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'Quit putting them so close to houses’
For Barbara Ashbee it was the noise that became a problem after phase two of the Melancthon/Amaranth wind farm went into operation near her home in rural Ontario in December 2008. Since then she and her husband have been plagued with insomnia.
“The noise coming off them was just horrendous, depending on the speed of the wind, the direction, and the atmosphere. When it all started I had three nights straight of absolutely zero sleep, it was just horrible. Even our dog was upset,” says Ashbee.
After several noise studies were conducted, it was discovered that most of the noise was coming from a turbine that had been built just 457 metres from Ashbee’s home. Eventually the company that owns the 133-turbine complex agreed to turn off that turbine permanently, while five others are turned off at night.
Although this has helped, Ashbee says a constant “hum-vibration” that varies in intensity continues to cause insomnia, fatigue, and ringing in the ears for her and her husband. She says tests show that the house is also contaminated with stray voltage.
Health problems became so severe for Helen and Bill Fraser, who were residents in the same complex, that they sold the home they’d lived in for 30 years and moved to a nearby town.
“People are being forced out of their homes,” Ashbee says. “[The turbines] are just too close to the residences, that’s all there is to it. They’ve got to quit putting them so close to houses.”
The issue of setbacks has become a bone of contention in many countries. Critics say wind turbines are allowed to be sited too close to homes or where people congregate.
Nina Pierpont, a U.S. physician and scientist and author of Wind Turbine Syndrome, said in her testimony before the New York State Legislature Energy Committee that turbines shouldn’t be sited any closer than 1.25 miles (2 km) from buildings.
In hilly or mountainous terrain, where valleys act as natural channels for noise, she said the setback should be as much as three miles.
“I would like to stress that these are not ‘farms.’ One doesn’t ‘farm’ wind any more than one ‘farms’ water in a hydroelectric dam or ‘farms’ neutrons in an atomic plant. These are large, industrial installations. They make large-scale, industrial noise,” said Pierpont.
Need for Standards, Public Health Research
Carmen Krogh, a retired Alberta pharmacist, says she never gave wind turbines a second thought until she vacationed near a wind farm in 2005. When the blades were still she was fine, but when the wind picked up and the blades began turning she says she experienced a number of worrisome symptoms.
“I got this sensation that others have recorded—this vibration in my body. It was very disconcerting, and the vibration in my heart felt like my heartbeat being changed…. I had a terrible headache and I had vertigo, like a kind of nausea,” she says.
Krogh, who has been involved in healthcare for over 40 years, linked her reaction to the turbines, left the area, and her symptoms subsided within a few days, she says.
In 2008 she began researching the issue, something she felt qualified to do having run the drug information pharmacy at Ottawa General Hospital where she researched drug therapies and advised doctors.
A survey Krogh conducted on six Ontario windmill complexes found that 53 of 76 residents said they suffered adverse health effects from the turbines, including sleep disturbances, headaches, and depression.
Krogh believes that in the rush to convert to wind power as part of its Green Energy Act, the Ontario government “let wind turbines come into the province without doing their homework … in spite of all the references and the health concerns out there.”
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said in April that he would look into setting standards to deal with low-frequency sound waves and address health concerns regarding wind turbines.
McGuinty said he had spoken with Dr. Robert McMurtry, a former dean of medicine at the University of Western Ontario. McMurtry wants the government to conduct more studies in order to determine the turbines’ impact on human health.
Thirty Ontario municipalities have called on the provincial government to do a comprehensive health study.
Krogh says there needs to be an epidemiological study—“the holy grail for public health research”—undertaken to identify the risks and provide guidelines for the medical community.
As for Glen Wylds, he’s worried about his son, his son’s pregnant girlfriend, and their two-year-old daughter who continue to live at the Ripley complex. He says their daughter constantly wakes up at night screaming with earaches, and the family has made many frantic visits to the emergency ward.
Meanwhile he’s stuck with a house he can neither live in nor sell.
“That was our home, it was our livelihood. I had no intention of ever leaving. I wasn’t against the wind farms coming—I never complained about nothing. Everybody was reassured that we would have no problems. This is just like something you see on TV that happens to somebody else.”
