Todd and Jill Stull of Portage, Pennsylvania have sued the operators of the Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm, alleging that the turbines near their homes create noise in excess of local regulatory limits. Attorney Bradley Tupi, representing the Stulls, alleges in the lawsuit that Gamesa Energy misrepresented to local officials the noise levels from the turbines to get approvals for construction of the wind farm. “They assured the officials in the township in question that the turbines would be quiet. The turbines are quite loud. They wake Dr. Stull up and he must go to the basement to sleep,” Tupi said Thursday. In April, Stull told Portage Township officials the excess noise does not occur all of the time, but is determined by operating speed, wind velocity and direction and other conditions. Neighbors living nearby have complained for months that – during some weather and wind conditions – the turbines operate more loudly than the 45 decibels spelled out in local laws, a sound level that is compared to the sound of a residential refrigerator. Stull calls that comparison laughable. “This must be Paul Bunyan’s refrigerator sitting on my hill. That’s ridiculous,” he said at a recent Portage Township supervisors meeting at which plans to hire outside sound consultants to measure noise levels. Sources: Tribune-Democrat, 5/4/08 [READ ARTICLE][ARCHIVED SOURCE] Tribune-Democrat, 4/28/08 [READ ARTICLE]
[See AEI Special Report: Wind Turbine Noise Impacts]