disheau and partner Glen Baldwins complaints about nighttime noise emanating from two industrial wind turbines on either side of their place, one to their immediate northwest, the other to the southeast. Comprising part of the 10-turbine South Branch project that went into serviceearlier this year, both of the nearest units are less than one kilometre away from the home the couple shares with their two teenaged children.

But Disheau, candidate for deputy mayor in the municipal election and a fierce critic of the turbine industry, feared that developer EDP Renewables was intentionally slowing the two windmills to quiet them down while the ministry data-collection and audio-recording effort was underway with her participation.

The Houston-based firm almost immediately learned about the microphone on the day of the install, she said with some frustration.

Located just down the road from the projects main depot, it wasnt more than three hours after the arrival of two ministry trucks in her driveway that EDP called the same ministry to question the presence of those vehicles, according to Disheau.

She says the audio technician putting up the equipment learned of EDPs inquiry while talking to his office bycell phone, then told her about it.

Wind developer has not filed a compliance report yet

Disheau expressed unhappiness that a mandatory post-construction noise report had yet to be publicly filed by the company itself, after putting the project into service in March.

In the meantime, over a 10-day period in July, the ministry captured its own sound data with Disheaus help. During those times she considered the turbines to be noisiest, she pressed a button inside her home, triggering the recording process via the outdoor microphone, which was tethered to audio equipment in a locked box.

Comparing the sound to that of a rumbling plane or jet, she got up at night when she couldnt sleep to push the audio recording button located at the end of a long cord connected to the stuff outside. She also kept an accompanying log as part of the initiative.

The noise is most acute, she said, when the direction of the wind causes the blades to swivel toward her home in perpendicular fashion.

Effect of multiple turbines not considered by government

She scoffed at regulations that mandate 500-meter setbacks to neighbouring homes, pointing out the rule doesnt take into account the cumulative, “overlapping” impact of multiple turbines that surround. Nor does the regulation change with the actual size of a turbine, she adds, asserting that, at 3-megawatts apiece, “these are the largest turbines in Ontario.”

Ultimately, the ministry will use the data collected by Disheau to create a report, which could potentially form the basis of ministry orders against the two offending turbines. “To shut them down at night so that people can sleep,” she said with a hopeful tone, though she also acknowledged the ministry may not issue orders. And even if it does, she expects the developer to appeal and appeal.

Disheau also said there are measures that municipal governments can undertake to curtail the noise, including a nuisance noise bylaw of 32 decibels, which recently survived a court challenge in another Ontario municipality. She espouses such a policy in South Dundas and will push for it at the council table if elected.

Read the full story here.

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Brinston wind farm noise complaints lead to monitoring

28 Monday Jul 2014

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

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And this is a SMALL one...

And this is a SMALL one…

The South Branch wind “farm” has been operating since mid-March, but it didn’t take long for the first noise complaints to be registered. This wind power generation facility is the first of the 3-megawatt machines to operate in Ontario; many more, mostly in southwestern Ontario, are to follow. The increased capacity is a concern to people who have done research on wind turbines, as they are more likely to produce infrasound or sound pressure, which disturbs some people.

Noise complaints lead to monitoring

by Sandy Casselman
Press staff

BRINSTON – It has been more than six months since the blades of the South Branch Wind Farm turbines began to spin, leaving more than one nearby resident with some sleepless nights.

“I call when it gets to the point I can’t tolerate it anymore and I go to the basement [to sleep],” Brinston resident Leslie Disheau, former president of the South Branch Wind Opposition Group, said. “It is an issue and I’m not the only person in town with the issue.”

Disheau, who is running for the Municipality of South Dundas’ deputy-mayor seat in this fall’s municipal election, has been staying close to home since the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) installed noise-monitoring equipment at her Brinston Road property last week.

“MOE contacted me and asked if they could put this noise monitoring equipment up,” Disheau said.

The two pieces of equipment measure wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, rainfall, and more, she said.

She has submitted three separate noise complaints so far. Every complaint must be filed with EDP Renewables’ project leader Ken Little and local MOE representative Terry Forrester to be officially registered.

During EDP’s first open community liaison meeting in March, a Brinston man spoke out about his own sleep disturbances, suggesting the turbines be shut off for a period during the early hours of the morning, beginning around midnight. At that time, Little confirmed that there had been one official complaint already registered. He also said an acoustic audit had been ordered, which he expected to get underway within two months of the meeting.

“EDP has not released their post-construction noise audit report,” Disheau said during an interview with the Winchester Press Fri., July 18.

In conversation with one of the MOE officials who installed the equipment, Disheau said she learned that the provincial authority also had not seen a report from EDP.

“They can take a long as they want,” she said, crediting the Green Energy Act with the responsibility for not specifying a deadline. “There is a 40-decibel limit [on the noise the turbines can make], and we have no idea if they’re in the threshold or not.”

To describe what the sound is like, she used Highway 401 versus airplane noise as an example, pointing out that the highway noise is more of a hum, and when she lived near it, the sounds did not bother her at all.
However, the turbines produce something more in line with the “drone of an airplane that goes into your head,” she said. “It’s a deeper tone, and that’s where you get the disturbance of sleep.”

Explaining the noise and its effects on her is not easy, she said, but it is similar to the sensation people get in their chest when listening to bass guitar.

Disheau said she explained her experiences to MOE’s acoustical engineer, adding that the sensations are at their worst when the blade tips of the turbine across the road (south of Brinston) and the one to the north behind her home (west of Brinston) are facing one another.

“The acoustical engineer said ‘yes, that it all makes sense,’ ” Disheau added. “This is not normal. You should not be in sleep disturbance in your own house.”

Meanwhile, Disheau is the only one in her home experiencing the effects of the rotating blades, as her husband, who shares the second storey bedroom on the home’s vinyl-sided addition, is tone deaf, and her children sleep on the first floor of the brick-sided main house.

The noise-monitoring equipment is controlled by a switch, which has been placed inside Disheau’s home. When she notices the noise, she flips the switch and the machinery calculates and documents the findings.

“Once everything is taken down, the ministry guy goes through [the recordings] and writes his report,” she said, which will list the decibel readings for various weather conditions (wind speed and direction).

When asked what she hopes to accomplish through this procedure, Disheau said the findings could require that EDP shut down operations during specific times of the day or during specific wind conditions should they prove the decibel levels exceed the regulated amount.

Read the full story here.

People with complaints about excessive noise from the turbines at Brinston must call both the developer, EDP Renewables (1-877-910-3377 ext 3) AND the Ministry of the Environment (1-800-860-2760).