Hippie: That wind turbine made me sick

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FALMOUTH, Mass. — Standing on his home’s porch, Neil Anderson points through the thicket of trees in his front yard and across Blacksmith Shop Road towards one of his closest neighbors: A wind turbine.

"Right now we are 1,320 feet, which is one-quarter mile south of Wind One, which is Falmouth’s first wind turbine. It’s been online since April. And we’ve been trying to get it stopped since April," Anderson says.

Wind One, as the turbine is officially called, is owned by the town of Falmouth.

...

When it was installed last spring, Anderson didn’t think Wind One would cause a problem. For 35 years, he’s owned and operated a passive solar company on Cape Cod.

The energy conservationist in Anderson considered wind power a good principle. He wasn’t alone — before the turbine switched on, Falmouth residents almost universally welcomed Wind One as a symbol of renewable energy and a way to keep taxes down.

“I was proud looking at it from this viewpoint — until it started turning,” Anderson said.

But now, as many as 50 people are complaining about the turbine and the noise it makes at different speeds. A dozen families are retaining a lawyer for that reason.

"It is dangerous. Headaches. Loss of sleep. And the ringing in my ears never goes away. I could look at it all day, and it does not bother me. It’s quite majestic — but it’s way too close," Anderson said.

Neighbors say this isn’t a debate about a turbine ruining their view, and their goal is not compensation. Some just want it turned off at night.

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Harper said one of the challenges of running the turbine is that the type of sound some neighbors complain about — that low-level pulse — isn’t regulated by the state. "The times I have been there I do not experience the impact of the effect that the neighbors have expressed that they’ve experienced. But I do believe that they are experiencing something that is very real to them," Harper said.

David McGlinchey is with the non-partisan Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences in Plymouth, which provides science-based information to policy makers.

...

“The existing peer-reviewed studies suggest that there are no health effects associated with the sound and noise from wind turbines,” McGlinchey said. “That being said, people clearly experience symptoms. People have headaches, people have their sleep disturbed, people are not living well next to them in some situations. In some situations they are. So, both sides are right.”

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Last week, Falmouth’s selectmen acknowledged the issue and agreed to turn off the turbine when wind speeds exceed 23 miles per hour.

http://climatide.wgbh.org/2011/03/the-falmouth-experience-life-under-the-blades/

Extended interview with Neil Anderson:

Sean Corcoran: How long after it started to spin did you start feeling some sort of symptoms?

Myself, it took me about a month and a half, maybe two months, to manifest all the symptoms. First it was the pressure in the head. The ears popping for no reason at all. Trying to get the water out of your ears and there was no water there. My wife, the first day, she feels it and notices it, and she feels it and notices it every day.

People talk about the noise, it gets loud. It gets jet-engine loud from this point right here. But the noise is the minimum component of that turbine. There is a pressure involved that gets into your ear, like you’re climbing at altitude in an airplane and your ears pop.

And there is a low-frequency pulse that particularly drives me crazy and some of the neighbors around here. It is a once-per-second low-frequency pulse, and it messes up your vestibular organs in your inner ear. And gives you a sense of off-balance and vertigo.

We both have signs of these symptoms. Headaches. My wife gets headaches three or four times a week, she wakes up with a headaches. She’s actually sleeping in a back bedroom right now with earplugs and a white noise machine trying to mask the sound. But it is really not doing any good because the sound just comes right through the windows, right through the insulation, right through the earplugs. And the pulse is right there.

Edited March 10, 2011 by \

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Hippies are such wimps.

[luckytxn 2,265]

Hippies are such wimps.

Yes they are. They tried to shove this ####### down our throats so I hope their heads explode.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I notice a lot of Right Wingers use the phrase, "shoved down our throats" a lot.

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I notice a lot of Right Wingers use the phrase, "shoved down our throats" a lot.

Stop trying to hijack this thread, hippie.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Stop trying to hijack this thread, hippie.

Translation: "Shut up and take it all in, b!tch!"

[Zero Sum 305]

Interesting. I wonder what it is about that sound that is making people sick. Is it anything like the political babble coming from most pundits these days? Cause I know watching any self-appointed political scholar on the news or listening to them on the radio is enough to flip a sane observer's stomach.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Interesting. I wonder what it is about that sound that is making people sick.

It's worth looking into, but for the record, wind turbines come in all sizes and different manufacturers. Some maybe more quieter than others. Certainly, this is not an unsolvable problem with wind turbines.

Edited March 10, 2011 by 8TBVBN

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It's worth looking into, but for the record, wind turbines come in all sizes and different manufacturers. Some maybe more quieter than others. Certainly, this is not an unsolvable problem with wind turbines.

From the article, it seems they just need to be far away from people.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

It's worth looking into, but for the record, wind turbines come in all sizes and different manufacturers. Some maybe more quieter than others. Certainly, this is not an unsolvable problem with wind turbines.

One plus: Pureed Pigeon. Some of the vineyards around here are turning on the wind turbines just to keep the birds away from the vines while the workers are pruning. We get swarms of black birds in late winter and early spring.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

From the article, it seems they just need to be far away from people.

Windmills existed alongside populations long before wind turbines were producing electricity. As for sound, stand below some utility lines sometime. They give off a sound as well.

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Windmills existed alongside populations long before wind turbines were producing electricity.

So? The technology has changed. If these things are making people sick, they ought to be moved further offshore.

[Zero Sum 305]

It's worth looking into, but for the record, wind turbines come in all sizes and different manufacturers. Some maybe more quieter than others. Certainly, this is not an unsolvable problem with wind turbines.

I'd say so.

Where where the actual turbine parts made? If we're going to annoy locals, we may as well do it with domestic parts.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

So? The technology has changed. If these things are making people sick, they ought to be moved further offshore.

...or try to eliminate whatever is the cause, but first lets investigate to see whether these wind turbines are in fact making people sick.

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...or try to eliminate whatever is the cause, but first lets investigate to see whether these wind turbines are in fact making people sick.

From the article:

David McGlinchey is with the non-partisan Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences in Plymouth, which provides science-based information to policy makers.

...

“The existing peer-reviewed studies suggest that there are no health effects associated with the sound and noise from wind turbines,” McGlinchey said. “That being said,

people clearly experience symptoms. People have headaches, people have their sleep disturbed, people are not living well next to them in some situations

. In some situations they are. So, both sides are right.”