****
When lawyers, and after them, historians, write up the story of how graft and corruption paved the way for the willful ignorance (by then viewed as malign acquiescence) of the political enablers of the great wind power fraud, whole chapters will be devoted to their deliberate efforts to prevent the evidence being gathered, that ultimately resulted in legal claims running into the hundreds of $millions.
Those claims will have been successfully made in negligence – against public officials, developers’ acoustic consultants; and for noise nuisance against developers and their turbine hosts – with injunctions ordered to prevent further harm, and substantial damages awarded for depriving thousands of the right to sleep, live in and otherwise use and enjoy their very own homes and properties, due to turbine generated incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound (see our post here).
What will astonish successful plaintiff lawyers (and those telling the story in hindsight) is just how little effort was made by those charged with responsibility for public health and well-being (like Australia’s wind industry controlled AMA and NHMRC) to investigate with any vigour, or at all, the thousands of health complaints made by the wind industry’s victims.
What eventually led to justice for wind farm neighbours will have had nothing to do with government or its agencies, but will be all down to the efforts of the victims and those few professionals equipped with the moral courage and temerity to always ensure that right be done.
There will have been examples – like that below from Huron County, Ontario – where, overwhelmed by health complaints, regional authorities will relent and make (often token) efforts to gather the evidence and act on it. But, ultimately, it will be the combination of individuals (victims and properly motivated professionals) – untainted by the influence of government entrenched institutional corruption – that brings the wind industry to account.
Huron County Health Unit – Investigation of health effects of IWTs
Jeanne Melady, Gerry Ryan, Patti Kellar, Carla & Mike Stachura
7 March 4, 2016
On March 1, 2016, the Huron County Health Unit stated it will investigate the health complaints made by residents living next to industrial wind turbines, in keeping with their legislative duty to investigate potential population health hazards.
The Health Unit plans to launch an online and paper survey in May 2016.
Information from the survey will help the HCHU decide the next steps to investigate complaints.
Health Unit staff will present their action plan to the Board of Health as part of a report in April, 2016.
The HCHU made this decision as a result of correspondence from numerous residents of Huron County to the Huron County Health Unit (HCHU) describing negative health impacts from living close to Industrial Wind Turbines (IWTs).
A delegation had been formed to make a presentation to the Huron County Board of Health on March 3, 2016. As our delegation was requesting information and the decision by HCHU to proceed with the health investigation, the HCHU scheduled two meetings on March 1, 2016.
The first meeting on March 1, 2016, the HCHU met with Carmen Krogh to further discuss the complaint tracking form that was developed with Public Health Ontario in the fall of 2015. Dr. Clark and Carmen Krogh have been working together since introduced by Safe Wind Energy for All Residents (SWEAR) in 2014.
Later the same day, the HCHU – Dr. Janice Owen (Medical Officer of Health), Dr. Erica Clark (epidemiology) and Jean-Guy Albert (environmental health) met with Jeanne Melady, Gerry Ryan, Carla and Mike Stachura.
At the meeting, the HCHU detailed their plan to implement an investigation on health complaints from Industrial Wind Turbines. The following is a synopsis.
Phase 1
The health unit is developing a survey to track wind turbine complaints. Carmen Krogh and Tanya Christidis (University of Waterloo) are involved in developing the survey. A small number of affected individuals (5-10) will have input into the survey development during the pilot testing phase in April 2016.
The survey will be available electronically (using FluidSurvey) and also as a paper survey. The survey is expected to launched in May 2016. Those wanting to participate will need to register with the health unit first. The initial interview will be done by Dr. Erica Clark and/or additional health unit staff members.
Note: Information provided on this survey is owned by the individual. This means that the health unit cannot share individual responses without permission from the person who provided those responses. If a person wants to withdraw from the investigation, they have the right to ask the health unit to delete all of the information he/she provided. Only aggregate (grouped) data will be published.
Registering will involve answering an initial series of questions including age, gender, address, health conditions that existed before the IWTs were turned on, how many IWTs are visible from the house, etc. These initial questions will not be part of the wind turbine complaint tracking.
After completing the survey, individuals will receive a personal code known only to them. When they enter information into the complaint tracking survey, they will use their personal code so that they do not need to enter information included in the initial interview.
When an individual is experiencing negative impacts, they complete the survey online or on paper. The survey can be accessed without the code; however, there will be a question that asks for the code. The personal code is a substitute for answering questions about name, gender, age, address, etc. every time the survey is completed.
The survey will consist of “tick” boxes and a 1-5 “Likert” scale. The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete. It will include weather conditions, noise description (i.e. whining, whooshing, wooing, thumping, crashing, whumping, swooshing, tonal sound etc.), the health complaints being experienced at that moment for example – headache, ear pain/pressure, tinnitus, nausea, anxiety, pressure in the head and chest, bloody nose, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, vertigo, sleep disturbances including quality and quantity of sleep, shadow flicker etc.
Residents will be encouraged to complete a survey each time they are experiencing negative health impacts. This could be up to several times a day if the weather is changing etc.
Residents that do not have access to the internet will be provided paper forms to complete that will later be entered into the system.
Information will be gathered for each person for a year. This is necessary because negative health effects are often dependent on seasonal weather patterns.
Data will be analyzed seasonally to determine trends. The process will be open and transparent and results will be made available to the public on a seasonal basis.
The HCHU will be attempting to determine patterns of when and under what conditions people are experiencing difficulty.
Phase 2
Analysis of the phase 1 results will help the HCHU determine the next steps of the investigation. The health unit stated next steps may include acoustical testing of both audible noise and infrasound inside and outside of homes of agreeable participants. The details of phase 2 are still being developed so there is no further information available on phase 2 at this time.
Dr. Owen stated that the HCHU’s mandate does not include setting up a medical referral centre or designating a referral physician; however, Dr. Owen is aware that Carmen Krogh is making inquiries on that issue. If a physician is found that is willing to take referrals, area physicians could refer people to him or her for further testing.
Timeline
The HCHU will require two “point people” from the “health affected resident group” to communicate with committed residents willing to participate in the development/testing phase of the survey.
HCHU expects the initial draft survey will be completed by the end of March.
HCHU will need a committed group of 5-10 people to “test” the survey beginning in April.
HCHU expects a final version of the survey to be available by May 1st and to begin a long term/full year investigation by May 1st.
Note: HCHU inquired as to the best method to find participants. Interested individuals can contact the HCHU at (519) 482-3416 or by email at hchu@huroncounty.ca. We also discussed press releases, news media, radio, newspaper, door to door, flyers in the affected area, various email lists, and the HCHU website.
This is the first county health unit investigation in Ontario regarding industrial wind turbines, where the affected resident’s health complaints will be tracked long term.
Note: Dr. Owen stressed that this is not a research study. It is an investigation. It will not prove causality. The HCHU is required to do an investigation when there appears to be a community environmental health issue.
Due to the number of complaints the HCHU is receiving from the community, they believe they must do an investigation. The Health Unit is not making a judgement on wind turbines with the survey. They are only investigating whether there is a potential population health hazard.
On March 3, 2016 Jeanne Melady and Gerry Ryan made a presentation detailing the health effects being experienced by Huron County residents. Statements of 26 households were displayed on a screen. There were over 80 people in attendance. It was standing room only. This board meeting is rarely attended by the public.
On March 3, 2016, The Huron County Board of Health voted “to direct staff to prepare a report regarding the presentation by “Concerned Citizens of Huron County” about concerns of health complaints by Huron County citizens exposed to Industrial Wind Turbines”.
Gerry Ryan (community representative)
(519) 274-5566
gerkar@tcc.on.ca
Carmen Krogh
carmen.krogh@gmail.com
(613) 312-9663
Erica Clark, PhD
Epidemiologist, Huron County Health Unit
77722B London Rd., RR #5
Clinton, ON N0M 1L0
519.482.3416 ext. 2022
Toll-free 1.877.837.6143 FREE
http://www.huronhealthunit.ca
eclark@huroncounty.ca
STOP THESE THINGS 
Reblogged this on How Green Is This.
This investigation of complaints is step one, hopefully when the year is up there will already be a program of acoustical research ready to move forward – to investigate the full spectrum of sound/noise/vibration emitted by these turbines.
However, this should be undertaken at the same time, following the process created and followed by Steven Cooper at Cape Bridgewater.
If this was undertaken with the full co-operation of the project operators then by the end of the year there will not only be a list of complaints but an acoustic report for medical research to base its work on.
This would save time and would help sufferers know something other than a list and words will at last move towards justice for them.
Unlike the disgusting behaviour of Pacific Hydro at Cape Bridgewater who once the acoustical results were made public turned their back on those suffering as well as on their stated for purpose of participating and undertaking the study when they said as they were within the ‘standards’ for noise emissions then there was nothing wrong and they were not responsible.
That these ‘Standards’ do not contain reference to infrasound or Low frequency sound/noise/vibrations then they are ineffective – but that is what the industry wanted when they created these ‘Standards’.
Huron County a good start but ensure it actually is more than words and a list that goes no where.
This is the kind of help/guidance Huron County leaders need in order to make sure that this breakthrough results in expedient protection for all residents whose nervous systems are being bombarded on an almost daily basis.
If we learn from the past experience of the attempts of others, we will lead the way forward and be a model for everyone. Now is the time for intelligent strategists to come forth and weigh in on this situation in Ontario.
“Note: Dr. Owen stressed that this is not a research study. It is an investigation. It will not prove causality. ”
While this is indeed a breakthrough, I have to ask why the goal to prove causality is not being pursued?
How long will the families who are being impacted have to wait to have the turbines that are harming them turned off?
This is a HUGE ethical issue.
Thank you to all who worked so tirelessly to achieve this necessary step. Our best wishes go with you as you move forward in documenting the health outcomes related to turbine emissions exposure. May other Health Units soon follow your lead.