IT WAS ALL celebrations in Point Tupper at the announcement that Renewable Energy Sources Ltd. is building its first wind farm in the area.
The company’s CEO, Larry LeBlanc, told Matt Draper of the Reporter in Port Hawkesbury that the wind and concentration of industry in the Point Tupper area make it an ideal place for a wind farm.
If all goes as planned, Mr. LeBlanc said, the 11 wind turbines could be generating power by November, 2009.
Not far away across the Strait, a wind energy company from Ontario is looking to set up five or six windmills in Canso by May.
Invenergy is completing the environmental regulatory process and looking at sites in the Glasgow Head and Spinney Hill areas.
Company director Mark Bell told Andrew Rankin of the Guysborough Journal that municipalities and private landowners could earn $3 million in lease and property tax revenue from the project.
As well, the company plans to hire three people locally to maintain the windmills.
While one can appreciate the economic and environmental benefits of wind power, residents of four communities in Eastern Kings County, P.E.I., wish they had asked some tough questions.
Low-frequency noise from the wind turbines at the Eastern Kings Wind Farm has forced two families to move. Kevin and Sheila Bailey, and their son and daughter-in-law Dwaine and Dodi Bailey, left Elmira seven months ago and moved to nearby communities.
Problems started a year ago when the turbines began operating. The family members had headaches and ringing in their ears.
"My idea of noise is a horn blowing or a tractor — it disappears," Sheila Bailey told Janet MacLeod of the Eastern Graphic in Montague.
"This doesn’t disappear. Your ears ring. That goes on continuously."
"People who came to our house would stand in the yard, and their ears would pop," added Kevin Bailey.
For Dodi and Dwayne Bailey, the breaking point was when their son started waking up three and four times a night with night terrors.
The two families didn’t get any help from the provincial government so they borrowed money for the move.
"There are no rules and regulations on windmills," Paul Cheverie, chairman of the Eastern Kings Community Council said. "The more we get into it, the more we realize we jumped the gun."
He said when the wind farm was proposed, residents accepted information from government at face value.
"We were told the windmills are coming, and you don’t want to make too many waves."
Now, he wishes the community had taken a more active role before the wind farm went up in the centre of four communities.
"You can’t point fingers, and we don’t blame anyone," said Mr. Cheverie. "Now, there’s a problem, let’s try to fix it."
16 comments:
The rotation of the large blades creates very low frequency inaudible infrasonic sound.
The larger the blades the higher the energy content in the infrasonic range (commonly peaking somewheres around 10 to 20 cycles per second.)
Decades of unclassified military research has demonstrated that this is capable of altering natural health and mental functions.
Infrasonic sound is not attenuated with distance as quickly as higher frequency audible sound.
Low frequency sound can resonate rooms,wall space cavities,structures,etc. which can amplify this sound.
A collection of turbines can interact and create dissonance similar to an out of tune piano.
It's not inconcievable that the power in these could also vibrate the ground/trees around them depending on season,moisture content,soil type,etc.
These electrical generators 200' in the air can act like antennas and broadcast low frequency electromagnetic energy/vibrating force fields.
A collection of them can interact and produce electromagnetic dissonance,interferance due to frequency and phase differences.
The longterm health effects of all this are not easily discerned or well known.
Wind farms are an enviromental intrusion and as such are a health risk to living creatures.
Those in the business of politics or development don't have to live near these and don't have to worry about their children waking up with
"terror attacks"
"headaches"
"ringing ears"
or some of the other "medically undefineable" effects experienced by some.
I'm surprised thet this blog does not celebrate the Point Tupper project. The wind farm is 2 km from any housing; exactly the distance demaned by some contributers.
Since the farm is to be located in an industrial park along with a pulp mill and a coal fired generation station, it would seem to be everything demanded by anti-wind crusaders.
Each and every person speaking aginst wind development claims to be pro-wind , not a NIMBY ( or BANANA) and only desirous of better siting rules. This post destroys that assertion and shows the movement for what it is: anti-wind power no matter where or how.
Although anything negative is fair play ( I guess ) it is a stretch to equate a project , as yet unbuilt, in an industrial zone, away from housing with an isolated complaint in PEI.
John McManus
Who is this person that keeps on saying the same thing over and over again?, referencing the first comment in this posting. Are you a Doctor, a scientist, a professional whatsoever that can keep on making these same comments? Have you actually read what a wind farm developer has to go through for environmental approval? Although i'm sure you think there is some conspiracy that exists there anyways and would consider the point moot. So as opposed to continually saying the same thing over and over again with no physical or even meta-physical proof, why don't you instead actually prove what it is you are saying. Although I think the ranks that could prove this are quite thin, because the possibility of proving your outlandish claims is extemely far reaching!
Mr.McManus
Was you misleading us again when you said there was nuthing to it.
Why did these folks in PEI found that there was something to it!
Oh great the brainiac is back again! with their comments that will probably shut down the thread for weeks, because they are so outlandish. Actually just plain "ignant"
one of the accoustic and electrical interaction effects mentioned above can be seen here
http://www.physics.brown.edu/physics/demopages/Demo/waves/demo/3b6020.htm
http://www.physics.brown.edu/
physics/demopages/Demo/waves/demo/
3b6020.htm
.....more of the same
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Beat_%28acoustics%29
the effect "intermodulation distortion"
is common in electronics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Intermodulation
...do your homework and you'll get a better understanding of the problem!
People are sometimes "ignant" cause they can't read.
People are often ignorant cause they can and don't.
This is often caused because they are blinded by the glitter of money!
Why don't you try and get in the wind business and see how much money is actually in it. I believe the colour of glitter in Canada is black and not green. Black as in oil, because that is the only place in this world where the big bucks can be made. If you think that paying a 100 million dollars of borrowed money at an average investment rate of 7% to get 10 million in revenue is a great deal than you may need to take a lesson in economics. While you quote the great internet and all of the great information that can support both sides of this argument, perhaps you should first read Mr. Smith's well accepted view on economics first. Also while your links are great lessons in physics and mathematics they still do not point to the link which you so whole heartedly need to prove your point. With regards to intermodualtion you do need to have two different frequencies to cause this effect and each of these machines operate at the same frequency, so why would you include this link. Of all the links that you polluted this website with that is the only one that might lead to a link and it is a weak link at that. Much like the rest of you in this movement against wind!
I tried the links mentioned above. The wiki's worked and Brown didn't.
It doesn't matter: these links deal with the existabce of AM, which noone denies, not problems caused by AM fron Wind farms.
Luckily , I have done my reading. A study of 133 wind farm in th UK by the University of Salford coclded that amplitude modulation is " not an isse for the UK's wind farm fleet." The report by the Acoustic Research Centre seems to back this up. This information has appeared in this blog previousy.
I realise that someone moved out of a house in PEI, but I also realise that this windfarm has been tested, more than once, and the sound pressure levels were " below all Canadian standards". In other words, below 45db A and 85db C. Reports of high noise levels have been disproved and therefore, I categorize them as "rumor".
Could someone give me useable links for the Brown data, or the Google keywords. I have tried amplitude , Brown , acoustics etc. in combination and found nothing.
I would also like to know the make of the wind turbne that lives near the moose. I couldn't find the photo on the paper's website.
John McManus
The people living along the Guysborough shore opposite the Point Tupper Wind farm across the strait may be in for a similar "isolated incident"
The distance although seemingly "distant" affords a clear path for low frequency sound with not much to absorb or deflect it.
As water conducts sound the marine life of the area may also have an "isolated incident" to deal with in its day to day?
It might even be that the sound might echo and bounce along the rock canyon walls bordering the strait to Billy Joes backyard.
...from a summary taken from the University of Salford report-Research into aerodynamic modulation of wind turbine noise-which Mr.McManus refers to
"The low incidence of AM and the low numbers of people adversely affected make it
difficult to justify further research funding in preference to other more widespread
noise issues. On the other hand, since AM cannot be fully predicted at present, and its
causes are not fully understood we consider that it might be prudent to carry out
further research to improve understanding in this area."
another section of this report states....
One propagation phenomenon relating to AM noise is not yet well understood: In some situations AM noise seems to travel and can be heard at a considerable distance from the turbines. First explanation attempts have been published by van den Berg (2003, 2004, 2005) and it appears likely that a combination of generation and propagation mechanisms is responsible for this effect. Further studies are needed to explain and predict the observed noise levels.
Amplitude modulation by the blades is not the same effect as the creation of beats/sum and difference artifacts from the combination of different frequencies as mentioned above.
Noise can be defined thru a Fourier analysis as consisting of a fundamental frequency and many harmonics-(even and odd order) albeit a very complicated affair!
The turbines in a wind farm do not all rotate at exactly the same frequency all the time due to differences in inertia/windspeed/turbulence/wind direction fluctations/friction/etc.spread over the acreage of a site.
Sound level meters don't measure things like sleep disorder terror attacks/ringing ears/popping eardrums/headaches/annoyance factor/breathing difficulties /etc.
from a posting above -
this comment.....
" still do not point to the link which you so whole heartedly need to prove your point."
Those putting these into the environment should point to a link that proves that they are NOT the cause of the health related problems seen by many "grazing in the pastures" of these wind farms
I guess I wasn't specific enough for Mr Anonymous when refering to the Salford AM report. I used the abstract without cherrypicking from parts of the text.
The report surveyed 133 wind farms and found 4 with noise complantsabout AM. Three had been resolved at the time of writng with the last invstigation ongoing. The AM complaints about British winfarms are less than 3% and have a high solve rate.
The report goes on to note that with 300,000 noise complaints made in England a year, only 239 complaints were made about wind turbines over 15 years ( averaging 16 per year). This percentage is vanishingly small , .005%.
Noone denies the existance of AM, just its effects.
On his website Dr. Andy Moorhouse says " We are not implying that individual complaints about windfarms are less important than for other types of noise, but this report confirms that wind turbine noise is a comparatively minor issue nationally in terms of the number of people affected."
John McManus
...from the summary of the report referrred to by Mr.McManus.
The survey of local authorities was in two parts, a scoping survey aimed at identifying
problem sites, and a detailed survey to establish whether AM could have been a factor
in causing complaints. The response to both parts of the survey was 100%, although
full information was not available for all sites at the detailed stage. The results showed
that 27 of the 133 windfarm sites operational across the UK at the time of the survey
had attracted noise complaints at some point. An estimated total of 239 formal
complaints have been received about UK windfarm sites since 1991, 152 of which
were from a single site. The estimated total number of complainants is 81 over the
same sixteen year period. This shows that in terms of the number of people affected,
wind farm noise is a small-scale problem compared with other types of noise; for
example the number of complaints about industrial noise exceeds those about
windfarms by around three orders of magnitude. In only one case was the windfarm
considered by the local authority to be causing a statutory nuisance. Again, this
indicates that, despite press articles to the contrary, the incidence of windfarm noise
and AM in the UK is low
The author of this report uses the expression "3 orders of magnitude" greater in comparing the total number of noise related complaints received from industrial operations throughout England -(which is one of the oldest industralized countries on the planet )to those recieved as the result of 133 windfarms .
The author does not elaborate on how many industral sites in total there are in England.(although they used an average figure of 7500 complaints a year.)
27 noise complaints pertaining to 133 windfarms is about 20% .
not an insignificant number in regards to a type of industrial operation.
Factor in the fact that not all 133 windfarms were built or in operation over the 16 year period -81 complainents from up to 133 windfarm sites is 60% not an insignificant value-an average of 3 per site was guesstimated.
The survey is a an educated guesstimate and subject to interpretation.
You can't hear infrasonic sound therfore its vaguely understood health effects could not be registered via a municipal noise complaint!
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