“I am angry, helpless, and disappointed our government would let something like this happen.
I am appalled at their ignorance and lack of compassion. It saddens me to watch my family and friends suffer from the same [health] effects of the turbines.
I spend as much time as I can away from my home, away from my son who is also sleep deprived. We are exhausted and miserable. I often seek refuge with friends, often falling asleep minutes after I arrive. I feel like a gypsy.
What was once a beautiful place to live has been destroyed.”
– Tracy Whitworth, schoolteacher (Clear Creek, Ont.)
This letter was written last fall by one of more than a hundred people (to date) in Ontario who have reported adverse health effects from wind turbines.
They are people who are genuinely suffering like many from around the world – Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, United Kingdom and United States among other countries. All live near wind farms (within 2.5 kilometres) and share one thing in common: they have symptoms when they are in their homes and get better when they are away for a few hours. The wind farms are too close to residences.
Not everyone is affected but at least 25 per cent are. Peer review studies in Europe have confirmed that 25 per cent of individuals living within 2.5 km experience stress, psychological distress and sleep disturbance. As the countries in which the studies were done have generally smaller wind turbines and certainly less crowded wind farms than those in Ontario, a higher incidence of problems here are probable.
In 2009, Dr. Michael Nissenbaum of Maine presented a study describing an incidence of 81 per cent of sleep disturbance for people living within 1,100 metres of a wind farm in Mars Hill, Maine. By contrast three per cent of a control group living more than 5,000 metres away reported sleep disturbance.
Headaches, nausea, dizziness and sleeplessness most often occur.
Cumulatively, sleeplessness and stress are serious problems; as the National Institutes of Health’s publication ‘Environmental Health Perspectives’ points out, the noise of wind turbines increases stress which in turn increases the risk of heart disease and cancer. There are acute risks as well, since some of the people have suffered acute hypertensive episodes or cardiac arrhythmias.
Children, too, are suffering, such as two-year-old K.W. in Ripley who cannot sleep at home because of ear pain. Eleven visits to doctors have failed to elucidate any cause. However, K.W. has undisturbed sleep when away from the wind farm.
In December 2009 the American and Canadian Wind Energy Associations (A/CanWEA) published a “study” claiming it gave the industry a clean bill of health. The study was a selective literature review carried out by a panel of experts chosen and convened by A/CanWEA. It is little wonder that the National Health Service in the U.K. published a refutation and suggested more research is indeed required.
Since there are no evidence-based or scientifically substantiated guidelines in place for the placement of wind turbines, research to create evidence-based guidelines is required. A responsible government or industry would take this action but instead the victims are treated with disrespect, denial and labelled “NIMBYs (not in my back yard)”. The official policy appears to be “Let them eat cake” as those in authority have failed to investigate despite being asked to do so by more than 40 municipalities in Ontario and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA). The OFA has written three times in vain to date.
There may be some hope with the soon-to-be-created research chair in Renewable Energy Technologies and Health (funded at $300,000.00 per year for five years by the Ontario government). Hopefully it will be an arm’s length appointment.
The time to investigate is long overdue. There has been a long-standing need to do the epidemiological and clinical studies required to establish authoritative guidelines for set-backs. The placement of wind farms is throughout Ontario. The research should involve multiple Ontario universities. It would be a fine investment of government monies instead of the billions spent on a dubious technology.
(See “The Wind Farm Scam” published by ecologist Dr. John Etherington). How much more might those billions have accomplished for greenhouse gas reduction if an investment in high-speed rail between Windsor and the Quebec border had been made?
Unless and until appropriate studies are completed there should be a moratorium on further construction of wind farms.
None of us should be indifferent to the plight of hundreds of rural Ontarians.
The writer is a professor emeritus and former dean, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry.