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Comment by Sherwin Start on December 1, 2013 at 7:28pm

Why Is it That Woodstock Approved a Variance of 50 db ? They Were BOUGHT OFF!-Thats Why! Apparently They Think If They Are the ONLY ONES That Have to Live with the Noise Level-and There are WALLS Around their Town,And if They Do NOT WAnt anyone else to Visit their Town and if They Care if the Noise Level Drives Away ALL The Wildlife-They Are Safe!!Why Woud the SUPREME Court Rule that 42 db is Maximum Noise Level Permissable?? The Solution May to AMEND the Wind Power Law to include a Maximum Noise Level permissable at Any Distance!!

Comment by alice mckay barnett on December 1, 2013 at 4:13pm

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should be noted

      By Alice Barnett, verified user — Sat, 11/30/2013 - 12:32   

Woodstock selectmen made a variance on noise and increased the nighttime limit to 50 dBc.   Patriot Renewables is held in compliance at 50 dBc not the 42 dBc the supreme court ruled. 

Thank God a citizen's initiative caused the legislature to look at this health issue.

Now for the health board in each town to demand they handle the hot line.

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The entire permitting process

      By Penny Gray, verified user — Sat, 11/30/2013 - 10:27   

The entire permitting process for industrial wind development is baffling.  Not only is much of the information and data collected by the developers considered "proprietary", i.e. not for public consumption (even tho the public is footing a large percentage of the bill for most of the project), but their "experts" collecting the data work primarily for the wind industry.  The complaint hotlines are handled by the wind developers. Really? Which begs the question, why would anyone hire a fox to collect the eggs in the hen house?  That's what the DEP and BEP are doing when they rely on data being provided by the applicant to "prove" that noise or health problems from infrasound will not be, and have never been, an issue.  The fox who is hired to collect the eggs reports there were no eggs laid today...yet there is egg yolk all over his nose, and what are those feathers stuck in his teeth?  Oh well, we must take his word for the egg count even tho evidence exists to the contrary.  And so these projects are built and operate with impunity.  Patriot Renewables bought off all the nearest abutters to their proposed industrial turbines for various undisclosed amounts of money, which does not lower the nighttime legal noise limit one little bit and is not going to cause any health problems to abate.  In other words, they side stepped the law in a way that should not be allowed by the DEP or BEP.  Who else is this wind developer buying off?  Were the children taken into account in these buy outs?

Comment by Monique Aniel Thurston on December 1, 2013 at 2:32pm

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In November 2009 , John

By Monique Aniel, verified user — Sun, 12/01/2013 - 14:18

In November 2009 , John Piotti, then House Majority leader, advised a small group of residents that the Legislature bears the responsibility to protect the health and welfare of Maine residents and noise was a known source of adverse health effects. We understood that nighttime noise limits ( 45 dBa ) did not protect the residents and that we needed to change those numbers.

In July 2011, BEP heard our arguments with expert testimonies (medical and acoustic) and heard the complaints of Maine residents suffering from turbine noise in Freedom, Mars Hill, and Vinalhaven. The BEP was alarmed and the regulations changed from 45 dBa to 42 dBa .
.
This was a far cry from what we wanted. Indeed, 35 dBa is accepted as being the sound level at which NO community complaint has been recorded, and Low Frequency Noise (LFN) has been shown to have significant health effects and should be recorded and ambient noise levels should be recorded in quiet rural area where the sound level should not be over the low twenties decibel according to WHO.

Patriot Renewables was not in compliance with their Saddleback project, a sad testimony to the callousness of the wind developer Jay Cashman who was well aware of the effect of turbine noise as he has been conceiving his involvement with wind power since 2004! ( the year where Doctor Nina Pierpoint first testified to the New York legislature on effect of wind turbine noise )
Indeed in the book " Cape Wind " by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb , which deals with the celebrity ridden( Robert Jr Kennedy , Walter Cronkite ) fight against the Cape Wind project started in 2004 , page 90 it says " Later that afternoon , Jay Cashman , one of the Western Hemisphere's largest marine contractor , was fueling his boat at an Osterville dock when an acquaintance walked over : We just raised 4 million dollars to fight that wind thing ". Cashman did not bother to answer , he was intrigued .He himself had just started thinking about developing his own offshore wind farms . Turbines would be a great way to make money and to free the country from its dependence on oil ".

So here is the deal for Saddleback that money hungry Cashman ( not a philantrop as most environmentalists may believe wind developers are ) is giving to the folks of Saddleback: I am putting my horrendous turbines on your mountains ( which have been protected by Angus King in 2002 ) , I know some of my turbines will affect your sleep and peace so I will buy the silence of some of you and when I am refueling my yacht in Nantucket I will tell you that my engine is noisy and I do not complain , and if you complain of noise I know that the DEP is too poor to give you the recording equipment to monitor the sound levels and I know that you are too poor to purchase the equipment , and I also know that if I am out of compliance like Fox Island Wind in Vinalhaven , the DEP will not enforce compliance as it has never shown until now that it would do it .
Finally IF MY PROJECT DOES NOT PERFORM AS EXPECTED, AS IN ROXBURY, I MAY HAVE TO REQUEST A DECREASE IN MY VALUATION SO AS TO DECREASE MY TAX CONTRIBUTIONS TO CARTHAGE as Record Hill wind has just requested at the Roxbury selectmen meeting.

So as citizens ,we forced a change in noise regulation but , the wind industry still controls the game , the BEP is not asking the proper questions to ensure the protection of the residents , the buying off of abutters is still allowed even though it creates a class of silent and muzzled sufferers , the monitoring of noise levels and enforcement of irregularities are non- existing.
And nobody , not even Angus King would dare to talk about wind power reducing oil consumption, a propaganda that a gullible public fell for
like sheep going to the slaughterhouse.
Jay Cashman, you can still stop this project, you have no reason to do this except to purchase a bigger yacht for yourself, nobody believes in your phony climate change and wind turbines argument.
Do not try to buy the people who want to protect their health and their homes .
but if you do and put those turbines on the ridges , you will destroy a protected wilderness, you will kill raptors and bats, you will destroy the lives of those who fought you , you will affect the health of those who submitted to you AND those who did not, cumulatively with Record Hill turbines you will for decades and maybe forever alter the hiking experience of generations to come .
Monique Aniel
www.windtaskforce.org

Comment by Dan McKay on December 1, 2013 at 8:44am

The issue of sound/health impacts from industry doesn't go away because people are paid to keep quiet. It simply helps to keep the issue from coming up with the next proposed project as the developers declare sound compliance on all their previous projects have been met ( or fixed ).