There was shock, surprise, and humor in the media when Trump not only denounced wind “mills” for intermittency, lack of predictable value, property losses, and bird kills but also topped his discussion with
“They say the noise causes cancer. You tell me that one, okay?”
Is President Trump correct in his five critical points? Even the last one? Or is it possible, as Trevor Noah suggested, turbines might be the only things that don’t cause cancer.
1. Intermittency
Electricity must be consumed the moment it is produced. Storage to allow deviations is prohibitively expensive in all but the rarest of settings. And it has always been this way.
Trump said, “Honey I’d like to watch TV tonight: are the turbines working?” And then his quotation from the Washington Republican fundraiser:
“Is the wind blowing? I’d love to watch a show tonight, darling. The wind hasn’t blown for three days. I can’t watch television, darling. Darling, please, tell the wind to blow.”
Using humor, and drawing applause for his educable moment, Trump outlined the primordial problem of intermittency. The President is correct.
2. Low Market Value (subsidies required)
The case for wind subsidies has been thoroughly debunked by many writers, including Robert Bryce, Jerry Graf, Robert Bradley, and more.
“It takes enormous amounts of taxpayer cash to make wind energy seem affordable,” writes Bryce. Start with the federal Production Tax Credit and continue with all sorts of local, state, and US Department of Energy favors.
Name any developer and find its association with the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). Total all of the government favors.
Corporate welfare, special business privilege, cronyism. Start with GE, which took over Enron Wind in 2002. Continue with NextEra Energy, the parent of Florida Power & Light, which “has received about 50 grants and tax credits from local, state, and federal entities as well as federal loans and loan guarantees worth $5.5 billion…. more than what the veteran crony capitalist Elon Musk has garnered.has received.”
Then add US subsidies going to foreign developers from Germany, Norway, Taiwan, Spain, China. A ruse is going on that Trump needs to help stop.
3. Property Value Loss
For those unfortunate to live near wind turbines, lost value is the norm, even to the bitter end point of nonsaleability. Regrets for hosting are numerous and heart wrenching. Property loss is the wind developer’s curse that keeps on taking.
Consider this example (from Ireland).
“What we have seen is the misery and suffering they have caused local families who not only have to endure the noise and shadow flicker the wind turbines produce, but now face the realisation that their family homes are worth up to 80 per cent less than their market value,” said Yvonne Cronin, spokeswoman for Communities for Responsible Engagement with Wind Energy….”
It’s difficult, again, to argue that Trump is wrong. Country after country shows that folks just don’t want to live near them, and tourists seem to avoid them as well. Results from a Scottish study, “confirm that a significant minority (20% to 30%) of tourists preferred landscapes without wind farms.”
Various studies by Hoen (some quite old) and others finding minimal impacts to property values have been discredited. Chicago Real Estate Appraiser, Chuck McCann, for one, debunked Ben Hoen’s methodology and conclusions. McCann found that Hoen excluded relevant data, misquoted opinions, and used unreliable methods. Hoen is not licensed as an Appraiser, and he admits little knowledge of impacts beyond one-half mile of turbines.
Energy and Policy Institute, another banquet of misinformation, suggests that there are no impacts to property values.
The AWEA counter-intuitively states: “Fortunately, many studies have shown that wind power increases the value of homes with turbines on the property. And importantly, it does not affect nearby neighbors’ property values long-term.” Try to explain why. Do people love the sight from the front porch? Do they like the noise? Flicker? Hardly. The claimed value creator is new services from higher tax receipts, as if tax abatements were not the norm and rural residents wanted more urbanization.
Master Resource back in 2013 announced a new website: Wind Turbine Property Loss. From the MR piece:
“There have been three major North American studies suggesting that devaluation of properties due to proximity to turbines is not real. (REPP, also known as the Sterzinger study, 2003, was one study, with subject properties too far from turbines to be relevant; secondly, the largest study in the USA in 2009 by Hoen, now widely disputed; and thirdly, the Canning study, an equally fickle presentation with numerous flaws in 2010. Wayne Gulden of Wind Farm Realities has provided an excellent overview and critique of these industry-favored reports and can be linked to here.)
These studies are in direct opposition to the realities of social and economic displacement, personal and financial loss that is internationally unprecedented. A new website, www.windturbinepropertyloss.org provides summary materials and emerging events around property loss and wind turbine sprawl, suggesting that a robbery is well under way, stretching well beyond 30 years, and knowing no geographical limits. Some of the focus is on individual lives shattered by loss of property values.
Roger Oliveira, formerly of Melancthon, Ontario, writes eloquently of his sense of loss of his dreams, as well as his finances. In an open letter questioning the wind developer, he asks, “How much is my dream worth?” (Please see Featured Story for Roger’s letter, and the map of the surrounding turbines.)”
4. Bird (and Bat) Kills
This could be Trump’s favorite subject.
The suppression of actual mortality numbers and the life chains of kills is sinister. The US Fish and Wildlife Service quotes 585,000 dead birds and 800,000 bats per year, but the numbers are much deeper because of as much as 95% underreporting.
In some instances, clean ups are undertaken of the “skirt” area to be examined for mortality. (Developers are known to do voluntary counts, choosing less impact areas and drastically less circumference than is realistic.) The real U.S. numbers are somewhere between 13-50 million per year.
Actually, most victims are flung up to 200 meters from the base of the turbine, scavenged or removed. Trump certainly is on the right track. Arguments that cats kill more birds are moot: when is the last time you saw a cat with a raptor in its mouth. Killing fields for birds, butterflies, bats: the eco-warriors that should be protectors against massive wind turbines are nowhere to be heard.
Cancer and Turbines
The President stated: “And they say the [wind turbine] noise causes Cancer.”
Support for this statement can come from broadly accepting “noise,” as we mostly do in common parlance, to include vibration, low frequency and Infra Sound, Pulsation and chaotic bouncing of those impacts between turbines. It is easy to scan the web and find the association between these impacts and disease.
Mariana Alves Pereira and Castelo Branco’s study on VAD (Vibro Acoustic Disease) is germane. They call it “whole body” cascade of impacts, pathology: in their words:
At present, infrasound (0-20 Hz) and low-frequency noise (20-500 Hz) (ILFN, 0-500 Hz) are agents of disease that go unchecked. Vibroacoustic disease (VAD) is a whole-body pathology that develops in individuals excessively exposed to ILFN. VAD has been diagnosed within several professional groups employed within the aeronautical industry, and in other heavy industries….. However, given the ubiquitous nature of ILFN and the absence of legislation concerning ILFN, VAD is increasingly being diagnosed among members of the general population, including children. VAD is associated with the abnormal growth of extra-cellular matrices (collagen and elastin), in the absence of an inflammatory process. In VAD, the end-product of collagen and elastin growth is reinforcement of structural integrity. This is seen in blood vessels, cardiac structures, trachea, lung, and kidney of both VAD patients and ILFN-exposed animals.
Some communities report cancer “clusters” not noticeable until a turbine installation. Some individuals previously in remission have reported sad re emergence of the disease. Researchers on VAD, Vibro Acoustic Disease, which should be on the tip of everyone’s tongue now along with ILFN (Infra and Low Frequency Noise), attest to “malignancies” or squamous cell carcinomas (SqCC) in VAD impacted helicopter pilots, for one example. Sleep deprivation, a key fallout from wind turbines too near, is indisputably responsible for pathways to disease.
“A few studies over the years have supported the notion that lack of sleep and poor sleep quality could be connected to cancer risk, particularly for lung and colorectal cancers. A 2017 study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives noted an increased risk of breast cancer among participants who had higher exposures to nighttime light. These findings support the notion that disrupted circadian rhythms are part of the equation.”
Add that some people in remission, are sadly “post turbine” reporting aggressive cancers.
Additionally, turbines are Heart Jammers,” according to German researchers. Professor Wahl led a team of researchers, with the resulting conclusion: Prof. Vahl said: “The fundamental question of whether infrasound can affect the heart muscle has been answered.”
“We are at the very beginning, but we can imagine that long-term impact of infrasound causes health problems. The silent noise of infrasound acts like a heart jammer.”
It is also well known that electrical pollution and dirty electricity accompany the acoustic impacts. Animals and people suffer deeply. Do animals not like the “look” of turbines? Do they care about the lack of value to society, the property values?
Animals around the world are suffering to an almost unimaginable degree, along with humans. Reports are consistent world wide, of pets convulsing, shaking, dying, chickens being born without beaks, or giving yokeless eggs, dead goats from Taiwan, an entire flock assumed dead from lack of sleep or sensitivity to the noise and ILFN, a mink farm with 1600 miscarriages, or some species experiencing birth deformities. It’s as far away from the picture of “Green, Safe, and Non-polluting” as one could get.
High ground currents from stray voltage have been measured near multiple wind facilities, including Palm Springs and Campo, California. The latter has had ground currents measured at 1,000 times normal in the Manzanita Indians’ tribal hall and church near a wind facility on a neighboring reservation, according to measurements taken by Dr. Samuel Milham, author of Dirty Energy.
But the popular media continues its antique mythology. Now the media tells us turbines are as quiet as a lawnmower. Kaitlin Sullivan writes in Popular Science about President Trump’s speech where he adds cancer to the list of effects of industrial wind:
She writes about the noise: “This isn’t true—just ask anyone with a lawn mower, which are about as loud as a wind turbine, and much closer to people’s ears. It’s also not the only wind turbine myth in the popular consciousness, or the president’s public speeches.”
“Lawn mower noise” is another analogy akin to the previous, as noisy or as quiet as a bowl of Cheerios with milk, or a refrigerator. Some living near a turbine installation describe them as: a jet airplane going over head that doesn’t stop; a hammering; house is shaking; a deep rumble; a chaotic blend of noise, pulsation, and shadow flicker: “I feel it even when I can’t hear it.” (That would be pulsation and ILFN which is sub acoustic. Below 20 Hz. But you FEEL it. See the work of Acoustician Steven Cooper of AU for his blind study of renown.)
There are numerous absurdly comical comments circulating around the Trump announcement, one from Trevor Noah on the Daily Show, quoted in the Washington Post:
“Noah added: “I really can’t believe I have to say this people, but noise from windmills does not cause cancer. In fact, at this point, it’s probably the only thing that doesn’t cause cancer.”
Once that was cleared up, the host didn’t hesitate to gleefully tear into Trump’s years-long war against wind energy.”
These comedic pieces, accidental humor or not, are not useful, and do not reflect the anguish and loss perpetuated by the wind industry and its crony capitalists.
The media is having a hey day. The statements and inaccuracies might be laughable were the known turbine impacts on life and liberty not so seriously antithetical to claims of “saving the planet.”
Senator Chuck Grassley (R) Iowa, asserts that Trump’s statement is “idiotic” (CNN). Senator Grassley shows a surprising lack of basic knowledge. But then the Senator noted to the Des Moines Register, (quoted in Business Insider), that Trump’s observations about wind impacts reflect negatively on his own fathering and grandfathering of the tax credits. It doesn’t show “much respect,” to himself.)
An example of an older media pieces minimalizing the impacts of ILFN and acoustic pulsation, as acoustician Steven Cooper calls it, Soundscapes, or vibrations and pulsations occurring at the rate of infrasound, can be read in The Atlantic (2017). The piece, “Why People Believe Low-Frequency Noise is Dangerous,” provides yet another example of a history of rather shallow cuts at the work of pioneer Nina Pierpont, author of “Wind Turbine Syndrome.” The denial and lack of understanding continues unabated.
Master Acoustician Steven Cooper references the work of Pierpont in his ground-breaking studies and research, this time at a Conference of experts in Crete:
Of relevance to the inaudible soundscape of a wind farm is the presence of amplitude modulation in the low frequency region, that modulates at an infrasound rate, at or near the threshold of hearing that has been identified (in [16]) and may support the following proposal: “Wind Turbine Syndrome, I propose, is mediated by the vestibular system—by disturbed sensory input to eyes, inner ears, and stretch and pressure receptors in a variety of body locations. These feed back neurologically onto a person’s sense of position and motion in space, which is in turn connected in multiple ways to brain functions as disparate as spatial memory and anxiety. Several lines of evidence suggest that the amplitude (power or intensity) of low frequency noise and vibration needed to create these effects may be even lower than the auditory threshold at the same low frequencies. Re-stating this, it appears that even low frequency noise or vibration too weak to hear can still stimulate the human vestibular system, opening the door for the symptoms I call Wind Turbine Syndrome.” Pierpont 2009
Cooper goes on to suggest that his work at Cape Bridgewater, written about in Master Resource, clearly shows that impacts are also largely a case of sensation, not even necessarily “audible noise.” His paper, “The Inaudible Soundscape of a Wind farm Euronoise 2018 Proceedings,” presented at the EAA (European Acoustics Association) conference, refers us again to the findings of the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal, where extensive evidence was gathered in relation to medical and acoustic impacts.
“Reference to pages 141 to 148 of the Decision notes that a significant portion of sound emitted by wind turbines in the low-frequency range and that the dB(A) weighting system is not designed to measure that sound and is not an appropriate way of measuring it.”
On the heels of the very important AA Tribunal Decisions, Dr. Sarah Laurie commented to Master Resource and NA-PAW (North American Platform Against Wind Power) in 2017:
“… the [Australian] Tribunal recognized that ‘wind turbine noise at times exceeds 40 dB(A), (which is a recognised threshold for annoyance/sleep disturbance)’; that a significant amount of sound energy emitted by wind turbines is in the low frequency noise range, so using the dB(A) weighting system is therefore inappropriate. The Tribunal recognized that ‘humans are more sensitive to low frequency sound, and it can therefore cause greater annoyance than higher frequency sound’; and that “even if it is not audible, low frequency noise and infrasound may have other effects on the human body, which are not mediated by hearing but also not fully understood. Those effects may include motion-sickness-like symptoms, vertigo, and tinnitus-like symptoms.”
– Dr. Laurie Sarah, note to North America Platform Against Wind Power (NA-PAW), December 17, 2017.
Again, Cooper emphasises that the soundscape of a wind turbine is not the same as road traffic or other industrial or city life noises. Anyone living within the area of an electrically charged turbine generator and its most unwelcome substations, will attest to this.
If you need the cancer and turbines conversation simply said, without long references, and useful game changing lectures by Dr. Mariana Alves Pereira, a world expert in VAD, all you really need to reflect on is:
“Do stress and lack of sleep contribute to the development of cancer? Yes.”
Does wind turbine noise raise stress levels and interrupt sleep? Yes.” (Eric Rosenbloom, President NA-PAW, North American Platform Against Wind Power)
If you have not heard President Trump proclaim any single asset to wind, perhaps he is right. There are none that we can locate. It is a black hole of waste and depreciation; lost value, lost life.
Eric Rosenbloom, A Problem with Wind Power, writes:
It is clear that industrial wind generation is not able to contribute anything against the problems of global warming, pollution, nuclear waste, or dependence on imports…..But industrial wind facilities are not just useless. They destroy the land, birds and bats, and the lives of their neighbors. Off shore, they endanger ships and boats and their low-frequency noise is likely harmful to sea mammals. They require subsidies and regulatory favors to make investment viable. They do not move us towards more sustainable energy sources and stand instead as monuments of delusion.
President Donald Trump frequently asserts that, “I know a LOT about wind, a LOT.”
I do not disagree.
————-
Sherri Lange is CEO of the North American Platform Against Wind Power.
As usual, Ms. Lange submits information that is thorough, well documented, scientific, and objective. All points in this submission are well made! Comparing low frequency sound to such things as lawnmowers is hideous. Who runs a lawnmower all day and night? Who is unable to shut a lawnmower off when they are done mowing? Regarding shadow flicker, I strongly recommend that anyone who doubts the seriousness of this should look at a YouTube video taken from inside someone’s home while shadow flicker produced by a wind turbine is occurring. It is beyond dreadful. I was unable to completely view such a video, as it evoked a tremendous anxiety response. Imagine living like that! Cancer? I honestly don’t know, but can only hope that these worthless monstrosities are shut down before we find out the hard way!
Agreed, agreed, agreed…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………!
Need I say more?
Sleep disturbance is a well documented effect of living near wind turbines. And cancer is associated with lack of sleep. https://health.usnews.com/health-care/patient-advice/articles/2018-07-04/how-does-sleep-influence-cancer-risk
Thank you for this article. It is devastating to those impacted, who are unable to protect their family members, pets and livestock and have to endure jokes and ridicule about their suffering over and over again. If you don’t believe it, then do some actual research. If you are too lazy, then at the very least quit re-victimizing these families by holding your tongue. I will never understand the uneducated and often brutal comments coming from journalists and celebrities who haven’t even bothered to speak with the people impacted. It seems more important for them to jump on the popular political comment bandwagon as quickly as possible, ignorant as they may be about the subject.
I am Swedish and live in Sweden.
Excellent reading. Wish we had someone like Trump running the country. Trump or Vaclav Klaus. Or both 🙂
Ms. Albright, thank you. You comment rightly on the insane media, mirroring industry, hype of “lawnmower” noise. You know that the industry touts its safe machines, no mention of ILFN, and reducing the audible noises to inane comparisons. Time to bust this open, and take some offers up to have policy makers and deniers to live in homes that have become completely toxic. It has to be experienced if people have a hard time believing it. Even HOSTS of turbines are shocked. There really is no adequate amount of compensation for those impacted. It is time to buy out every single impacted family. Reimburse them for lost livestock and companion animals.
Marsh and Jim….yes. Almost sounds trite to repeat it: sleeplessness provides a wide berth for all kinds of disruption, leading to disease, and yes, cancer. But we must say it repeatedly until it is heard. The testimony of Ted Hartke of Illinois is very powerful. It’s a letter and Power Point, with pictures of his abandoned home, pictures of his children covering their ears, and head between pillows, irrefutable.
https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/submission-of-ted-hartke/
Link to his power point is also in this link.
He says: Update:
“We moved out of our house permanently a few days before Christmas. We will not be returning to our house. There are still a few families who continue to suffer night and day within our neighborhood. Dave and Jean Miles, Gina Isabelli, and Kim Hufford are struggling with noise which has caused them and their kids to have major sleep issues. Including us, none of these people knew this would be a problem until the turbines started producing power.”—Ted Hartke
Ms. Ashbee, you are one of the survivors, and you continue your work of actively educating everyone you can. Thank you!
This is the toughest I think. Victims being further victimized by disbelieving friends, family, communities, politicians, even their own physicians. We won’t go into the list of ridiculous things some have said. Victims are called out for being overly sensitive, programmed to dislike turbines before they arrive, and neurotic.
I think MOST of us agree, that neurotic is not the correct word FOLLOWING YEARS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION. I think the word might be, “dead” or nearly so. For most of us, again, even a few nights without sleep, creates disequilibrium, tension, lack of concentration, the list goes on. (That is my personal list.) It is not even up for discussion, what lack of sleep does.
Ingvar, thanks for sharing this. People wax poetic with respect to Sweden, Finland, Denmark, telling us what a success wind power is. Every time President Trump talks about wind here, can you see the room change? There is a slight pause, and then roaring approval! People get it, and some are on a steep learning curve about the aspects of it that are truly ridiculous, but still on the money machine goes. The more Mr. Trump speaks about wind, the easier it is for us to get our messages out: the things DON’T WORK. Or as another American icon, Bill Gates, says: “Whoever came up with this expression, Clean Energy, because I think it screwed up people’s minds….Do you guys on Wall Street have something in your desks that makes steel??”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/02/18/video-bill-gates-slams-unreliable-wind-solar-energy/
The more we all collectively poke holes in the lies, the faster we can abort this dreadful costly and nonsensical wind proliferation. Thanks again for commenting!
Another well thought out piece by Sherri Lange hitting the main problems brought about by the wind zealots. Obviously the most serious of the major problems she mentions are health issues which are unavoidable for those (people and animals) living in close proximity to a wind factory. Some day when medical science clearly discovers indisputable evidence that the presence of this green vandalism has infected and destroyed the health & wealth of those living nearby – hopefully the legal system will punish those greedy wind panderers and shysters responsible for this dysfunctional technology.
Thanks, Mr. Isselhard. Praying your immense efforts to save Lake Erie will pay off! You’ve won a few now.
Regarding the health impacts, for wildlife and husbanded animals as well, it is like a horror story. There is zero question that the cocktail of acoustic impacts are extremely serious. We only need reflect on the work of Kelly, way back in 1988.
The Engineers Journal writes about and quotes directly the work of Dr. Mariana Alves Pereira, a world respected researcher in ILFN and VAD (VibroAcoustic Disease).
http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2018/01/23/ilfn-infrasound-low-frequency-noise-turbine-health/
“On the Engineers Ireland website, a search for ‘infrasound’ or ‘low-frequency noise’ yields zero results. A search on ‘noise’, however, yields 44 results. Why is it that infrasound and low frequency noise (ILFN) is still such a taboo subject? While it is improbable that this particular question will be answered here, an exposé of ILFN will be provided with a brief historical account of how and why ILFN was ultimately deemed irrelevant for human health concerns.
Infrasound and low-frequency noise (ILFN) are airborne pressure waves that occur at frequencies ≤ 200 Hz. These may, or may not, be felt or heard by human beings.”
She goes on to explain that while ILFN impacts were known from the 60s, from industrial noise impacts, more recent “flooding” of ILFN impacts is seen with the proliferation of wind turbines.
Current guidelines for dBA testing, wind turbines, are simply not sufficient. “Noise regulations and guidelines need urgent updating in order to appropriately reflect ILFN levels that are dangerous to human health.” It deserves to be said again and again.
Living in a turbine array, factory, is described as hellish, like living in a “camp,” where you cannot really exit the stress and impacts, because often you don’t have anywhere to go! People describe it as “torture.”
But the truth is reaching places where change can happen. Let’s hope that President Trump says something more next week about “wind mills!” Even though now he has covered it all off quite well.
[…] Trump on Wind Power’s Problems (cancer too) […]
A most informed, well researched and cogent article by Sherri Lange. The dangers of ILFN and dirty electricity directly related to industrial wind turbines, if not acted upon immediately, will become the “Love Canal” of tomorrow.
You have to admire President Trump for staying the course on this extremely important issue, regardless of the constant barrage of insults from a totally uninformed left-wing press and a gaggle of ignorant show business hacks. He, in fact, appears somewhat Galileoian in the constancy of his message about the horrors of industrial wind turbines.
How are these commercial enterprises not a zoning issue? Also, I predict a class action law suit by homeowners with decreased property values against their neighbors/property owners who line their pockets with wind energy money.
Eco-facism this is the new world order.
[…] https://www.masterresource.org/windpower-problems/trump-on-wind-lange/ […]
David, Eco Fascism is correct. And the fallacies are ongoing….the wind orgs cannot release the enrichment program they are on, founded on propaganda. But it is all coming undone. Person by person, group by group, and by law by bylaw, zoning changes one at a time, and deep public angst. Thanks for commenting.
Hi Joyce, Yes, zoning is key. It’s one way to shut them down. Please see the upcoming workshop in Columbus OH, where a few possibly transformational questions will be put to the OPSB, in the form of a public meeting kind of event. These are massive energy facilities, even if only a few turbines. They forever change the landscape, communities, and lives, and have been trundled through unwitting or unwilling towns and farm communities. People are bullied if they object, and even if they ask questions. Rep Bill Seitz (R) House leader OH, has made it sure that people in one community have had their say, by asking the OPSB to mandate another community meeting, where one resident was bullied and ejected from asking relevant questions. But there are so few like him.
Back to zoning. Here is part of the workshop mandate:
“Accordingly, a transcribed workshop should be scheduled for Tuesday, April 30, 2019, at 10:00 a.m., 11th Floor, at the offices of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, 180 East Broad Street, Hearing Room 11-B, Columbus, Ohio, regarding how incident reporting and incident remediation should be addressed by the rules, as well as making explicit that economically significant wind farms and major utility facilities consisting of wind-powered generation adhere to local building codes.”
We know that fires are only reported about 10% of the time, and that similarly blade release, and blade shear and ice shear also have their impacts minimized by developers for obvious reasons. Why are these monsters allowed anywhere NEAR communities. We should use zoning and bylaws as often as we can to protect communities.
Yes, watch for the suits!
Michael, thank you for the punchy and very relevant comment.
Just a note of interest: Finland Also, has recently produced reliable and valid studies showing that ILFN travels up to 20 and even 25 km before dissipating, leaving thousands of residents impacted if they are aware of it or not. Now, a group has the capacity to measure all across impacted areas, to prove the presence of ILFN. This is a game changer.
There are indeed now entire swaths of landscapes with electrically polluted air and ground, and as you refer to Love Canal, over 90 wells in One Canadian province alone, with filthy water that cannot be used for bathing, drinking or even for animal husbandry. These folks are shipping their OWN water in at their OWN cost.
Why does anyone think that aquifers will remain pure when they have been pounded and disturbed likely with particles suspended now for a long time. Why are the authorities not responding to this Health Crisis?
Thanks for the allusion to Love Canal. We could also reference Maude Barlow’s entry to the Chatham Kent discussion on water quality, lack of it. She doesn’t buy the wind developer’s story about vibration from cars etc.
“You’re probably in for a long fight, but you have to do it because this is your future, this is the future of your children and grandchildren, the future for water, it’s the future of the ecosystem,” she said. “If we don’t come together and say no now, it is going to be destroyed in this area.”
Grassley is my Senator, and he’s a good one as Senators go. The turbine fields defacing the glorious Iowa countryside are his legacy so he protects them in the manner of a rabid pit bull protecting a food bowl. Each time I must drive in proximity, an email with irate content is sent his way. He replies to all contacts so an equally irate rationalization is soon received. One suspects the “legacy” situation as well as political correctness versus critical thought will delay the removal of the turbine blight for decades.
Thanks, Anna. YES. The “legacy” issues. It is difficult to move people from antique ideology, and they will vigorously deny the facts, even that they have in their promotion of subsidies, engendered harm, and many likely know it, including Senator Grassley.
I love your comment, like a rabid pit bull protecting a food bowl.” Couldn’t be better said, of many.
It will take voters and tons of them, to shake this money tree down, and replace it with reason and responsible energy policy. When we think of the utter waste! Grassley and others protect the path they have come down, and fail to be impressed with the waste. Those subsidy dollars do not go to hospitals or schools. They go directly into the pockets of fat cat developers. Often, more often than not, they go overseas.
Was doing some basic math: one turbine insurance company expresses that an average cost per day for the developer for down time for ONE turbine, electric power sales and subsidies, average size, is about $6,000. SIX THOUSAND per day. Multiply times 365 days, times number of turbines, times number of years of contract, usually 20. So for OHIO, it is around $19 billion and for IOWA, Mid American’s 2,200 wind turbines gets to just over $96 billion.
Even if they calculate half of that amount for down time, it is still whopping.
And then we remember that for all that cash, all that climate hysteria, not a gram of CO2 is reduced, and net zero world wide in electricity consumed. Point two of one percent.
Quite the scam. Biggest scam of the modern age.
[…] blog post defending Trump’s misleading remarks about wind power was authored by Sherri Lange, who is the leader of a number of anti-wind groups, including the […]
To those who rule out a linkage between up-close wind turbine noise and major health effects, including cancer, consider ….
Industrial wind turbines DO emit infrasound (sounds below 20 Hz that the ear can’t hear, but the body can feel) – acknowledged here in New York State by the former NY PSC Sound Engineer (and many others) at NYSERDA’s 2009 meeting specific to wind in Albany, NY.
Wind turbine-generated infrasound has been shown to be involved with many negative health impacts, like sleeplessness. Sleeplessness increases cortisol levels in the blood, which has been shown to increase one’s risk of getting cancer. Yet, the government has not mandated any independent health studies to be done on the health problems created specific to industrial wind-created noise and infrasound, while they’ve been allowing the irresponsible siting of these giant machines TOO CLOSE to peoples’ homes for decades now.
Destroying the environment and peoples’ lives with industrial wind sprawl in the name of ‘saving the environment’ is as stupid as it gets.
Thanks, Mary Kay. There is ample proof that sleep deprivation causes all manner of physiological stress. As Dr. Laurie says, “We know that noise can be a stressor if it is “loud” enough or if it is intrusive i.e. it can cause an acute physiological stress response. Acousticians refer to this as “annoyance” and some deny that there is an acute physiological stress effect but that denial is no longer valid given the compelling evidence of a direct causal relationship.”
Sherri:
Good job on your article. For further support that there is scientific support for what President Trump said, see this listing of eleven studies and reports.
Thank you, John. Excellent list of supporting materials. I realize you have the testimony referenced below.
Also useful is the testimony of Dr. Sandy Reider of VT, Primary Care Physician. 15 minutes of excellent reflection. He is testifying before the Vermont Senate Committee on Health and Welfare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z1EwI1dCAM
“I offer the following observations, comments and suggestions.
Firstly, I do not doubt at all that these large turbines can and do cause significant health problems in a significant number of persons living nearby. Even though the acoustical and vestibular impacts behind this harm are not completely understood, perpetual sleep disruption is the most commonly reported adverse health impact, and disturbed sleep and its resulting stress, and sleeplessness over time, is known to exacerbate cardio vascular illnesses, chronic anxiety and depression, and worsening of other pre existing medical problems….” He goes on to describe that the most vulnerable are children and the elderly.
If people prefer to read rather than watch, this excellent testimony can be read on line at:
http://www.windaction.org/posts/40125-dr-sandy-reider-testimony-on-turbine-health-impacts#.XLuo-uhKg2w
Thanks again, John. To add to your wonderful materials, Dr Laurie has prepared her own thoughts on heath impacts from lack of sleep. Will add later. She synthesizes that it is now irrefutable, conclusive:
“In summary:
…we know that noise can be a stressor if it is “loud” enough or if it is intrusive i.e. it can cause an acute physiological stress response. Acousticians refer to this as “annoyance” and some deny that there is an acute physiological stress effect but that denial is no longer valid given the compelling evidence of a direct causal relationship.”
[…] I think Sherri Lange, CEO of the North American Platform Against Wind Power, sums this up beautifully: […]
We have numerous suspicious cancer cases at tribal homes and offices around Kumeyaay Wind turbines. We are aware of two deaths from stomach cancer and one death from brain cancer, one current stomach cancer case, one current kidney cancer case, and one tumor removed from the abdomen of a toddler. There may be more. Tribal leaders with existing or pending wind leases are suppressing information and attempting to prevent cooperation with willing tribal members and those trying to help.
Our rural community of Boulevard in eastern SanDiego County, California, has been living with turbines since late 2005 when Babcock & Brown (Infigen) installed 25-Gamesa G87 turbines for Kumeyaay Wind on the Campo Indian Reservation. In late 2017, Iberdrola’s Tule Wind started operation with 57- GE 2.3 MW turbines on previously protected public land next to private homes. In addition, Pattern Energy’s Ocotillo Express Wind started operation in late 2012 with 112-Siemen’s 2.37 MW turbines, about 11-16 miles from Boulevard as the crow flies, and Sempra Energy’s (later IEnova & InterGen) cross-border Energia Sierra Juarez Wind with 47-Vestas 3.3 MW turbines started operation in 2015 about 10-12 miles as the crow flies from Boulevard.
The grassroots non-profit that I run has had two independent professional noise/vibration studies conducted here by Wilson Ihrig, a national firm, in late 2012 and again in late 2018. The 2012 study included homes in Ocotillo. Those studies documented the presence of ILFN and amplitude modulation up 16 miles or so from virtually all the turbines. Also, around 2012-13, we had Dr. Sam Milham (Dirty Electricity author) and Sal La Duca of Environmental Assay conduct electrical pollution testing in tribal homes and offices around the Kumeyaay Wind turbines that found dangerously high levels of stray voltage/dirty electricity inside and outside, with the power on and the power turned off.
Over the years, we have repeatedly provided all this documentation to San Diego County and other decision makers who have only added insult to injury. Now, Terra-Gen has proposed 90-4.2 MW turbines here on both tribal land and absentee-owned ranch land that have the real potential to impact hundreds of families living within at least a 16-mile radius.
San Diego County recently released their 2019 Public Health Position Statement on the Human Health Effects of Wind Turbines that closes by saying the, “The weight of evidence suggests that, when sited properly, wind turbines are not related to adverse health effects.” When pressed on what is considered “properly sited”, there was no clear answer.
Since then, we have had some success with San Diego County Planning Commissioners who are finally calling for Health Impact Assessment and more research on ILFN. See memo for April 26th hearing: https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/dam/sdc/pds/PC/190426-Supporting-Documents/Final%20Memo.pdf
Based on past experience, our expectations are low. The battle for equal rights and protection under the law continues…
Thanks, Donna. For many on the ground, such as yourself, the implications of impacts, real and suggested as things “abnormal” are going on, the need for further investigation is abundantly clear. You have undertaken to enlist Dr. Sam Milham and some in Ontario Canada are about to do the same. It is an “industry run guideline” to public safety, with wide variations world wide, and those are seriously now being questioned, as more and more impacted persons sadly accrue.
“Properly sited” is the black hole the developers seem to like us to be in, but we can always refer to Dr. Alves-Pereira, who says RUN if you are impacted and you may be within 20 km of an installation. Seems obvious that they should all be shut down immediately, pending testing results.
Imagine the additional consternation now that ILFN and VAD are in the dialogue with governments and policy makers. We do not know what properly sited is and Dr. Alves-Pereira again says this, when testifying, speaking, presenting and writing.
Many thanks for the link to the San Diego County Planning Commissioners calling for a Health Impact Assessment and more info on ILFN. This is a major step. Need to share this.
Am adding a comment from 2010 to the Public Service Commission Wisconsin, submitted by Dr. or Professor Lynn Knuth. It is a compelling read of some of the documents/studies outlining relationships from ILFN and its path to disease, including cancer.
Excerpts:
“As a biologist, I am concerned. Chick development is used as a model of human embryonic development. Are there implications for people living in the wind farm who want to have children? According to “Excerpts from the Final Report of the Township of Lincoln Wind Turbine Moratorium Committee” people in the Lincoln Township (Kewaunee) wind farm have reported an inability to conceive. There have also been serious birth defects in calves, and cows spontaneously aborting in that wind farm.
Are people in the wind farms experiencing problems with low frequency vibration? According to G.P. van den Berg (2004) “Although infrasound levels from large turbines at frequencies below 20 Hz are too low to be audible, they may cause structural elements of buildings to vibrate.” This is borne out in the wind farms as some people complain of hums and vibrations in the floors and windows of their homes and in other structures. If the floor is vibrating, the residents are experiencing whole body vibration.”
She quotes Frey: ” From Frey et al., 2007:
“In coursework description of “Whole Body Vibration” Prof Alan Hedge of Cornell University writes: “Vibrations in the frequency range of 0.5 Hz to 80 Hz have significant effects on the human body. Individual body members and organs have their own resonant frequencies and do not vibrate as a single mass, with its own natural frequency. This causes amplification or attenuation of input vibrations by certain parts of the body due to their own resonant frequencies. The most effective resonant frequencies of vertical vibration lie between 4 HZ and 8 Hz. Vibrations between 2.5 and 5 Hz generate strong resonance in the vertebrae of the neck and lumbar region with amplification of up to 240%. Vibrations between 4 and 6 Hz set up resonances in the trunk with amplification of up to 200%. Vibrations between 20 and 30 Hz set up the strongest resonance between the head and shoulders with amplification of up to 350%. Whole body vibration may create chronic stresses and sometimes even permanent damage to the affected organs or body parts.””
https://waubrafoundation.org.au/library/section/dr-lynne-knuth/
The survey of harm by Dr. Knuth, is compelling. Dr. Sarah Laurie has also given us very useful materials, which will follow.
No town tax in Orangeville. Good deal or is it? The following is a letter to the Editor by Paul Jensen.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2017
EDITOR: This year the Orangeville town tax will be paid by Invenergy Wind. Sounds great and to be envied by other towns. RIGHT? Lets see.
I question if it’s a good deal? Let’s use an average priced home assessed at $100,000 and use round figures. The Orangeville town tax would be about $1,000. That is $1,000 per year savings to that home owner.
Suppose the owner of that house wants to sell that home. Using NYS Real Property Services sales figures, that $100,000 home will sell for only $70,000, realizing a $30,000 loss. Some examples: a Syler Road property assessed for $91,500 sold for $30,000, a Route 238 property assessed for $107,800 sold for $62,700 and a Hermitage Road property assessed for $280,612 sold for $225,000. One Syler Road property with 1,092 square feet was purchased in 2008 for $127,380. The new owners built a barn, added an outdoor wood furnace and increased the house size to 1,260 square feet. The assessment was increased to $127,100. In 2015, after the wind project, the house with improvements sold for $125,000 — less than what it was worth in 2008 without the improvements. These are not rare sales but typical, in fact there are dozens of properties that lost values since the introduction of the wind project.
The Orangeville budget exceeded the tax cap limit as posted on Sept. 22, 2017, raising the tax levy. The 2016 assessment increases gave the county, schools, libraries and fire districts more of your hard-earned money. Now deduct the raises given to the county, schools, libraries and fire districts off the $1000 town tax savings. Let’s not forget the tax deduction you’ll lose for town tax. Doesn’t look so good now, does it?
Paul Jensen
Varysburg
http://www.thedailynewsonline.com/bdn06/no-town-tax-in-orangeville-good-deal-or-is-it-20171124
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i think this “frequencies of vertical vibration li between 4 HZ and 8 Hz” information is small wrong dark odisha book mechanic bkgraphy mrpestcontrol
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