appeals in Canada
Comment
-
Comment by Kathy Sherman on September 25, 2015 at 9:39pm
-
Week not weak. But we need to get backbone into this.
-
-
P.S. This perspective comes from hearing this weak that a large utility that acquired a 'home-boy' local's wind project will not respond to complaints beyond a certain distance, probably 3x tower height, and NOT in the town most affected. Only in the town in which it was permitted and physically located. Unless the BoH of those potentially afflicted plays nice and does not pursue legal means to require a variance to ensure even minimum protection for their citizens within 2000 ft.
-
-
Please give a link. I am looking for something that neighbors of turbines have immediate control to initiate recording of sound and SCaDA with - something for local authorities with 'police powers' to use as they would with no hestitation do against a complaint about a loud party. But with real-time record for this chronic situation, and to CDC or other registers of environmental/health ills.
-
Comment by alice mckay barnett on September 25, 2015 at 7:12pm
-
I proposed a hot line....all is recorded....automated
-
-
I fully agree, and the issue became worse when the Maine Supreme fell for the DEP's argument that the issues with Fox Island when should revert to the Town of Vinalhaven. Even though DEP had been forewarned of considerable exceedence by their acoustic consultant due to high wind shear and vear on Vinalhaven, and even though DOE had Hoen go and document the complaints (self-reported as all noise surveys are). Local control is a two-edged sword, and no one is equiped to deal with noise generated by energy extraction facilities, especially when economic benefit is perceived by the 95% or more. Expecting Vinalhaven to resolve the issue is ridiculous.
We have the same situation in Massachusetts where the MW installed is much less, but the number of people over-exposed per MW is much higher. Boards of Health are supposed to deal with it, even though the compliance testing is under DEP and funded by the quasi-state agency that pushed the wind agenda in the first place. In Massachusetts the DEP does not review wind energy converters for ANYTHING - the only thing considered is whether the manufacturer asserts that there will be no tones in octave bands (starting at 63 Hz), not even 1/3rd octave bands. The permits are local, unless it is 'by-right' siting as it was in Falmouth and many other towns.
Mass DEP is in a pickle because the report of their 'expert panel' is every wind proponents favorite review - not study, no Dept. of Public Health involvement. It actually does acknowledge annoyance and sleep disruption, but misquotes the predicted levels at which it occurs. Like others, it complains that the sound levels were modeled (likely by a much more accurate method), rather than measured. Measurement is a nearly impossible task and inordinantly expensive.
But federal law provides our right to quiet communities, and the responsibility was given to states and locals. It is time that they be called on it, and one possibility is to mandate reportage to the Environmental Monitor and CDC (I think the Mass DEP experts said they looked there). By police powers, other types of noise, temporary, are resolved. We have left it largely to zoning of types of activity, but that has been suspended for wind energy.
I have some reluctance about who should take the complaints, just because some public health nurses are wind turbines' biggest fans. The info should be collected by a health agent and reported to a central authority, and to the operator. Repeat offenders shouldn't get the protection of a limit on number of times a complaint can be made or months or years to resolve it.
Just my opinion which is unpopular in my town.
-
-
no one knows how to complain....they ask DEP or WIND company for relief,,,,Public Health Nurse should get complaints....NOT CEO
-
-
yes, how many and how severe are the 'complaints'? I think Dr. Nissenbaum has the most relevant info and from one of the very few 'cohort-controlled' studies. Very high percentage closer, leas certain as 1 mile is approached. But deniers of problems can and did say, the variance was given in Mars Hill to allow louder and Vinalhaven is in fact non-compliant, as are most of the wind energy facilities in Massachusetts. So your former CDC director and all the other deniers can say no health effects "when appropriately sited" and no one is asked what is appropriate. It is likely 1.25 mi plus, but conservation group-related consultants have diminished Denmark's four times total height to 3x hub height (UCS) or 1.5 x height of tip or 1.1 x. No evidence to support. The 4x was just for pure looming and somewhat safety, not flicker. That is 10-18 times rotor diameter. Not audible noise - for health likely less than 35 dBA without excess blade pass, and 30-32 dBA with it. We don't know the numbers because few people were exposed to excess and in the past, at least some wind facilities figured out the offending conditions through cooperation with the afflicted (Salford '07), and others bought out the afflicted property. That is not happening much anymore because projects were permitted, they can't afford mitigation because they are in poor wind sites, economically viable only because of mandates and high guaranteed payment under RPS carveout, and because of unscrupulous people with a medical degree who really say insufficient evidence (not no evidence) or not direct health effect (irreversible death of inner hair cells). There is direct evidence that some parties on CanWea/AWEA '09 did not even read or retain the papers that they were assigned to read. After 6 years of testifying, they have gotten a bit more accurate.
We don't know because most of the publicly known cases were ultimately settled out of court, and we don't know because only post-05 have the mandates become so large and the turbines so large, and not in sparsely populated areas with large buffers to neighbors as in the Great Plains. Problems there too, but they won in court that 55 dBA (limit in urban areas under 70s law) is fine for rural areas even though it might be more than 30 dB, more than 1000x the acoustic energy in the A-weighted portion above background. Buildings do not respond according to human ear sensitivity, and I doubt that they respond logarithmicly. Humans don't either at the frequency extremes, and an annual average is not what wakes people up or prevents them from going to sleep. In Mars Hill it was far more than 10%
There was a survey in Denmark that said 9% moderately-severely disrupted in 1.25 mi (in Danish); Canada predicted 6.5%. Apparently most noise regulations are only to protect 90%. In Mars Hill it was far more than 10% affected; in western NY 26% had sleep disturbance but closer in.
There could at least be honesty that this is not a minor irritation and there could be honesty about the benefits (see corrections of Mills on that score; National Academy of Science on negligible 'benefits' undet cap-and-trade, and some science about reductions in SOx and NOx that already occurred under Clean Air Act; for mercury, remember that coal was burned for locomotives in the 1800s so that can be down too in soil locally).
New England has been burning coal a bit this summer and one day even oil, but it is negligible compared to the US at large. It is more than wind and PV could offset - i.e., no 'cost suppression'. How can we confront the demand that environmental, health and financial benefits of wind energy are a given and not to be challenged. That is the trillion dollar question. It is just the law.
-
-
how many complaints? How much do the turbines suck from the grid? everything proprietary.
-
-
What part of truth do you question?
-
-
truth = ?
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
Not yet a member?
Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?
We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
-- Mahatma Gandhi
"It's not whether you get knocked down: it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi
Task Force membership is free. Please sign up today!
Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
© 2024 Created by Webmaster.
Powered by
You need to be a member of Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine to add comments!
Join Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine