Vermonters for a Clean Environment have filed a complaint in US District Court challenging the Forest Service’s planned permit for 15 new wind turbines in the Green Mountain National Forest.  The challenge includes several issues, but centers on the visual and sound impact of the new turbines on the nearby George D. Aiken Wilderness. Sound monitoring and modeling indicates that the boundary of the Wilderness is one of two areas in which the new turbines are likely to be audible above existing background sound levels (which includes sound from several older turbines near the new project site).

The recent court filing is not yet available on the group’s website, but an earlier appeal submitted to the Forest Service contains many of the same arguments.  A central point is expressed this way:

If the mechanical sound of the wind turbines can be heard within the George Aiken Wilderness, it is no longer a wilderness, plain and simple. See, e.g., 16 U.S.C. § 1131(c) (requiring that the area “retain[ ] its primeval character” and requiring that the “the imprint of man’s work [should be] substantially unnoticeable”).

The complaint suggests that ridgelines in the Wilderness will have more visual impact than the Forest Service documented, and there was not a sufficient assessment of how far into the wilderness sounds may be audible. The permitting documents estimates that turbines will be 5-7dB louder than background sound at the Wilderness boundary, and will be less audible as you move deeper into the wilderness; these figures are long-term (day-long or night-long) average sound levels.

The Record Hill Wind Farm has made the first of planned ongoing quarterly payments to all year-round and seasonal property owners in Roxbury, Maine.  The checks, for $111.57, reflect the average cost of the power used by residents in town over the course of three months.  While wind farms cannot directly supply local electricity (their power is sent into the grid, and often sold in bulk to utilities or other purchasers of electricity), this innovative program aims to give local citizens a direct benefit to compensate for wind farm’s intrusion in the local landscape.

While Roxbury’s 400 landowners seem enthusiastic about the payments, some landowners in nearby towns who can hear the turbines are left out in the cold, including those on Roxbury Pond covered earlier here.

Two town meeting votes, along with a short-lived wind turbine plan adopted by the local board of selectmen, kept things blustery in meeting rooms as well as in the springtime air of Falmouth this month.  A large number of people living within a half mile to mile of the two town-owned turbines have been struggling with noise issues, and the town has tried a few different approaches designed to reduce the problems, including shutting down the turbines in high winds.

Just before this year’s town meeting, the board of selectmen adopted yet another curtailment plan that they hoped would make things more livable while they tried to find some sort of consensus moving forward.  The plan would have shut down one turbine anytime the wind topped 10 m/s, and would have increased the cut-in speed of the other between midnight and 3am, from 3.5m/s to 8m/s (this to address the fact that in the still of night, wind noise from the blades can be troublesome even at low speeds).  These curtailments would be in place until May 15, after which both turbines would be shut down all night (1opm to 6am) until the end of June.  Apparently the hope was that a new long-term plan might be in place by then; the Consensus Building Institute of Cambridge is nearing completion of an information-gathering process that included 53 local stakeholders (see their draft report here).

However, two articles were up for a vote at the annual town meeting which stretched across several nights later that week.  The first called for both turbines to be shut down until November, and it passed 100-75.  A few minutes later, a supposedly competing article calling for the selectmen to continue their efforts to build consensus toward finding a solution on what to do with the machines passed by a vote of 93-74, leading the town meeting moderator and at least one selectman to wonder how to reconcile the two.  Without seeing the text, I can’t say for sure, but it doesn’t seem on the surface that the two initiatives are contrary; the work toward a long-term consensus can continue whether the turbines are operating in the meantime or not. Certainly, the process recommended by the Consensus Building Institute is likely to take much longer than from now until the end of June (in short, they recommend that a local committee sketch out a variety of options, without recommending any one; the goal would be to provide selectmen with “a clear, comprehensive, and inclusive analysis of the range of options, their costs and benefits, and their impacts.”

This article in the Falmouth Enterprise offers a detailed blow-by-blow account of some of the more contentious aspects of the recent town meeting debate.

Two recent articles have shed interesting light on the ongoing controversy in Keyser, WV, home of the Pinnacle Wind Farm, where many neighbors have been complaining about noise since the turbines began operating late last year. The first clarifies that most or all nearby residents signed agreements with the wind company, including the residence where the noise was expected to be the loudest, 56 dB.

This article notes that the regulations use a full 24-hour average, or day-night level (Ldn), which helps to explain why some residents’ reports of measuring higher levels can coincide with the company affirming that it is operating within its prescribed limits.  It would be likely that peak  sound levels could be well above the average, which is lowered by times when the turbines are turning slowly or not at all.

Much of problem here appears to be that residents, including those who signed agreements, did not appreciate just how loud 55 dB would seem, nor understand that the average may lead to peak sound  levels above that limit. As covered earlier by AEInews, some residents say they were led to believe they would rarely, if ever, hear the turbines.  It appears likely that company representatives assumed wind noise would down out the turbine sounds.

The second article addresses the addition of  noise reducing mufflers to the turbines there, which is expected to reduce some troublesome high pitched sounds from the turbine’s fans, though neighbors say that lower-frequency blade sounds are also bothersome. Charley Parnell, vice president of Public Affairs for Edison Mission Group, owners of the wind farm, said, “We believe Pinnacle is operating in a manner that meets the requirements of our permits, but taking additional steps to mitigate noise is an important part of our commitment to be a responsible corporate citizen of the communities in which we operate.  We look forward to many years of providing clean energy generated by Pinnacle, and we intend to work in good faith to address local concerns.”

Here we go again!  As in AEI’s similarly long recap of 2011 research on low frequency noise and infrasound published in December, I’ve tackled a similar task with close to a dozen papers published in 2011 on health effects of living near wind farms.  Rather than publish the entire thing as a blog post, I’ve created a 26-page PDF that can be downloaded or viewed online.  Here, I’ll reprint the 4-page introduction (note that even the intro has many important footnotes viewable only in the PDF version).
See pdf of Wind Farm Noise and Health: Lay summary of new research released in 2011

In February of this year, I wrote a column for the Renewable Energy World website that addressed the recent increase in claims that wind farms are causing negative health effects among nearby neighbors.  The column suggested that while many of the symptoms being reported are clearly related to the presence of the turbines and their noise, the relationship between wind farms and health effects may most often (though not always) be an indirect one, as many of the symptoms cropping up are ones that are widely triggered by chronic stress. In recent months, the dialogue around these issues has hardened, with both sides seemingly intent on painting the question in simple black and white—community groups assert that turbines “are making” people sick, while government and industry reports insist that there’s “no evidence” that turbines can or do make people sick. The gulf between the conclusions of formal health impact studies and the experiences of some neighbors has widened to the point that both sides consider the other to be inherently fraudulent.  I suggested that the rigidity of both sides’ approach to this subtle and complex issue is likely increasing the stress and anxiety within wind farms communities that may in fact be the actual primary trigger for health reactions.

Here, I’ll expand on that shorter column by taking a closer look at the few surveys and studies that have attempted to directly assess the prevalence of health effects around wind farms, including a detailed look at recent papers from Carl Phillips, Daniel Shepherd, Bob Thorne, Michael Nissenbaum, Nina Pierpont, and Stephen Ambrose and Robert Rand, along with consideration of publications from Eja Pedersen, Frits van den Berg, Geoff Leventhall, Roel Bakker, and the Waubra Foundation.

Even as the public becomes increasingly concerned about health effects, with a lot of focus on the role of inaudible infrasound, it’s been striking to me to that the researchers investigating health effects – even clearly sympathetic researchers – are not talking about infrasound much at all, and are instead focusing on stress-related symptoms.

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This winter, I had a couple pieces published by Renewable Energy World that I neglected to link to here.  They’re both typical AEI looks at wind energy: seeking the sweet spot in which wind power generation can continue to become a bigger part of our energy mix, while avoiding negative impacts on nearby neighbors.

The first was a piece highlighting the recently published history of wind power, written by Robert Righter, which I also covered in this earlier post.  Righter, who wrote an earlier history of wind in the 90s, is a big booster of the industry, which makes his strong and repeated calls to avoid siting close to unwilling neighbors all the more striking, and powerful.  He doesn’t come out with a setback distance he’d recommend, but at one point seems to suggest it would likely be in the range of a mile or more, at least in some situations.  Read that piece on Renewable Energy World here.

And, a couple weeks later, they ran a longer-than-usual piece on health effects being reported near wind farms.  I’ll have a long post here in the next couple weeks that takes a close look at recent research in communities being especially affected by wind farms, most by clearly cautionary researchers.  Perhaps surprisingly to some wind activists, even most of these highlight the stress-related symptoms being reported, with very little emphasis on direct exposure impacts; they also tend to estimate that health effects are likely to be occurring in a relatively small minority of folks within a mile or so (the estimates range from 5-20%), often a subset of the much larger proportion reporting significant annoyance.

As always, these REW pieces generate a lot of engaged commenters; check out the comment streams for more from many perspectives.  This link shows all the articles I’ve published on REW.

Neighbors of the Alltwalis Wind Farm farm near Carmarthen, Wales, met with the Welsh Government Petitions Committee as the next step in their quest to regain a measure of night-time quiet.  Several residents spoke of their difficulty in sleeping, and having to obtain prescriptions for sleeping pills. As one resident stressed, “We should not be expected to take drugs to get a decent night’s sleep.”  The residents who were quoted in this local press article live 800-900m (a bit over a half mile) from turbines.

About a thousand people have signed a petition asking for turbines within 2km (1.25 mi) of communities to be shut down from 10pm to 6am, and those 1.5km (4900 ft) from individual homes to be shut down after 6pm.  The current wind farm consists of ten turbines, two of which the company has reportedly shut down in response to the noise complaints; several more developments in the planning process could add as many as 80 more turbines to the region in the coming years.

Statkraft, which runs the wind farm, issued a statement affirming that sound reading taken in the community affirm that “the wind farm continues to legally operate within the conditions laid down by the local authority when planning consent was granted,” and that it has worked closely with neighbors, the local council, and the wind turbine supplier to address noise issues, including replacing a gearbox.  Statkraft said it would be providing information to the Petitions Committee in response to complaints made at the recent meeting.

This appears to be another example of a common occurrence: a wind farm operating within the noise limits set by local authorities, yet still disturbing a significant proportion of the nearby population; in this case, enough people to spur a thousand to sign a petition asking for night time shut downs (we can probably presume that not all of them are personally being bothered, with many signing in empathy for those who are).

Researchers from the University of Waterloo are planning to begin canvassing several Ontario counties this spring, marking the beginning of a multi-year effort to assess health-related changes in the vicinity of wind farms.  The research program in Renewable Energy Technologies and Health will include a wide array of scientific, technological, and health-related topics surrounding wind, solar, hydro, and bio-energy. The health-related surveys will be overseen by epidemiologist Philip Bigelow, who has spearheaded similar projects assessing appropriate noise thresholds for other common community noise sources.

“This one is actually a little different,” says Bigelow, “because you have this continuous noise and you have the wind changing, of course, but you have this continuous thumping and swishing, and that’s really irritating to people.”  Bigelow notes that, “when you average it all out, wind turbines are going to be worse than traffic noise for annoyance, and that’s already been well established because of the character of it.”

To balance the study, a group of people who don’t live anywhere near turbines will be included. Bigelow said the team ideally hopes to study people in areas where turbines are planned, then follow up with them after the turbines are up and running. “Those people we really want to follow up with.”

The study will assess low frequency and audible noises as well as vibration; field measurements of turbine noise will take place, with an extensive GPS mapping component, as well. After an initial round of surveys, Phase Two of the research will involve bringing in a registered nurse and physician to head a field study.  ”They will actually go talk to residents and administer a symptom and physical impact checklist,” said Bigelow.  ”They will then do an assessment and collect some biological materials like saliva to look for biological stress,” including sleep studies that will measure both awakening and non-waking arousals.  Phase Two will involve a smaller sampling of residents identified during the Phase One surveys.

The eventual value of this study will depend on how successful researchers are at achieving a representative sample of local residents.  This will require both researchers and citizens to come at it with as open a mind as possible.  Bigelow’s introductory comments to local newspapers, as quoted above (see the two links in the first sentence for much more), indicate an good understanding of the situation, including the roles of annoyance, stress, and sleep disruption; one comment mentioned in passing needs clarification, though.  The Owen Sun-Times noted that he said he wanted to find participants who don’t have an agenda; while I can understand this concern, due to the extreme polarization triggered by the issue across rural Ontario, I would hope and expect that the study would involve a truly random sample, and not exclude people who are upset because of symptoms that may have cropped up for them.  Equally troubling, at least one other health survey in Ontario was met with widespread distrust among those with health concerns, leading some to urge residents to not participate.  If either the researchers or anti-wind activists limit participation by the significant proportion of the population that has previously been engaged in this issue, the integrity of the survey’s results would likely be affected.

As regular reader will know, I tend to have a lot of empathy for quality of life and sense of place concerns raised in rural communities considering wind farm development, especially as related to even moderate levels of new audible noise in tranquil rural landscapes.  But I was quite shocked to read today that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ambitious energy plans are also causing pushback on these same merits.

The prospect of (tiny) 55-foot turbines on rooftops of buildings ten stories or taller caused one local preservationist to pipe up, “What about the noise?” and “That’s such a visual blight.”

Even the prospect of facades bulging with extra inches of insulation and shade awnings to reduce air conditioning use spurred gnashing of teeth. “It’s going to open a Pandora’s box,” said one resident.   As for rooftop greenhouses, some fear these structures could be used not just for local food production but perhaps as party spaces or other uses.  Imagine: partying in New York City!

Perhaps as a decidedly rural denizen who often feels city folks just don’t get why moderate noise could be an issue in the country, I’m equally insensitive to the subtle aesthetic pleasures of urban life…..but, I gotta say, yeah, I just don’t get it!

Read more at DNAinfo Manhattan Local News

A 75-turbine wind farm that would span parts of three Michigan counties will be 9 turbines smaller, after Merritt Township Planning Commission voted to not issue permits to allow construction of turbines.  The Merritt commission did grant permission for a substation and underground cables that are part of the wind farm’s infrastructure, but decided against allowing nine 466-foot turbines.  Commissioners visited wind turbines in three nearby townships, and apparently based their decision primarily on concern for rural quality of life in their township. ”They studied it thoroughy,” said John McQuillan, Merritt Township attorney. “That’s why the Planning Commission is appointed to make this decision.”

Merritt adopted an ordinance in 2010 requiring a quarter-mile setback from homes and roadways; a local community group had been pushing for an increase to a half-mile. NextEra, the wind farm developer, had removed nine turbines from their plan, and moved nine others to meet the quarter-mile standard.  ”It’s astonishing,” said a NextEra spokesperson. “We showed them how we had adhered to all of the regulations of their ordinance, and they completely disregarded the rules that they had set in place.”

At the Planning Commission meeting, a petition was presented containing 453 signatures from local residents opposing construction in their township. While health and property value concerns were raised, at the meeting Annette DuRussel stressed simpler quality of life issues, stressing that ”Merritt Township residents have the right to a good night’s sleep, a scenic view that is currently unobstructed – the list goes on and on.”

“The community is divided and the issue is getting hotter as the date to make a decision gets closer,” said Dave Schabel, Merritt Township supervisor, before the meeting. “It’s very controversial and has torn families apart, turned brother against brother….It’s hard for them,” Schabel said, referring to the Planning Commission. “They’re just average people in a pretty hot spot, and they are trying to get as much information as possible to make an informed decision — hopefully we can put the community back together.”

Dee VanDenBoom, Merritt Township resident, had been looking forward to seeing a turbine on his neighbors property, and felt that those opposing it were only “thinking of their own comfort;” he was disappointed with the decision but is hoping the community can move forward.”We’re peacemakers,” VanDenBoom said. “I hope that people can come together as friends and neighbors again.”

The comment of another local supporter, who will be hosting turbines near his home in a neighboring township, points to one of the factors in the Merritt commission’s decision: so many people living in the vicinity of the wind farm. ”Merritt is different than Gilford because there are more houses in the area, but still, I’m disappointed.”

Good local coverage:
Prior to the meeting here; initial article after the meeting here; and followup to the decision here.

Related: Another northern Michigan town, Lake Township, voted down a proposed wind farm ordinance on primary day, February 28; the ordinance included setbacks of 1500 feet and sound limits of 45dB, both fairly typical of many US siting standards.

Local news coverage of a recent meeting about the troublesome Pinnacle Wind Farm in West Virginia reveals some interesting exchanges between residents and Brad Christopher, site manager for the 23-turbine array, which is being run by Edison MIssion Group (EMG).

In particular, Christopher stressed that two other wind farms run by EMG, using the same model of turbines, have had no noise issues, but that these, in Oklahoma and Texas, are not built on mountain ridges.  Christopher stressed, “I don’t like it (the noise) any more than you do.”

EMG is planning to install mufflers on the turbine cooling fans, but the noise many neighbors are describing may not be related to the fans.  One neighbor, Richard Braithwaite, mentioned “a hammering sound, like thunder, when the wind is out of the west;” Christopher said that may well be blade noise, and “there is not too much to do about that.”

Another said that before construction began, an representative of the developer had “stood in my yard and guaranteed to me that there would be no noise.”

It appears that EMG and the wind farm developer, US Wind Force, may have been assuming that noise levels would closely mimic those of its wind farms in Texas and Oklahoma.  Unfortunately, ridge-top turbines are more apt to experience inflow turbulence, which increases noise output and can cause bursts of louder sound, much as described by Braithwaite. Dave Friend of US Wind Force said that a sound study predicted noise output “well below” what neighbors say they’re hearing. This may be a good example of the ways siting practices that work in ranch country may not be as appropriate in other regions; not only are community noise expectations different, but noise output and propagation can be very different in complex terrain than in flat ranch and farm country.

As covered earlier on AEInews, over twenty families living on the side of the mountain are being bothered by the noise; WV state noise regulations allow sound up to 55dB, and the site was designed to just meet that limit.  As neighbor Kenny Mason stressed, “We just didn’t know the windmills would be so noisy, and now we have to live with them.”

Last June, Umatilla County adopted wind farm siting rules that required a 2-mile setback from homes and towns, but allowed homeowners to waive that requirement if they so desired.  This approach is similar to what AEI and others have been recommending, in that it protects rural landowners from unwanted sound while allowing construction closer to residents who don’t mind hearing turbines more often or more loudly. Note: Those encouraging such “larger setbacks with readily-obtained waivers” approach suggest various minimum setbacks, ranging from 3000 feet to 2 or 3 miles; 2km (1.25 miles) is a common suggestion.

The county rule was quickly challenged, and the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) recently sent some aspects of the rule back to the county for clarification. The LUBA didn’t object to the 2-mile setback, but said that the county cannot designate the power to waive the setback requirement to individuals or towns.  Over the past month, County Commissioners have been working to come up with new language that addresses LUBA’s concerns.   They considered options including imposing the 2-mile setback with no waivers, granting variances by request from landowners, and establishing specific standards for granting waivers.  In the end, they chose to have variance requests use the county’s existing variance process, by which individuals or towns can request variances to any county regulations; the county then considers the request and makes the decision about whether to grant the waiver.  This should meet the LUBA’s objections, while maintaining the original intent of the rules, which aimed to balance concerns about maintaining rural amenity with allowing wind farms to build near willing neighbors.  According to Umatilla County Planning Director Tamra Mabbott, “The county clearly adopted a policy in support of wind development.”

As reported in the East Oregonian:

Bend attorney Bruce White, representing a local resident who wants to lease land to a wind developer, disagreed and argued the comprehensive plan issues are not just a checklist to work through, but represent a fundamental bias against wind energy in the county.  “The problem with that is you can have clear and objective standards, but if they’re so onerous — and in this case we believe they are — then whether they’re clear and objective or not does not encourage wind energy development,”?he said. “What this does, basically, is tell wind energy developers to go somewhere else.”

Commissioner Dennis Doherty, after discussing policy issues with White for a half-hour, said he understood the attorney’s stance. But he said finding a balance between state demands for renewable energy and the quality of life for those living near wind turbines, motivated his decision to continue on the path the commissioners started on in June.

Last month I got a call from a local TV news reporter in DC who said she’d scoured the nation for someone to discuss wind farm noise issues who didn’t appear to have a dog in the fight, and all she came up with was lil’ ol’ me.  She’s covering the ongoing issues at a wind farm in West Virginia where most of the nearby neighbors are being startled at how intrusive the noise from a ridge-top wind farm has been since it began operating this fall.  We had a good phone talk, similar to many I have with reporters or county commissioners trying to make sense of the seemingly antithetical tales being told by folks on each side of the issue.  She then arranged for a local TV news cameraman to capture a ten-minute interview on film; it all went quite smoothly, especially considering that I’d never done anything like that before.

Well, the piece was eventually finished, and it offers a pretty good look at the situation.  About halfway through the three-minute piece, I show up to share my esteemed wisdom.  And half a sentence later (after a very high-tech display of AEI’s logo), I’m gone!  So don’t watch this to get a full picture of my perspective on the whole thing, but it’s worth a look as a decent quick picture of the types of controversies that are playing out in many communities:

View more videos at: http://nbcwashington.com.

New South Wales is initiating an independent audit of sound levels around the three existing large-scale wind farms in the state.  While the wind farms have previously been found to be complying with their noise limits, the Department of Planning and Infrastructure (DPI) has continued to receive neighbor complaints.  The new audit will commence within a month and is expected to last until August; it will engage an independent noise consultant to determine noise levels, including low-frequency noise, and will also assess other issues that are part of the wind farms’ consent conditions, including visual amenity and any changes in flora or fauna.

The planned audit triggered vehement protest from wind advocates.  NSW Greens Member of Parliament John Kay called the move part of “a holy war against renewable energy,” saying the government response to complaints is “victimising wind farms” that are crucial to Australia’s greenhouse gas reduction strategies. Another wind proponent, Luke Foley, said the government was “pandering to flat-earthers” who are opposed to wind energy and addressing climate change.  The owners of the three wind farms all officially welcomed the audit, though one noted, “Given that these wind farms have already passed the most stringent noise assessment, we can only assume that there must be some political motivation to undertake further testing.”

The audit takes place within a larger context that’s likely responsible for much of the gnashing of teeth: in December, the DPI released draft planning guidelines for new wind farms in NSW, which are currently open for public comment through mid-March, with the results of the audit likely to shape the final version.  The draft proposes that any new wind farm will need to gain the approval of all residents within 2km; this provision is based on the numbers of complaints that have arisen at distances where the noise is quiet enough to meet noise guidelines but still loud enough to spur widespread discontent in local communities.  Victoria passed a similar 2km veto-power law this year, though Minister of DPI Brad Hazzard notes that the NSW proposal is not as absolute, as wind farm proponents can to take their plans to a regional planning panel if community opposition persists. Hazzard also stressed that his department remains committed to meeting the Australian target of 20% renewable energy by 2020; working more closely with neighbors should not preclude successful project development.  There are 17 applications for new wind farms in the works in NSW.

Construction of a wind farm a bit over a mile from shore near Redcar, on the northeast coast of England, has raised the hackles of local residents. At issue is the unexpectedly loud sound of pile-driving at the site; construction of the turbine foundations entails the construction of foundations that extend 32 m (about a hundred feet) into the seabed, according to this summary of its EIS.

This local news report quotes many local residents who were shocked at the intensity of the repeated pulses of noise from the pile-driving:

Newcomen ward councillor Chris Abbott said: “One resident described it as sounding like someone was standing in their back garden, banging a drum continuously.” Neil Short, a 40-year-old depot sales manager of Coatham Road, said: “The noise echoed through the house. I’d been at work since 4.30am so to come home to listen to that wasn’t good.”

The construction site is in about 20m/60ft of water; it’s not clear if the sound is propagating out of the water and through the air, or along the seafloor and out into the air as it reaches shore. Of course, these construction noises will be relatively temporary. A spokesman for EDF Energy Renewables said that they are monitoring sound levels and are within permitted limits; he also noted that “to help minimize potential longer term disruption,” they’ll be reducing the installation period, so may need to work at night, which is part of what triggered so many complaints.  (Ed. note: reducing the time needed to hire the pile-driving platform, pictured above, is undoubtedly also a budgetary decision by the company.)

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), the province’s largest farm organization, has called for a moratorium on wind power development.  In a statement, the OFA says that “we are hearing very clearly from our members that the wind turbines situation is coming to a head – seriously dividing rural communities and even jeopardizing farm succession planning.”

While also stressing the need to address the price paid for wind power, as well as noise issues and concerns about health impacts, Mark Wales, OFA’s President, said that “Most disconcerting of all is the impact wind turbines are having on the relationships across rural communities. When wind developments come to a community, neighbours are pitted against neighbours. The issue of industrial wind turbine development is preoccupying the rural agenda.”

Both the Canadian Wind Energy Association and Ontario Energy Minister Chris Bentley expressed disappointment with the OFA’s position, saying that a current provincial review of the feed-in-tariff program is already addressing many of the OFA’s concerns.  This may well be true of the economic issues, but the deeper question of community impacts is what appears to be at the heart of the OFA’s position, and that’s a question that may not be so easily addressed.

(Image: The Globe and Mail)

Driven by the rising public clamor about health effects reported by people living near wind farms, officials across the nation and around the world have been called on to assess the veracity of these claims.  This week’s contribution to the rapidly expanding genre of “wind farms and health” literature comes from the Massachusetts Departments of Health and of Environmental Protection.  In contrast to last week’s more comprehensive report from Oregon, the Massachusetts report follows in the pattern of the first two similar literature reviews (one funded by the American and Canadian Wind Energy Associations, and another from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment), in that it focuses solely on direct impacts and previously published research papers.  It also addresses a few of the more recent studies, including those by Pierpont, Nissenbaum, and Rand and Ambrose, generally offering them some affirmations for providing new information worth building on, but finding their results not yet solid enough to base siting policy on.

Except for the sections on these recent papers, there is no place in this report for consideration of actual experiences of people living near wind turbines, despite the presence of a neighborhood full of folks in Falmouth who were no doubt ready and willing to share their stories.  From what I’ve heard from these folks, they would offer cogent, detailed, and level-headed testimony about their experiences.

While I can understand why an expert panel might choose to focus only on published material (to avoid the quagmire of trying to assess the veracity of individuals’ reports), and I give the Massachusetts panel due credit for not artificially limiting itself to papers published in peer-reviewed journals, they dropped a crucial ball in neglecting to even mention the word “indirect” in the course of their 164 page report on health effects, let alone provide any sort of acknowledgement or analysis of the ways that annoyance, anxiety, sleep disruption, and stress could be intermediary pathways that help us to understand some of the reports coming from Massachusetts residents who say their health has been affected by nearby turbines.

While the report’s conclusions

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The Oregon Health Authority has released a draft of its first “Strategic Health Impact Assessment on Wind Energy Development in Oregon.”  The approach taken by Oregon health officials marks a subtle but significant departure from previous government reports on the topic.  Most fundamentally, rather than being simply a literature review of past studies, this paper is a first attempt to sketch out the parameters by which health impacts of specific projects might later be assessed.  The hope is that a final HIA would provide a basic understanding and framework that could allow future specific developments to look at local details, rather than repeating this big-picture overview.  While it’s not all that clear how this framework for understanding the possible direct and indirect health effects will be used to actually assess on-the-ground responses in communities, the paper is notable for inclusion of several indirect pathways by which annoyance and sleep disruption can lead to physiological impacts, and also for its consideration of the impact of community discord on stress and well-being.

To begin with, the authors emphasize that “HIAs are guided by the World Health Organization’s definition of health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’”  At the same time, the report makes clear that completely avoiding all health effects is not necessarily the goal, recognizing that economic development and public health are not in opposition to each other, but mutually inter-related, so that “the long-term public interest is best served when the interdependence of these goals is recognized and balanced through a process that empowers people to shape their lives and communities.”  This investigation has particular timeliness in many Oregon communities, given that Oregon’s current 2500MW of wind capacity will double when projects under construction or approved are completed, and would more than triple if those in the permitting process now are built out.

The report follows many others in finding that direct impact on the body from the sound levels commonly received around wind farms is not likely, and that infrasound is generally below levels that are likely to be perceived.  But unlike other reports, which often simply mention that annoyance is possible in response to audible wind farm sound, this one looks more closely at the health effects of stress and annoyance.  In particular, it concludes: ”Sound from wind energy facilities in Oregon could potentially impact people’s health and well-being if it increases sound levels by more than 10dBA, or results in long-term outdoor community sound levels above 35-40dBA.”   And further: “The potential impacts from wind turbine sound could range from moderate disturbance to serious annoyance, sleep disturbance and decreased quality of life.  Chronic stress and sleep disturbance could increase risks for cardiovascular disease, decreased immune function, endocrine disorders, mental illness, and other effects.  Many of the possible long-term health effects may result from or be exacerbated by sleep disturbance from night-time wind turbine sound.”

Especially notable in this report is an entire section on “community conflict,” and the conclusion that “Community conflict over controversial siting or environmental decisions may contribute to or exacerbate this stress, and thus increase the risks of these negative health effects,” and that “rural communities may be disproportionately impacted by community-level conflicts because these conflicts may erode traditional sources of social and interactional support that community members rely on.”

Also strikingly, the report acknowledges that sound levels “at or near” regulatory limits can trigger these effects.  Therefore, it recommends that “planners should evaluate and implement strategies to minimize sound generation from wind turbines when outdoor sound levels are at or near Oregon’s standard for wind turbine noise,” and suggest close consideration of site-specific factors that can affect sound propagation and perceived loudness, especially at night.  The idea appears to be that this site-specific analysis can help to minimize the error factors in more generalized sound modeling (which can routinely lead to brief periods of sound well above that suggested by the models), thus reducing the likelihood of excess or “just at the limit” sound events.

These and other considerations of subtle, indirect effects, as well as differences in noise sensitivity and responses to wind farms among both individuals and communities, make this report far more comprehensive than most that have come before.  It does not, however, make a case that all these impacts or health effects are necessarily likely to occur at levels that would preclude wind development.  I recommend you read it in full to get a better sense of the overall context within which these innovative perspectives are included.

In particular, the report stresses that long-term average sound remains the best predictor of annoyance and thus possible health effects; it notes an EPA recommendation that if a sound source is new to an area, 5dB should be added to its sound output in assessing likely negative community responses, though again notes that problems are related to 5-10dBA increases in 24-hour sound averages caused by turbines, more so than short-term increases in sound.

And, while noting that “a small number of epidemiological studies have linked wind turbine noise to increased annoyance, feelings of stress and irritation, sleep disturbance, and decreased quality of life,” with “annoyance from wind turbine noise…more likely when levels exceed 35-40dBA,” the report also stresses that except for some sleep disruption and reports of lower energy, people closer to turbines may report a lower sense of how healthy they perceive their environment to be, or lower satisfaction with living conditions, but that there is generally “no difference between the two groups for social, psychological, and general health-related quality of life.”  Still the report acknowledges the role (and limitations) of case series reports, which are more often simply dismissed by other similar reports.  Finally, the report stresses the contributing role played by general attitudes toward the wind energy development, and encourages an open process that provides opportunities for widespread public engagement and a clear process for reporting noise or health issues if they arise, as well as urging developers to outline and communicate proposed mitigation techniques that can be employed should problems arise.

Oregon’s draft HIA can be downloaded here as a pdf; comments are being accepted through March 30 at this website.

This probably looked like a great place for a wind farm: only a handful of homes within a half mile, and nearly all the more densely-populated roads to the east and west well over a mile from the ridge on Flathead Mountain, where the Record Hill Windfarm was to be built.  After the bad experiences at Mars Hill and Vinalhaven, where residents within 3000-3500 feet reported serious noise issues, this location likely seemed like just the ticket. But this week, after a month of operations, several residents told the Roxbury selectmen that the slowly turning turbines had changed their peaceful lakeside existence for the worse.

Linda Kuras told the selectmen, “I know what the ice in the lake sounds like and this noise is not that. This is a repetitive thumping sound: a whemp, whemp. What was once a quiet night’s sleep is now this.” She described the low-frequency sound as being akin to heavy items in a clothes dryer tumbling around.  Selectman Tim DeRouche concurred, saying, “It sounds like wind gushing right over the mountain. It sounds like a jet.”  Both DeRouche and Kuras live along Roxbury Pond (noted as Ellis Pond on Google Maps); the closest homes along the lake shore are between a  mile and a quarter and a mile and a half from the turbines, according to this map from Record Hill Wind.

Selectmen encouraged residents to report their complaints to the State Department of Environmental Protection, which is still in the process of setting up a complaint management system for this new wind farm.  Record Hill’s director of community relations, a Roxbury resident, was in attendance, and noted the issues; he also shared that one turbine is awaiting a replacement part to fix a problem (the article didn’t clarify whether this turbine is operating or not).

By all accounts, the noise at the pond is not particularly loud, and is only sometimes audible, most notably when the pond and environs are otherwise dead quiet (which, we may presume, is one of the reasons many folks live there).

A fascinating article appeared in Midwest Energy News just before the holidays, looking at the current feelings in Kewaunee County, home Wisconsin’s first two large-scale wind farms, which started operations in 1999 and 2000.  Twelve years later, some residents who had raised concerns seem to have come to feel the impacts are less than they feared; if Andrew Nowak, who voted against the proposal when he served on the local zoning board, is any indication, though, their enthusiasm is lukewarm.  Nowak says the sound of his neighbors’ turbines, about a quarter mile away, don’t bother him, but when asked if the wind farm had been a good thing for the community, said simply, “I don’t think they’ve been bad.”

While some locals continue to resent the wind farm’s presence in their community, most seem to have accepted it.  Local appraisers and city clerks say that they haven’t seen any sign of property values dropping in the townships as a whole, and in fact, there are some indications that land values may have risen more than in nearby townships; in addition, at least eight new homes were built within a mile of the wind farm in recent years.  (Note: see the paragraph below, regarding property buy-outs of some neighbors within a quarter mile or so.)

However, at the end of the piece, the “all’s well that ends well” theme is tempered by the fact that “few residents interviewed think the community would favor more wind farms in the area.”  Nowak affirms this, as does Lincoln Assessor and Zoning Administrator Joe Jerabek, who said, “We the people of the Town of Lincoln have made our contribution to renewable energy.”

Indeed, the article, while headlined and framed to suggest that initial fears have been unrealized, mentions that one landowner “and a few others” continued to object about wind farm impacts for years afterward, though offers only one quote from this perspective, a former Town Board member who hasn’t changed his view since voting against the plan.

One local, dairy farmer Joe Yunk, who moved away from the area after struggling with the noise only to find his new land targeted for a wind development, submitted a formal comment to the Wisconsin PSC in July 2010, in which he notes that Wisconsin Public Service, the developer of one of the two early wind farms, bought out two neighbors within a year (after noise issues cropped up) and demolished the homes, while several of his neighbors received below-market buy-out offers. After suing the company to purchase his property (two turbines within a half mile, the closest 1300 feet from his home), they settled with him for slightly under the market value, and his home was put on the market by the developer for 30% below its appraised value.

It appears that in this region of Wisconsin, the community impacts and attitudes pretty much reflect what we’ve seen elsewhere: in the community as a whole, the wind farm is generally accepted (though not exactly celebrated) and overall property values show no dramatic decline, while for a subset of the community the wind farm continues to be seen as an unwelcome presence, and some of the nearest neighbors find their lives severely disrupted.  Once again, it appears that larger setbacks, to prevent these life-changing impacts on the few, combined with easements to allow closer siting to willing neighbors, could have avoided the enduring “bitterness” that Nowak mentions at the article’s conclusion.

A new book, Windfall: Wind Energy in America Today, by historian Robert Righter,  was recently published by University of Oklahoma Press.  Righter also wrote an earlier history of wind energy, published by UofO Press in 1996.  In the intervening years, of course, the wind industry has blossomed from its initial mini-boom-and-bust in the California hills (Altamont, anyone?), with bigger turbines, larger government incentives, and growing commitment to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels (coal and natural gas) for electric generation all leading Righter to feel that an update was in order.

As a hearty advocate of wind energy and continued rapid growth of the industry, Righter will startle many with his strong call for not building turbines “where they are not wanted.”  He spends chunks of three chapters addressing the increasing problems caused by wind farm noise in rural communities, chides developers for not building farther from unwilling neighbors, and says that new development should be focused on the remote high plains, rather than more densely populated rural landscapes in the upper midwest and northeast.  While not ruling out wind farms in the latter areas, he calls for far more sensitivity to the quality of life concerns of residents. (Ed. note: Righter’s book shares a title with, but should be clearly distinguished from, a recent documentary investigating local anti-wind backlash in a NY town.)

Righter seems to be especially sensitive to the fact that today’s turbines are huge mechanical intrusions on pastoral landscapes, a far cry from the windmills of earlier generations.  At the same time, he suggests that a look back at earlier technological innovations (including transmission lines, oil pump jacks, and agricultural watering systems) suggests that most of us tend to become accustomed to new intrusions after a while, noting that outside of wilderness areas, “it is difficult to view a landscape devoid of a human imprint.”

He acknowledges the fact that impacts on a few can’t always outweigh the benefits for the many in generating electricity without burning carbon or generating nuclear waste, but goes on to ask:

No matter how admirable this is, should a few people pay the price for benefits to the many?  Should rural regions lose the amenities and psychological comforts of living there to serve the city?  Should metropolitan areas enjoy abundant electricity while rural people forfeit the very qualities that took them to the countryside in the first place?  The macro-scale benefits of wind energy seldom impress local opponents, who have micro-scale concerns.  The turbines’ benefits are hardly palpable to impacted residents, whereas the visual impact is a constant reminder of the loss of a cherished landscape.

Righter also takes a realistic stance about the fact that our appetite for electricity leads to inevitable conflicts wherever we might want to generate it. He says, “…wind turbines are ugly – but the public produced the problem and must now live with it.  Turbine retribution is the price we must pay for a lavish electrical lifestyle.”

But unlike most wind boosters, he doesn’t content himself with this simple formulation.  He goes on to stress that even as recently as 2000, most experts felt that technical hurdles would keep turbines from getting much bigger than they were then (500kW-1MW).  The leaps that have taken place, with 3MW and larger turbines in new wind farms, startle even him:  ”They do not impact a landscape as much as dominate it….Their size makes it practically impossible to suggest that wind turbines can blend technology with nature.”  He joins one of his fellow participants in a cross-disciplinary symposium on NIMBY issues, stressing:  ”Wind energy developers must realize the ‘important links among landscape, memory, and beauty in achieving a better quality of life.’  This concept is not always appreciated by wind developers, resulting in bitter feeling, often ultimately reaching the courts.”

He was obviously touched by the experience of Dale Rankin and several neighbors in Texas, who were affected by the 421-turbine Horse Hollow Wind Farm.  Righter generally agrees with my experience there, that such wide open spaces seem the perfect place for generating lots of energy from the wind.  But two of these hundreds of turbines changed Rankin’s life. These two sat between his house and some wooded hills, and Righter says that to him, “the turbines seemed inappropriate for this bucolic scene.  For the Rankins the change is a sad story of landscape loss…”  He asked whether the developer had talked with them before siting the turbines here, but they hadn’t, since the land belonged to a neighbor and local setback requirements were met, so “the utility company placed the turbines where its grid pattern determined they should be.  Perhaps such a policy represents efficiency and good engineering, but (reflects) arrogance and poor public relations….(The developer) crushed Rankin with their lawyers when fairness and reason could have ameliorated the situation…the company could well have compromised on the siting of two turbines.  But they did not.”

On the question of noise, Righter is equally sensitive and adamant, stressing the need to set noise standards based on quiet night time conditions, “for a wind turbine should not be allowed to invade a home and rob residents of their peace of mind.”  He says, “When I first started studying the NIMBY response to turbines I was convinced that viewshed issues were at the heart of people’s response.  Now i realize that the noise effects are more significant, particularly because residents to not anticipate such strong reactions until the turbines are up and running – by which time, of course, it is almost impossible to perform meaningful mitigation.”

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The Pinnacle Wind Farm in West Virginia has been gearing up in recent weeks, with all of its 23 turbines to be spinning by the end of the year.  But even as the wind farm began initial operations, neighbors have petitioned their county commission to request that the state PSC require the turbines to be shut down from 10pm to 7am.

Richard Braithwaite, who lives three-quarters of a mile from the nearest turbines, says that he he “never would have believed they would make that much noise.” He told the commissioners, “If you turn the turbine one way, it sounds like a railroad train. If you turn it another way, you hear the whine. The noise wakes me up; I can’t sleep. It’s so loud … you can’t drown it out with the television or anything.”  He says a simple sound meter has shown levels of 60dB and more inside his home on most nights (ed. note: it’s possible that this included other sounds); the wind developer has done some sound monitoring recently as well, though the results have yet to be released; the company has also sent a representative to visit with neighbors this week.

For more on this unfolding situation, see: Mineral Daily News Tribune article, Cumberland Times-News article.

An article in the Independent this week details the steps taken by four English wind farms to reduce noise experienced by neighbors.  In each case, the wind farm operator made changes in at least some turbines’ operation, including slowing them down or shutting them off when the wind hit certain speeds or came from directions that heightened the problems.

Town officials from Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin recently visited a wind farm in Brownsville in order to listen and take sound measurements of turbines similar to three being proposed by a local plant that aims to generate all its energy needs on site.

What they heard reassured them, after hearing noise concerns from some local residents. ”At 800 feet, measurements came in at 46 - 47 decibels, and at 1,200 feet it was less than 40 decibels, ” said Planning Director Ron Meyer. By comparison, he said a passing car on the paved road came in at 62 decibels. Even within a thousand feet, they could sometimes not hear the turbines spinning.

Of course, any quick visit to a wind farm offers just a snapshot view (or listen). In many cases, neighbors’ noise issues occur mainly in particular atmospheric or wind conditions, so the question becomes how common these above average noise events are. Stable sound-reflecting air layers above the turbines, high levels of turbulence in the air hitting the blades, and wind speed differences from the bottom to top of the blades are all factors that tend to contribute to higher or more intrusive noise levels. And, night time noise tends to be a bigger issue than day time; even moderate noise levels can become the loudest sound heard out a bedroom window at night.

Still, it’s good to get out there and get a sense of what may be heard near the proposed turbines.  Unfortunately, no residents were able to join the town officials on this trip, though they were invited. It’s hard to know what degree of investigation will really give a complete picture of what may be experienced by people near the plant; spending a few nights in Brownsville might help.  More generally, many towns considering wind project siting questions would be well served by a series of well-designed survey projects around wind farms, which might best capture the range of experiences at existing wind farms.

A couple living roughly 5000 feet from a proposed 5-turbine wind farm has appealed the project’s approval by the town of Clifton, Maine, citing quality of life concerns due to the likelihood that they will hear the turbines from their home and farmlands. “Our land is our home. We work here. We farm here. We recreate here and we restore our souls here,” said Peter Beckford.  Beckford and his wife Julie run an organic flower business on a sixty-acre property, which also includes several small cabins where farm apprentices and other visitors live.

The proposed wind farm, on Pisgah Mountain, was designed to include 4000-foot setbacks from homes, but the Beckfords say that their cabins and other buildings used for their business were improperly excluded as protected or occupied structures when the setback was applied.

The Beckford’s challenge is notable in that it is making a quality of life argument that audible turbine noise is an inappropriate addition to the local soundscape.  The appeal rests on several permitting issues, including the outbuilding distance and other aspects of the town’s planning process, but their statements indicate that the turbine noise is the crucial issue for them.  Their challenge is perhaps the strongest expression yet of the feeling by some rural residents that any noise intrusion is unacceptable; several more cautionary acousticians have recommended noise limits, at least at night, of 30-35dB, and setbacks of a mile to a mile and a half, in acknowledgement that any turbine noise readily audible above quiet rural background sound levels will trigger significant annoyance in some neighbors.

Most previous challenges of wind farm approvals have attacked siting standards that placed turbines much closer than a half mile, or noise standards that could allow intrusive sound levels (15dB or more over ambient) at some or many homes. In saying that three-quarters of a mile is not far enough away, the Beckfords are standard-bearers for rural residents who want wind farms to be far enough away to be effectively inaudible. For people living deep in rural areas, it’s an understandable desire; some towns have have banned tall industrial turbines altogether, to assure local soundscapes will remain unblemished.  Other towns, aiming to be somewhat more welcoming to wind projects, have set half-mile to 4000-foot setbacks in order to reduce the severity and frequency of noise intrusions. Time will tell whether new wind farms built with these larger setbacks will be more easily accepted by rural communities.