Citizens in this community got tired of waiting for the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) to implement standards and monitoring systems for the noise created by wind turbine systems.
Proponents of the group stated in a press release that “Unlike the Drive Clean® program that holds car owners responsible to a known standard for their vehicle pollution, environment minister John Gerretsen has acknowledged that no such program is in place to monitor, to a published standard, the broadband noise pollution from wind turbines.”
They said citizens have been forced to take over the role of the MOE in starting 24 hour monitoring of wind farms in Ontario to measure broadband noise levels, confirm the presence of extra low frequency noise and make the results available to the public and to doctors implementing health studies.
The group, Windfacts, (http://windfacts.ca) is a citizens’ group concerned over the absence of standards and lack of monitoring of wind farms once they are approved. It has implemented a broadband noise monitoring program it hopes “will fill the void created by the Ontario government’s lack of concern for the health of Ontarians impacted by the noise of wind turbines.”
The group stated “An increasing number of Ontarians are reporting health problems related to the broadband noise that they hear and feel from wind turbines located near their homes. This program places noise measuring instruments conforming to the same international standards as those used by the MOE, at the residences of those affected by wind turbine syndrome, to develop the records that are needed as an objective component of epidemiologic studies.
In the absence of any standards or requirement under the Green Energy Act for ongoing testing or monitoring of wind farms, Windfacts has also developed protocols based on international standards for the measurement of noise levels that will allow measured noise from wind farms to be compared with the calculated parameters used by professional engineers at the MOE for their approvals.
The results from the monitoring program and the protocols used for the measurements will be provided to Gerretsen and the MOE.
The group is hoping that the real results will be applied to any new standards and protocols that the MOE is expected to introduce in an attempt to validate to Ontarians the process and “flexi-standards” based on the calculated and unwarrantable specifications currently used for the “rubber stamped” approval of wind generation facilities.
