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.”

Bernie Krause’s new book, The Great Animal Orchestra, is a worthy culmination to his inquisitive career.  After working out a few writerly wrinkles on a couple of earlier books that touched on aspects of his fascination with the world of natural sound, this one offers up a wide-ranging tour of our sounding world, shared in a congenial voice.

This book has rightfully garnered widespread praise, including the coveted cover spot on the NY Times Book Review section, as well as write-ups in The Washington Post, The Ecologist, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Wired. Check each of these out for good, brief glimpses into the stories you’ll find between these covers. The Wired piece is particularly well done, with many sound samples; more sounds can be heard on the site of publisher Little Brown.

Several key themes provide the foundation of the book.  First and foremost is Krause’s segmentation of the soundscape into geophony (sounds of wind and water and other movement of natural objects), biophony (sounds of animals, both vocal and sounds of movement), and anthrophony (sounds of humans, especially mechanical and amplified sounds). Similar divisions are used by bioacousticians, as evidenced in a couple of talks at a recent Bureau of Ocean Energy Management workshop on sound and fish that I attended.  Likewise, Bernie is an eloquent spokesman for the widespread thought that early human music has its roots in a time when tribal peoples considered themselves but one voice in a local sounding landscape; this theme is emphasized in the subtitle to the book, “Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places.”

Krause’s reflections on our urbanized relationship to sound are grounded in the soundscape tradition of R. Murray Schaffer, while his continuing efforts to understand the dynamics and relationships in natural soundscapes – using spectrograms to illustrate possible use of acoustic niches (differences in pitch, rhythm, or time of day) that allow a plethora of creatures to each be heard within a complex biophony – are contributions to the leading edges of scientific investigation of soundscape ecology.  Many reviewers note the rambling quality of the book as a small downside, but I found that it brought me as a reader into Bernie’s world, where pure wonder at the diversity of sounds crosses paths with speculative theories, sorrow at what’s disappearing, and a commitment to draw us into a deeper communion with the sounding world that surrounds us. A mindful engagement with sounds, or with the world as it is today, will inevitably bring us to such a mix of thoughts, feelings, and inquiries; this book one of the best invitations into the acoustic aspects of our times.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

As countries around the world gear up to expand offshore wind development, one of the major concerns of ocean biologists is the exceedingly loud noise of pile driving during construction. Studies suggest that some ocean species move at least 20km from turbine construction areas, and in areas with lots of planned construction (such as the North Sea), it’s possible that large swatches of shoreline could be impacted each summer for many years.

A new mounting system from the French firm Vallourec uses a series of thin tubes to anchor three octagonal “feet”; these are inserted in to holes drilled only 20m into the seabed, rather than the 60m that piles are driven into the seabed, supporting the huge concrete foundations used in today’s standard construction technique.  Vallourec claims that construction noise is limited to about 75dB, as compared to pile-driving’s 200dB (though I suspect they’ve neglected to correct the 75dB for measurement in water; even the resulting 138dB would be a moderate noise by comparison to pile driving).  The initial press release and website does not give a ready sense of how the cost of the new “PREON Marine” system compares to traditional pile-driving and foundations.

In order to compensate for the abandonment of many nuclear plants, the Japanese government has set its sights on the abundant wind resources off its coast.  A 15MW pilot floating wind turbine project is under construction not far from Fukushima; if all goes well, the project could expand to as large as 1000MW.  Along with smaller pilot projects in Norway and Maine, the Japanese effort will be a key player in moving floating offshore wind forward.

Currently, capital expenditure is about $1.7 million a megawatt for an onshore wind project and $5.5 million a megawatt for offshore, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance; floating offshore designs are still under development, raising initial costs even higher.  Over time, though, the cost is expected to come down enough to support widespread deep water floating wind farms; a feed-in tariff program promoting clean energy allows projects to receive higher-than-market rates as the sector develops.  Floating turbine designs are larger than onshore turbines, and can take advantage of stronger, steadier winds; foundation systems for floating turbines are much smaller than bottom-mounted near-shore foundations, minimizing impacts on the seabed and reducing the noise impact of construction.

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy and Management (BOEM) has released the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement that is the first step toward oil and gas development off the east coast.  The PEIS assesses the impacts of geological and geophysical (G&G) activities, primarily seismic surveys and test wells.

I’ve yet to dig into the PEIS to examine its alternatives or proposed mitigation measures, but a quick look at maps illustrating applications already received from oil and gas exploration companies affirms that the entire east coast could become an active seismic survey zone (the map at left is one of nine applications; there is much overlap among them).

UPDATE, 3/30/12: While those maps look impressive, both the International Association of Geophysical Contractors and the American Petroleum Institute have issued statements that surveys are unlikely to take place until the path opens for actual leases to be issued; the decision was already made to not issue any Atlantic leases during the current 2012-2017 planning period.  The applications for surveys currently on file were submitted during a period in 2008 when a long-standing Presidential order excluding oil and gas development on the Atlantic coast was lifted. “Without an Atlantic coast lease sale in their five-year plan, theadministration’s wishful thinking on seismic research has no ultimate purpose,” said Erik Milito, upstream director at API. Chip Gill, IAGC President, stressed that “contrary to the statements [by US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar and BOEM Director Tommy P. Beaudreau], we do not expect seismic surveys to be conducted for years, and thus we don’t expect it to be available to help the federal government evaluate the resource base anytime soon.”

(and now back to our original post):
While very few animals are killed or injured by air gun sounds, behavior can be affected for tens of miles, and airgun sound can be heard (and so drown out some distant communication) for hundreds of miles.  I just returned from a BOEM workshop on the effects of ocean noise on fishes and invertebrates, where scientists shared research on reduced fish catch rates near surveys (the fish move away for a few days or weeks, then gradually return), and attempted to come up with a shared understanding of how to investigate whether ocean noise can affect fish communication, larval or egg development, or other aspects of ocean ecology (so far, there is little direct evidence of impacts, but some concern remains about masking of sounds fish use for many purposes, and the possible negative stress impacts of chronic noise exposure).

From looking at the maps of existing applications to do surveys (download pdf of rough maps of all 9 applications), it’s immediately apparent that BOEM could work to minimize duplicating of efforts by several companies.  It may be that there will be areas that are clearly inappropriate for oil and gas development (eg, key fishing grounds or other biologically important areas), or seasonal exclusions to reduce impacts on spawning or migration.

Of course, there’s also the bigger-picture climate change question of whether we really want to be continuing to pull more oil and gas from the ocean in the years after 2020 anyway; any new leases will be issued after 2017, with development following years later.  Meanwhile, BOEM is working hard to lay the groundwork for renewable energy development in offshore waters, targeting areas for wind, tidal, and wave energy systems.  For now, continuing to plan for oil and gas development is part of the Obama administration’s “all of the above” approach to meeting America’s future energy needs.

For more on the Draft PEIS, see BOEM’s PEIS website, which includes links to download the documents and submit comments, this press release from the Department of the Interior, and this blog post from NRDC (which stresses that quieter alternative technologies for oil and gas exploration are expected to be commercially available in 3-5 years).

My dance card is filling up for the spring!  AEI’s years of working hard to play a constructive role in public and professional dialogue about policy responses to noise-related environmental issues has been rewarded with two invitations that I’m very excited about.

The first was an invite to server on the Wind subcommittee of the program committee for this year’s Renewable Energy World North America conference.  The big event takes place in December, but this week the program committee began its work with a conference call, and during April we’ll be assessing presentation proposals and coming together to meet for two days in Orlando.  I’m honored and pleased that the good folks at Renewable Energy World, the premier trade magazine for all renewables, thought that my input would be valuable.

I’ve also been invited to participate in a small, invitation-only symposium being convened by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and BOEM (Bureau of Ocean Energy and Management) to gather feedback on NOAA’s recent efforts to engage in ocean sound and cetacean distribution mapping, and to discuss ideas about how to use and develop these new tools to inform future ocean management decisions.  As a long-time advocate of more concerted mapping of current human sound in the oceans, I’m especially excited to participate in this event. We’ll gather in DC for two days in late May.  I got the good news on this invitation earlier this week while attending a BOEM workshop on the effects of noise on fish and invertebrates; I hope to post a brief summary of the proceedings later this week.

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).

A paper recently published in Conservation Biology suggests that current ocean noise regulations are likely not providing sufficient protections against impacts on marine life.  The authors note that current regulations are based on preventing direct physical injury from very close exposure to sound, while considering behavioral impacts to decrease consistently with greater distance, or the “zones of influence” approach to noise impact assessment.  However, some key impacts, such as interruptions in feeding or temporary abandonment of important habitat, are not accounted for.

Rather than fully summarizing the paper here, I’ll turn you over once again to Caitlin Kight of Anthropysis, who has recently been providing excellent coverage of anthropogenic noise issues as part of her larger focus on human impacts in the natural world.  Please see her full post to get the whole story; here’s a teaser:

In a previous study on behavioral responses of marine animals to noise, one of the authors of the current paper found that the “zones-of-influence approach did not reliably predict animal responses.” Furthermore, we know from terrestrial studies that a variety of additional factors–an animal’s past experience and conditioning, current behavioral state, acoustic environment, and type of exposure, to name a few–all affect the extent to which it will be impacted by noise pollution.

…(Studies in terrestrial and ocean environments have shown that) noise can have more subtle, but equally important, effects on wildlife. For instance, abundance and diversity may shift as animals flee from, or learn to avoid, particularly noisy areas; individuals may alter their behaviors in counterproductive or even dangerous ways; and noise may make important acoustic signals difficult to hear, even in the absence of actual deafness. In short, the researchers write, the current marine noise concept “ignores a diverse suite of environmental, biological, and operation factors” that can impact both perception of, and response to, anthropogenic noise. Thus, they argue, it is necessary to overhaul the system and “[incorporate] context into behavioral-response assessment.”

Ellison, W.T., Southall, B.L., Clark, C.W., and Frankel, A.S. 2012. A new context-based approach to assess marine mammal behavioral responses to anthropogenic sounds. Conservation Biology, online advance publication.

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.

A Canadian frigate used its mid-frequency active sonar this week during a training exercise in Haro Strait, north of San Juan Island and south of Vancouver Island.  The sonar emissions from the HMCS Ottowa (right) were picked up by whale researchers at Beam Institute, who raised concerns about sonar use in an area designated by the US as critical habitat for orcas. You can read a detailed report from Beam, including sonograms and MP3 files of the sounds heard, at their website. They note that “the peak power frequency is consistent with the 2-8 kHz frequency range specified for the SQS 510 sonar system, which is manufactured by General Dynamics Canada. Each ping had high intensity receive levels for ~0.5 second duration and pings were separated by about one minute.”

According to the Seattle Times:

The frigate was in Canadian waters at the time, said Lt. Diane Larose of the Canadian navy.  But the Ottawa’s sonar can travel 4,000 yards — more than two miles — and the sound was picked up by instruments in U.S. waters. Larose said the Canadians are well aware of sonar’s potential to hurt killer whales, which communicate by sound at similar frequencies. In 2008, the Canadian Navy adopted a policy requiring the use of radar, passive acoustic systems, underwater listening devices and night-vision goggles to make sure marine mammals aren’t present when sonar is deployed. “We take this very seriously,” Larose said. “It’s a very well-thought-out policy.”

Scott Veirs of Beam Research said that their monitoring network had tracked both transient orcas and endangered southern resident orcas in the area within 24 hours both before and after the incident. “This was a fairly high-risk event as far as we can tell…it’s concerning to me that the U.S. Navy has voluntarily refrained from unnecessary testing and training in the inland waters of Washington state, but the Canadian navy apparently still does,” he said. “The nightmare scenario is that you turn on sonar not knowing they are there and essentially deafen them either temporarily or permanently.”  Ed. note: Beyond this worst-case scenario, the use of this high-intensity sonar in waters close to designated critical habitat goes against the purposes of designating such protected zones; the US has banned all boat activity in some parts of the habitat, with the goal of assuring that the whales are not discouraged from using this region, one of their primary feeding grounds.

Interestingly, a commenter on the Beam Reach website notes that the Canadian Navy’s safety zone for their mid-frequency active sonar is 4000 yards, or over two miles.  Whether they can effectively detect whales at that distance, especially at night, is highly questionable. The Seattle Times clip above mistakenly presumes that the sounds travel only that far. In fact, this is just where they tend to drop below the sound levels considered likely to seriously disrupt behavior; mid-frequency active sonar can be heard for tens of miles, and in the complex underwater landscape of where this event took place, is likely to create dramatic peaks and drops in sound levels as the noise bounces from islands and the seabed, making it difficult for animals to know how to reduce their exposures.

A fascinating new study provides the first direct evidence that shipping noise may increase stress levels in whales.  During the days after the World Trade Center attacks, global shipping was halted; a team of researchers studying right whales in the Bay of Fundy decided to go ahead and continue collecting fecal samples, and were struck by how peaceful it was: Rosalind Rolland recalls that day and those following were like a primal ocean scene, “There was nobody out there except for us and the whales.”

In 2009, Rolland realized that another researcher, Susan Parks, had recordings of noise levels for the days before and after 9/11, and so they joined forces to see whether the samples taken from whales on those days showed any changes in stress levels (fecal matter contains stress hormones that can be measured).  As it turns out, the days after 9/11 mark the only time during Rolland’s five-year study that stress hormone levels were markedly lower than the overall average, and corresponded to a dramatic reduction in noise, especially low-frequency noise.

““This is what many of us had been looking for,” said Christopher Clark, director of the bioacoustics research program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who was not a paper co-author. “Here is the first solid piece of evidence that says there’s a link between noise level and stress.” Clark noted stress has long been tied to longevity, reproduction, disease and other key health indicators in whales. Researchers have long speculated that noise could be a stressor for ocean creatures, but there is no practical way to test a correlation, since ocean noise is nearly omnipresent in most areas.

The fact that this is an opportunistic study does mean that it’s unlikely to be considered solid proof, or to influence ocean noise policy.   As Dr. Rolland noted, “These are after all 50 tonne animals so they don’t make terribly easy things to study…Past studies have shown they alter their vocalisation pattern in a noisy environment just like we would in a cocktail party, but this is the first time the stress has been documented physiologically.”

Dr. Ian Boyd of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, home to many top ocean noise researchers expressed uncertainty that such a short time period and small sample “shows what is claimed.”  Boyd is one of a group of researchers advocating for a Quiet Ocean Experiment, in which large portions of ocean would be quieted for brief periods, allowing for more comprehensive studies of animal behavior and physiology before, during, and after the experimental periods.  To implement this idea, global shipping routes would need to be shifted for the duration of the experiment.

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.)

Three years after the NRDC and U.S. Navy reached an agreement that was meant to create avenues for dialogue and collaboration, a new lawsuit filed this week suggests that the hopes both sides held have not been realized. The main sticking point remains the same now as it was then: environmental advocates insist that some biologically rich areas should be entirely off limits to any sonar training activity, while the Navy holds that short-term exercises pose no great risk to wildlife. The final Environmental Impact Statements submitted by the Navy, and the permits issued by the NOAA Fisheries Service (which collaborates closely with the Navy in developing guidelines), allow the Navy full access to extensive training ranges that stretch along most of the coastlines of United States. The suit filed this week challenges NOAA permits issued in 2010 for one of the Navy’s dozen or training ranges, off the coast of Washington, Oregon, and northern California. It differs from an earlier high-profile legal challenge, which reached the Supreme Court, in that the previous suit challenged the Navy’s sonar operational guidelines, whereas this one challenges NOAA’s permits.

The Navy is already beginning work on Environmental Impact Statements that will accompany new permit request for all of its ranges, each of which must receive fresh authorization from NOAA every five years. The Navy has recently completed its first-ever EIS’s for training ranges around the world (a process spurred largely by earlier legal challenges); these 5-year permits were issued for some ranges in 2009, and are due for renewal in 2014 and beyond.  The operating conditions proposed by the Navy and approved by NOAA for the first-round EISs and permits are generally similar to the way the Navy had been doing things for many years. Marine mammal monitoring is maintained on sonar vessels, with sonar intensity reduced when whales are seen nearby, and operations stopped when whales approach very close to boats. The litigants point out that visual monitoring misses 25-95% of whales, and is particularly ineffective in high seas. “We learn more every day about where whales and other mammals are most likely to be found,” said Heather Trim, director of policy for People for Puget Sound, “We want NMFS to put that knowledge to use to ensure that the Navy’s training avoids those areas when marine mammals are most likely there.”

By and large, ocean noise regulations concern themselves only with noise that may be loud enough to cause injury, which occurs only at very close range (under a half mile). More moderate noise, which may cause behavioral changes up to 50 miles away, is assessed in the EIS, but these behavioral changes are generally considered to be of negligible impact to the animals. Recent NOAA permits routinely allow for tens or hundreds of thousands of animals to respond in some way to the sounds of naval maneuvers, with sonars mounted on ships, on floating buoys, and dangled from helicopters being the primary noise source triggering behavioral responses (any behavioral response is considered a “take” in permitting language).

The Navy says that in the Northwest Training Range Complex sonar training exercises typically

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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)

A research project in England is preparing to do some of the first field studies designed to see how human-made sound may affect non-cetaceans.  While many field studies have tracked the responses of whales and dolphins in both opportunistic and controlled settings, and some lab studies have noted how fish or other sea creatures react to noise when introduced into tanks, a team from the University of Hull is preparing to project human sounds from a research vessel and see how fish and crustaceans (crabs and lobsters) respond.

The researchers plan to film animals while playing the sounds of ships, concrete pile driving, or operating wind turbines; the results will provide data for far more accurate environmental impact assessments of offshore construction and renewable energy projects.

For more, see this recent article from OffshoreWind.

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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Two of the US’s most widely-respected ocean bioacousticians have called for a concerted research and public policy initiative to reduce ocean noise.  Christopher Clark, senior scientist and director of Cornell’s Bioacoustics Research Program, and Brandon Southall, former director of NOAA’s Ocean Acoustics Program, recently published an opinion piece on CNN that is well worth reading in full.  They stress the emerging scientific awareness that chronic moderate noise from shipping and oil and gas exploration is a more widespread threat to marine life than the rare injuries caused by loud sound sources like sonar.  Here are a couple of teasers:

Today, in much of the Northern Hemisphere, commercial shipping clouds the marine acoustic environment with fog banks of noise, and the near continuous pounding of seismic airguns in search of fossil fuels beneath the seafloor thunder throughout the waters. In the ocean’s very quietest moments, blue whales singing off the Grand Banks of Canada can sometimes be heard more than 1,500 miles away off the coast of Puerto Rico. But on most days, that distance is a mere 50 to 100 miles.

Whales, dolphins and seals use sounds to communicate, navigate, find food and detect predators. The rising level of cumulative noise from energy exploration, offshore development and commercial shipping is a constant disruption on their social networks. For life in today’s ocean, the basic activities that we depend on for our lives on land are being eroded by the increasing amount of human noise beneath the waves.

These stark realities are worrying. But emerging technologies for quantifying and visualizing the effects of noise pollution can help drive a paradigm shift in how we perceive, monitor, manage and mitigate human sounds in the ocean. Ocean noise is a global problem, but the U.S. should step up and lead the way.

Clark and Southall make three specific recommendations: to establish a more comprehensive network of acoustic monitoring stations in order to better understand our overall acoustic footprint in the seas; to encourage and accelerate development of noise-reduction technologies (especially to make ships quieter, and also to develop new technologies for oil and gas exploration and underwater construction that generate less noise); and a shift in federal regulations from avoiding acute injury, toward protecting ocean acoustic habitats and ecosystems.