Nearly 600 people packed the cafeteria at Centre Wellington District High School on March 25 to hear about the possible effects of wind turbines on human health.
As the audience heard from three speakers, more and more of them joined the Oppose Belwood Wind Farm group that organized the meeting.
After the event, one man approached organizer Laura Humphrey and asked where he could make a donation. He said he would sign a cheque that night for $500 to fight the proposal by Invenergy, of Chicago, to build 25 turbines in the Belwood area of Centre Wellington and into Dufferin County.
The first speaker, retired pharmacist Carman Krogh, said she was struck by the denials and the words used by the wind energy industry to state there are no health problems that can be demonstrated. She said the words used are strikingly similar to those once used by tobacco companies in their efforts to convince people smoking did not cause health problems.
Krogh, a member of the Society for the Wind Vigilance board of directors, which is studying the effects of wind turbines, also noted the tobacco and wind turbine businesses both created industry study groups to consider their issues, and in both cases their studies showed there were no adverse effects. Both also created research companies.
“There is ongoing denial there are any adverse health effects,” she said.
Still, Krogh noted the United Kingdom is calling for serious studies and those calls are being echoed in Canada. Prince Edward Island has placed a moratorium on new projects until the results are in.
She said the World Health Organization has stated the low frequency sounds from wind turbines are particularly annoying, and there is also problems with shadow flicker.
Ripley dairy farmer David Colling, who has a background in electrical engineering, explained that people thought at first the turbines would produce “green” electricity, but his studies and tests indicate that they, in fact, like solar panels, produce “dirty electricity” that can harm humans.
He cited several instances in his area where people have been forced to leave their homes. Colling has worked with the wind industry and for farmers who wanted their properties tested.
“Dirty electricity is mainly what I work with on wind turbine homes,” he said of the “micro surges” from wind turbine power. “When that gets in the wires in your home, it’s like living inside a microwave. oven. It’s like a peanut allergy. You’ve got it for life.” He added that windows often act like speakers and amplify the noise from the turbines.
He cited one farm he tested where all the children got health problems, the adults had severe rises in blood pressure, and that all took place within two months of two nearby wind turbines starting operations.
“Electricity radiates out of the walls and makes you sick,” he said.
“I really don’t believe what our provincial government is doing,” he said of the Dalton McGuinty move to fast track wind turbines and take responsibility for them out of the hands of local government and give it to the Ministry of Environment.
And, Colling warned, even those living nowhere near wind turbines or solar panels can be affected. “Anything that happens on the grid comes right into your home. You’re not isolated.”
He said one wind turbine company he worked for never paid him, and that the companies constantly seem to be flipped to others, so it is even difficulty to trace the ownership of them.
He cited several horror stories of people who gave up their homes and now suffer from severe health problems after living near wind turbines.
“When this was happening, the only person who believed them was me,” Colling said.
He also warned farmers who have contracts with wind turbine companies to keep an eye on the installers.
“Never leave them alone,” he said. “They bury stuff.”
He added the turbines tend to kill or drive off earthworms that are vital to the soil, and often tile drainage is disrupted.
As for decommissioning costs, he said, “In the end, they’ll own your farm.
Colling said the first contracts were eight pages long, and now they are over 40.
He said anyone who signs a contract today “waives the right to object” to anything, and some even have to support the companies at their public meetings.
Colling said farmers considering contracts should get a top notch lawyer who understands contracts before signing anything with a company. And, he warned, “Your average lawyer cannot decipher these [contracts].”
Started small
Nicholas Schaut, now of Meaford, moved his family from Melancthon Township near Shelburne. He said a small local group started the wind turbine project there several years ago, but it was quickly bought out. Then, those locals were hired to get more contracts.
In the beginning, many were interested, and there were rumours of $5,000 to $8,000 per turbine per year for farmers who wanted them, but the large landholders and the small residential homeowners became divided and the issue split the community.?He said farmers who were not selected were angry, too, and concluded that wind turbines tend to tear communities apart.
Back then, the towers were to be 300 feet, but, “We weren’t prepared for the scale of what these were. At one point, he said he could see 88 towers from his window, and even though they were five to six kilometres away from his home, his family could hear them, particularly at night.
He said suddenly there were nearly 90 more turbines being added in the next phase.
Schaut said there are now proposals in Meaford, and those, too, are dividing families, and wreaking havoc with lifelong friendships.
“Wind turbines do not make good neighbours,” he said.
Schaut said the contracts are designed so companies have right of first refusal on farms put up for sale, and one man literally had to buy himself out of his contract to be able to sell.
As for the effects, “There’s this concussion feeling that hits your body,” Schaut said, adding that he still feels it today when he returns to his former home area. “It drives me crazy. I really want to convey that this type of industry is ripping people apart.”
He concluded residents in the Belwood area should “Take a cold hard look at it. If this goes forward, you’ll never go back to what it was before – and I believe you will regret it.”
During the question period that followed, one man asked if class action lawsuits might put a stop to the projects.
Krogh said suing the companies is difficult because there are so many and projects constantly change hands. She said people are reluctant to sue the landowners because they are neighbours, but one audience member suggested that if neighbours commit hostile acts that affect the health of others, all bets are off and they should be sued.
Another suggested “Invite Mr. McGuinty to live in those houses that are abandoned.”
Lou Eyamie, of Mattawa Valley in Renfrew County urged citizens to keep fighting the proposal. He said the local government there managed to place a moratorium on a project, and the owners appear to have given up on the area.
Humphrey said in an interview the day after the meeting that the protest group now has over 300 members, and it is growing quickly, considering it had only a few weeks to organize. They had T-shirts for sale, and lists of numbers and addresses for people who want to lobby the provincial government.
The group also lauded Wellington Halton Hills MPP Ted Arnott for his help in lobbying the Ministry of Environment. Members were unaware that earlier in the day Arnott had tabled a private member’s motion in the legislature that stated, “That, in the opinion of this house, the government of Ontario, through the Ministry of the Environment, should issue a moratorium on the approval of wind energy projects until a comprehensive and credible epidemiological health study had been completed by a qualified and independent third party, and released to the people of Ontario.”
