Wind And Health: A New Study?

From Garth Manning,  Chairman of the County Coalition for Safe and Appropriate Green Energy (CCSAGE), Prince Edward County, Ontario, writing in the T.O. Sun:

Toronto human rights lawyer Julian Falconer argues that the GEA and the government’s approval of wind projects “implicates their right to security of the person” as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights, in view of potential health impacts.

These health impacts were noted on Oct. 17, 2013 when the Ontario government’s Research Chair for Renewable Energy Technologies and Health at the University of Waterloo reported a statistically significant correlation between proximity to industrial wind turbines and sleep deprivation, tinnitus and vertigo.

What he's talking about is this.  Some of the short-comings are discussed here in The Chatham Daily News.  I'll just summarize from that piece with a few notes of my own.

1) As you can see from the link title, Wind Turbine Noise, Sleep Quality, and Symptoms of 
Inner Ear Problems is a poster, not a paper, and it was presented at a symposium by grad students (Each event will include brief presentations, Q&A, speed mentoring sessions, poster presentations by graduate students, and a cocktail to mingle with the experts and decision-makers.  It may or may not ever make it into the literature.

2)  But of course grad students are capable of fine work.  Unfortunately, in this case they had very few responses to the survey which served as their study's basis:

...the overall response rate of under 10% is "very problematic and we recognize the opportunity for bias that would invalidate the findings."

In fact they mailed out 4,876 surveys, and were able to use 396 of the 412  questionnaires returned.

Surveys on the health effects of wind turbines are at best difficult to conduct.  It's almost impossible to keep the purpose of the questionnaire secret, which is needed to ensure that answers are not preconditioned by what the subjects may have heard in the news or read on-line re such topics as Wind Turbine Syndrome (WTN).  Perhaps a healthy response rate might have eliminated this problem, but with under 400 replies the scientists at Waterloo are likely hearing from those particularly motivated to answer in a negative fashion.  And it is indeed the case that readers of the anti-wind NIMBY site Ontario Wind Resistance knew about the survey  well in advance of its distribution. They were even offering advice on how to field the questions contained in it.  So the project might have been doomed to start with.

It's worth noting how stringent the Health Canada study of the same issue (not yet released) is trying to be.  Their questionnaire work will be supplemented with extensive on-site testing. Participants have been asked to wear an  actimeter and give hair samples to be tested for signs of chronic stress.  No such precautions were in place with the research from Waterloo.

Nina Pierpont "Expert" Testimony Disallowed At Adelaide ERT Hearing

Nina,  a New York pediatrician, is the author of "Wind Turbine Syndrome" and in the eyes of most scientists, the inventor of the an imaginary syndrome allegedly caused by the presence of nearby wind-farms.  Her work is probably the major piece of pseudo-science invoked by anti-wind-power activists in their efforts to have wind-farms kept out of their communities.

Interesting, then, that the Ontario ERT (Environmental Review Tribunal) has disallowed her testimony in the appeal  of Nextera Energy's Adelaide Wind Project (see paragraph 19 of the material through this sentence's first link).  Basically, the material she provided the ERT was an impenetrable mess.

Nor is Pierpont the only anti-wind faction witness rejected by the tribunal; a long and fairly complete list, compiled by Ontario Wind Resistance's  Esther Wrightman, who has been quarter-backing the appeal, can be found here.  Of particular interest is Ben Lansink, a London area appraiser who's work has been central in the attempt to establish that the presence of wind-farms has a deleterious effect on Ontario property values.  If the ERT doesn't think his material makes the cut, then it will be almost impossible for the anti-wind folk to mount a serious argument on this point.

PS.  As a special bonus, here is Dennis Gruending on Climate Change and Canadian Churches.

Wind Turbine Syndrome: Its All In Your Head

The findings indicate that negative health information readily available to people living in the vicinity of wind farms has the potential to create symptom expectations, providing a possible pathway for symptoms attributed to operating wind turbines. This may have wide-reaching implications. If symptom expectations are the root cause of symptom reporting, answering calls to increase minimum wind-farm set back distances is likely to do little to assuage health complaints.

And:

But an as yet unpublished study (and therefore not peer-reviewed) just released by Simon Chapman, the Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney, suggests only a tiny proportion of people living near turbines do actually complain and, when they do, the complaints coincide with campaigning from anti-wind groups.

Chapman looked at health complaints made by residents living within 5 kilometres of all 49 wind farms operating in Australia between 1993 and 2012. After reviewing media reports, public inquiries and complaints to wind companies themselves, Chapman found evidence of only 120 individuals having actually complained - representing about 1 in 272 people living near wind farms.

But significantly, Chapman found that 81 of those 120 residents were living beside just five wind farms "which have been heavily targeted by anti wind farm groups". What's more, some 82 per cent of all the complaints had occurred since 2009 when Chapman says anti-wind farm groups began to push the health scare as part of their opposition to turbines.

So there you have it.