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Windmill Flicker
If
"flicker" is a new concept to you, watch the short videos below to get the
idea. The closer a residence is to a windmill that is placed either East,
South, or West of that home, the more time that home will be in the
shadow of the spinning turbines, and the more intense flicker effect will be.
The revolving blades result in a sharp difference between sunlight and shadow,
like living in a strobe light. These shadows can affect homes more
than a half mile away, but at a distance of only 1000 feet, it is a significant
problem that landowners often do not consider until the wind turbine is
already built.
Sometimes the shadows of two or more
turbines fall on the same property at different times, even though, if the
ordinance protects the public from this effect, the location of
shadows can be predicted in advance and the turbines sited accordingly to
avoid or minimize this effect. There are many videos on the internet posted by
people quite unhappy with this disruption of daily life in their home, and
it seems obvious it could make a home difficult to
sell. It should be of special concern to schools as
well. Yet there is no provision in the Adams County Wind Ordinance to
avoid inflicting our residents with this annoying effect (or compensate them
for it).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbIe0iUtelQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XCA0_W9Qxs&NR=1
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This photo shows the turbulence coming from
wind turbines in Denmark. It may help to illustrate why one
family on the "upwind" side may have a completely different
experience with noise than a family on the "downwind" side of these
turbines. |
Noise & Vibration
The following link is an
excellent news story about the effects of noise on former wind power
advocates who live a half mile away from three new turbines in Maine.
January 25, 2010. Here is the opening of the article (click the link
below for all of it):
VINALHAVEN — Cheryl Lindgren was excited when the three wind
turbines down the road began turning in November, but within days
her excitement turned to disbelief. The sound at her house, a
half-mile or so away, wasn’t what she had expected. As she sat
reading in her quiet living room, she could detect a repetitive
“whump, whump” coming from outside. “I can feel this sound,” she
recalled thinking. “It’s going right through me. I thought, ‘Is this
what’s it’s going to be like for the rest of my life?’”
http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/01/25/turbines-turn-into-headache-for-vinalhaven/
Noise
(including low vibrations that are not heard with the ear) is one of the
most common complaints, and yet a particularly difficult one to verify or
prove. Sound waves can be affected by atmospheric conditions, presence
or absence of a standing corn crop, ability of the ground to transmit low
frequency vibrations, and other factors (there are sound engineers to
analyze these things). They do not always decrease over distance,
either. Worse, just as some people love peanuts and others are deathly
allergic to them, particular types of sounds affect different people
differently.
It is
therefore no surprise that wind power advocates say there is no problem with
noise from wind turbines, and other people abandon their homes because of
it. The key is to understand that the effects are real, even though
they are experienced differently by different people. So, should noise
be a concern at all?
The wind
industry often asserts that at 1000 feet, the noise will not exceed 45
decibels (which they say is within acceptable limits). Yet even 45
decibels significantly changes the peaceful quiet many people value in the
country into a never-ending background of industrial sounds. The fact
that this sound is constant, and out of control of the residents, and
continues even through the night, might also make it more difficult than the
equivalent number of decibels in a room (like a laundry room) that you are
free to walk away from. Further, the noise
can apparently become more intense during high winds because brakes must be applied
to the turbines to keep them from spinning out of control. Some
people in the many videos online have described those times like this: "It is like living inside
a washing machine" or "It sounds like a jet that circles but never lands,"
or "It is a constant whooshing and thumping you can feel in your gut."
Just search "Wind turbine noise," and you'll see all kinds of video both of
people showing how quiet wind turbines are, and others showing how loud they
are!
So, what
reports can we believe? Is the truth about noise just subjective (up
to the person who hears it)?
Our point
in advocating for a longer setback is that until any given family
experiences the noise level themselves, they cannot know for sure how
disruptive it may be to them...and afterward it is too late. This is a
good reason for developers to be conservative rather than aggressive with
setback distances from homes.
Further,
because of quite recent information and research (late 2009), more and more experts
are recommending wind turbines not be placed within a half mile (2640 feet),
or even greater distances, up to two miles (10,560 feet), from homes or
schools or businesses. The Adams County Wind Ordinance setback is only
1000 feet (or even less for any homeowners who can be convinced to waive
the requirement). This lenient
setback requirement is likely to mean that at least some people in our county
will
suffer from the effects of noise and vibration, just as many others have
already experienced in Wisconsin, Maine, and other places that used 1000
foot setbacks. See "Safety and Health" on this
website, and the resources below to learn more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeioZrKnnMY
TV Report about a
Lawsuit over turbine noise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsCy_MgXrn0
A 137
page scientific research paper about wind farm noise and acoustic
vibrations, as well as a review of the current research. The
conclusion is that 2 kilometers (6562 feet) is the minimum safe distance
for humans to live from large wind turbines. The abstract alone is
well worth reading.
http://www.windturbinenoisehealthhumanrights.com/wtnhhr_june2007.pdf
Loss of Access to
Air Evac Helicopters
Air evac helicopters cannot fly in between turbines in case of an emergency
need within the square miles covered by a wind farm. Our Wind
Ordinance does not require a developer to take steps to minimize the areas
of the county that will be inaccessible by emergency helicopter. See
the article below from the Air Evac unit in Wisconsin, where they used a
similar plan to ours to create their wind farm:
Flight for Life policy on flying near
windfarms
August 14, 2008
Summary
Flight for Life issued a notice to local law
enforcement agencies and fire departments in Wisconsin advising them
that they will not transfer patients from areas where wind turbines
are located. The wording on the notice is below. A copy of the
notice can be downloaded by clicking on the link below.
Important Information from
FIGHT FOR LIFE about Windmill Farms
Windmill farms present Additional Hazards
to Air Medical Transport Systems:
- These windmills stand approximately
400 feet high with a wingspan of 270 feet.
- Visibility of them at night or with
gray skies is limited.
- They can create vortices equal to the
turbulence created by a 747 aircraft.
- The windmill farms are generally
grouped into defined "clusters." Only windmills along the
circumference of each cluster are identified with obstruction
lights.
- Due to safety considerations, FLIGHT
FOR LIFE will not land within these clusters because of the
risks posed to air medical transport.
FLIGHT FOR LIFE
will work with your department to determine a safe landing zone
perimeter surrounding each windmill farm cluster within your
service's response area.
We would be happy to discuss our operations
relating to a windmill farm cluster specific to your department's
service area. Please call our FLIGHT FOR LIFE
Fond du Lac Base office at (920) 924-0062 and we will arrange a time
to meet with you.
Air transportation
provided by Air Methods
Additional
General Resources:
This video is a good
newscast, giving both sides of the story in Wisconsin, a place that used
1000 foot setbacks, where many people are now upset about it. To learn from
their experience, click on the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiSpToi982A
This video is about
a lawsuit over the noise and vibration of wind turbines. There
are many videos about noise, including some that argue that the noise is not a problem
and even ridicule people who say it is.
The degree it bothers an individual apparently depends on factors like
wind direction, speed of turbine, sensitivity of that person, and the
direction the turbine is facing at the time...although the closer someone
lives to a turbine, the more likely they are
to experience noise as a significant problem. Here's the video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsCy_MgXrn0
New York's Attorney
General created a 8-page "Code of Conduct" mandating that in New York,
the process of bringing a wind farm to any county must be an open,
ethical, public process. (We do not have such a policy in Illinois
at this time.) Here are the rules they follow in New York, for
your reference:
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2008/oct/WindCODE%20FINAL.pdf
The following link
is to a video of a turbine exploding after the brake failed. While
not common, this and other catastrophic failures such as fire, collapse,
or throwing broken pieces of a blade have occurred already, and as
equipment ages, may happen more often over time, creating a hazard of
falling debris over a 1/4 mile area (far more than 1000 feet).
Catastrophic failures like this and "ice throw" are rare events
that have never killed anyone to date. However, as wind farms
multiply, greater setbacks could help prevent these kinds of events from
harming nearby homes or people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA&NR=1
Below is a link to a video about
"ice throw,"
the phenomenon of ice building up on the blades of a turbine, and
then as the ice breaks loose, chunks of it being thrown some distance
(some reports have that distance at up to 1500 feet). In theory,
the blades are turned off when ice builds up on them to prevent this;
the video shows that is not always the case.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nws9odq7S8&NR=1
Other websites of
interest:
A Few of the Largest Grassroots or
Citizen Action Groups:
http://www.windaction.org/
www.wind-watch.org
www.betterplan.squarespace.com
See the websites of the
developers who are planning now to build their wind farm in our county:
Global Winds Harvest & Acciona
www.Globalwinds.com
www.acciona-na.com
Note that on their
website, Acciona says they have "embraced a policy of corporate
responsibility. This means we hold ourselves accountable for the impact our
activities have on our customers..." Given the questions raised in this
website, we would like to be informed more specifically what that will mean for the people of Adams County.
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