[OKC] From NYT: For Those Near, the Miserable Hum of Clean Energy

[Miles, Karen]

For Those Near, the Miserable Hum of Clean Energy


By TOM ZELLER Jr.
<http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/z/tom_jr_
zeller/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 

VINALHAVEN, Me. - Like nearly all of the residents on this island in
Penobscot Bay, Art Lindgren and his wife, Cheryl, celebrated the arrival
of three giant wind turbines
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/w/wind_pow
er/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>  late last year. That was before
they were turned on. 
"In the first 10 minutes, our jaws dropped to the ground," Mr. Lindgren
said. "Nobody in the area could believe it. They were so loud." 
Now, the Lindgrens, along with a dozen or so neighbors living less than
a mile <http://fiwn.org/>  from the $15 million wind facility here, say
the industrial whoosh-and-whoop of the 123-foot blades is making life in
this otherwise tranquil corner of the island unbearable. 
They are among a small but growing number of families and homeowners
across the country who say they have learned the hard way that wind
power - a clean alternative to electricity from fossil fuels - is not
without emissions of its own. 
Lawsuits and complaints about turbine noise, vibrations and subsequent
lost property value have cropped up in Illinois, Texas, Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin and Massachusetts, among other states. 
In one case in DeKalb County, Ill., at least 38 families have sued to
have 100 turbines removed from a wind farm there. A judge rejected a
motion to dismiss the case in June. 
Like the Lindgrens, many of the people complaining the loudest are
reluctant converts to the antiwind movement. 
"The quality of life that we came here for was quiet," Mrs. Lindgren
said. "You don't live in a place where you have to take an
hour-and-15-minute ferry ride to live next to an industrial park. And
that's where we are right now." 
The wind industry has long been dogged by a vocal minority bearing all
manner of complaints about turbines, from routine claims that they ruin
the look of pastoral landscapes to more elaborate allegations that they
have direct physiological impacts like rapid heartbeat, nausea and
blurred vision caused by the ultra-low-frequency sound and vibrations
from the machines. 
For the most extreme claims, there is little independent backing. 
Last year, the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group, along
with its Canadian counterpart, assembled a panel of doctors and
acoustical professionals to examine the potential health impacts of wind
turbine noise. In a paper published in December, the panel concluded
that "there is no evidence that the audible or sub-audible sounds
emitted by wind turbines have any direct adverse physiological effects."

A separate study <http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/ems/reports/lbnl-2829e.pdf>
financed by the Energy Department concluded late last year that, in
aggregate, property values were unaffected by nearby wind turbines. 
Numerous studies also suggest that not everyone will be bothered by
turbine noise, and that much depends on the context into which the noise
is introduced. A previously quiet setting like Vinalhaven is more likely
to produce irritated neighbors than, say, a mixed-use suburban setting
where ambient noise is already the norm. 
Of the 250 new wind farms that have come online in the United States
over the last two years, about dozen or so have generated significant
noise complaints, according to Jim Cummings, the founder of the Acoustic
Ecology Institute <http://www.acousticecology.org/> , an online
clearinghouse for information on sound-related environmental issues. 
In the Vinalhaven case, an audio consultant hired by the Maine
Department of Environmental Protection determined last month that the
4.5-megawatt facility was, at least on one evening in mid-July when Mr.
Lindgren collected sound data, in excess of the state's nighttime sound
limits. The developer of the project, Fox Island Wind
<http://www.foxislandswind.com/> , has contested that finding, and
negotiations with state regulators are continuing. 
Article continues at: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/business/energy-environment/06noise.ht
ml?th&emc=th
 
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