Thursday April 25, 2013
MONTPELIER — A lobbyist for an industry group supporting wind power apologized to a Vermont Senate committee on Wednesday after a witness she brought in called health concerns connected with wind power “hoo-hah,” nonsense and propaganda.
Gabrielle Stebbins, executive director of Renewable Energy Vermont, called the remarks of acoustics expert Geoff Levanthall unhelpful and offered an apology to the Senate Health and Welfare Committee after Leventhall testified at the hearing by phone from England.
“There’s no scientific evidence behind what they (critics of wind power) say,” Leventhall said. “It’s all made-up, make-believe, trying to find something to object to, and trying to find something that will be difficult to disprove. It’s a technique, a propaganda technique, and they’ve been very, very effective.”
Afterward, Stebbins said, “I don’t think that’s helpful for the debate and, for the record, I do apologize for that.”
Stebbins’ comments came at the end of the hearing in which two Vermont doctors — one of them critical of a wind power project near his home in Ira — testified about what they said were ill health effects connected with wind power among people living near the turbines.
Leventhall did describe for the committee low-frequency, inaudible “infrasound,” that some blame on problems connected with wind turbines but that he said have less of an impact on people than sounds generated within the body, like the heartbeat.
The committee also heard from Luann Therrien, a Sheffield resident who said she and her husband have suffered severe sleep loss leading to depression since 16 turbines operated by First Wind began operating within about two miles of their home.
“I have constant ringing in my ears that can be very distracting,” Therrien said. “My husband has been feeling so bad that he is currently unable to work.”
Discussion centered on sleep loss due to audible sounds from the turbines and on infrasound, the low-frequency noise inaudible to human ears but which some doctors have linked to ill health effects — sometimes called wind turbine syndrome.
Dr. Sandy Reider, a primary care provider practicing in Lyndonville, told the committee he had seen “a half dozen or so patients who are suffering from living in proximity to these turbines.” One case was a 33-year-old, healthy man who developed problems after a wind turbine began operation on Burke Mountain near his home.
The man “began to experience increasingly severe insomnia, waking multiple times at night with severe anxiety and heart palpitations, and experiencing during the daytime pressure headaches, nausea, ringing in his ears and difficulty concentrating,” Reider said.
STOP THESE THINGS 
When are governments going to listen to people suffering? It seems most have an interest in the wind industry or why would they continue to approve these complexes and ruin peoples’ lives. To me its a matter of greed.
Geoff Levanhall,s comment about infrasound in the body .
.Infrasound is a measure referring to a frequency range, the body has many organs operating at various frequencies these organs are operating in fluids where sound for instance travels 4 times faster in water than in the air and even faster in solid materials such as bones and the sound is absorbed in fluids, just put a ringing alarm clock in a bucket of water.
These infrasound frequencies inside the body do not impact the sound waves that enter the ear, and more importantly the inner ear, the organ of balance made worse because of extremely high content of infrasound in the sound from the turbines.
Me and my family have relocated away from the windfarm because of the affects of the turbines ,one of these affects was the impact of air pressure coming from the blades turning ,creating air pressure variance as in compression and decompression [sound waves] impact of sound power on the inner ear .
The situation was made worse by the windshear impact across the blades because there are on top of a very big hill, and also the placement of turbines are to close together and the very poor wind farm design layout in relation to our home and property, creating nodal and antinodal lines of extremely high and low sound power levels . Money Creates Fools.
Noel Dean.
Leventhall is just saying what 95% of society thinks. It’s make-believe.
I think that percentage is rapidly decreasing. Professionals, such as acousticians, doctors, engineers etc. have all come forward, without compensation, to tell the true story.
MONTPELIER 26th April 2013.
Quote from, Rep, Don Turner, referring to Georgia Mountain Wind Project.
“We need to understand why they tore up the Mountain and the Wind Turbines havn’t turned all week.”
The only thing that Don Turner has to understand is that, He along with all the others have been conned, and have been taken for one huge Financial Ride.
Welcome to the loosers club Don.
Leventhal is a disgrace, if anyone thinks of asking him to give evidence againg maybe they will now think twice – but then if he continues to embarass himself like that he can only do good for us buy showing just how stupid, unhelpful and unresearched the argument for supporting these industrial turbines is.
It is good to read of some morality in consideration of evidence and opinion put to the parliamentary committee in the USA. We desperately need some stronger involvement of ethicists in the Australian planning system to assist staff and courts find a balanced direction to public interest. Law on its own doesn’t contain it.
It is also very sad that Geoff Levanthall, a very successful scientist, cannot see the connections of noise and vibration to anything beyond his acoustic discipline. Indeed this disciplinary isolationist process is in so much of our system today, exampled by how economics is a very separate part of reference to success in our economy, not accounting for all of what is happening to influence its direction.
Noise and vibration is also a strong part of the audiology system, and that too, connected to neurological processes. Stress that is generated with chronic exposure to continuing low frequency noise, also alters our hormonal and immune systems. Acoustic engineers that are relied on by Government, courts and independent regulators, (EPAs), to deliver THE ANSWERS to potential effects of noise, have no measure at all of the many effects on our health.
I came across a paper yesterday that points to some simple biological sampling that would evidence something out of the normal going on. It is about sampling scalp hair and then measuring cortisol levels in it. Here we could have the local hair dresser involved. I list a couple of titles and a google scholar search below for your interest.
1. High long-term cortisol levels, measured in scalp hair, are associated with a history of cardiovascular disease, L Manenschijn, et al, J Clin Endocrinology & Metabolism, Published ahead of print April 17, 2013.
2. Noise pollution: non-auditory effects on health, Stephen A Stansfeld and Mark P Matheson, British Medical Bulletin 2003; 68: 243–257; http://www.sierrafoot.org/mather/scas_etc/nonauditory_effects_oxford_journal_243.pdf
3. Many other articles in Google Scholar; High cortisol associated with chronic noise exposure; http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=High+cortisol+associated+with+chronic+noise+exposure&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5
In fact, in 2003 Leventhall did recognize the adverse health effects of low frequency noise, and recognized wind turbines as one source: “Review of Published Research on Low Frequency Noise and Its Effects” (for U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) – https://wind-watch.org/doc/?p=585
What is an acoustician doing making clinical diagnoses?
I wonder where all these people that claim turbine related low frequency and infra sound has negligible or no affect on humans live? It certainly is not in our home.
I wonder even if they did become affected, would they have the guts to come out and admit it or having shot themselves in the foot, continue to hide behind their denial and denigration?
When the wind industry realise that they have lost the battle, they will go down like squeeling stuck PIGS, ( hosts included ) because they are no better then pigs. They (the wind industry & hosts ) have no respect for the people who are suffering with health issues & loss in land values with these usless wind turbines.
Can’t agree with you more, Bruce, and the sooner, the better!
Couldn’t have said it better my self Bruce. But I would have said like stuffed pigs.
Reblogged this on Quixotes Last Stand and commented:
Let’s hope this spreads all around the world to every country that has been under attack by IWT’s and scum wind developers.