Garry Weaven: the original nightmare neighbour.
****
Pacific Hydro – run by Union Heavy, Garry Weaven and funded by Union Super money handled by Members Equity Bank, controlled by his best mate Greg Combet – operates a non-compliant wind farm at Cape Bridgewater in Victoria – and has done since 2008.
The Victorian government is well aware that Pac Hydro does not and can not comply with the noise conditions of its planning consent, but does nothing to challenge it. This malign acquiescence means that Pac Hydro has been able to (unlawfully) pocket millions of RECs (at times worth up to $60 each) over the last 5 years when it should have never been accredited by the Clean Energy Regulator to receive RECs at all. But that’s just the financial aspect of a far greater crime.
By aiding and abetting Pac Hydro to breach the noise conditions of its planning consent (the ones meant to protect neighbours from excessive noise) the Victorian government is also guilty of causing untold and unnecessary human suffering.
If you were to breach the conditions of a planning permit – by say, adding an extra metre or two to a boundary wall – the Vic Planning Department would have you tear it down in a jiffy. But, when it comes to enforcing the rules that are supposed to govern the operation of wind farms, these boys run strangely silent.
STT thinks the answer lays in the cracking speech delivered by Victorian Senator, John “Marshall” Madigan before Christmas, which lambasted the Planning Minister, Matthew Guy and the wind industry’s “Mr Fix-it”, Andrew Tongue for their role in helping outfits like Pac Hydro ride roughshod over the rules – and a lot of ordinary, hard-working rural people.
Now meet one of Pac Hydro’s victims, Brian Kermond. Brian helped with the construction of Pac Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater operation, so it’d be hard to call him “anti-wind” (in the language employed by a former tobacco advertising guru). Almost immediately after the fans were set in motion in 2008 (almost 2 years before the Waubra Foundation started running around apparently “scaring” people into the sensations and symptoms they suffer) Brian developed severe and debilitating symptoms. He and his family lasted 6 months before they abandoned their home.
Pac Hydro’s “response” to the outrage expressed by Brian and its many other Cape Bridgewater victims was to call in crack spin doctors, “Futureye” in an effort to quell a brewing PR disaster. That effort at managing “community outrage” hasn’t been a rollicking success. Funny about that.
Here’s Brian’s story (3.32; transcript follows).
*******
*******
To the hub centre, 70 metres; they carry a 40 metre blade – 41 metre blade and they have an output of 2 megawatt. We’re approximately 1.5 kilometres.
The symptoms that I experienced was vertigo, nausea, the ringing in my ears and the migraine strength headaches. The vertigo was most horrific actually, I was very concerned when I lost my balance for no apparent reason. And when I say loose my balance, I was standing one minute and down on the floor the next.
The time that we lived here for approximately 6 months after the turbines actually began operation was – was nothing like I had experienced in my entire life. You just felt drained, every morning that you woke up – you felt drained and you did not want to pursue with anything. The exhaustion was just incredible – was not enthused to do anything. Just feeling drained. And not only myself, but the rest of the family.
It was only until we moved away that our symptoms subsided – didn’t go completely, they just subsided to the extent that we could actually get our lives back on track.
The company in question is Pacific Hydro. No communication what so ever in regards to our well being. And as they as they deliver all the time how they are a ‘good neighbour’ that has not come into existence whatsoever – and we’re one of the closest neighbours to them. When I say good neighbour, it is a Duty of Care and that Duty of Care has just gone out the window.
There has been a considerable amount of money that has just been lost in time.
(What would you like the people in government to do?)
To recognise the people coming forward with their complaints and actually take them seriously and not let the dollar override their situation. In the short term they really need to look at the medical side seriously and take these people seriously because it is a real problem and there’s a lot of real people that are suffering.
About stopthesethings
STOP THESE THINGS 
I am, or will never be, a victim of wind turbine factories, especially the Hepburn Wind ‘Simone Holmes a Court’ fraudsters.
I have been challenging Hepburn Wind since 2005 and I have come too far to stop now. I have 2 125 metre turbines 600 t0 700 metres from my home, other residents are 500 metres. We are living in hell at Leonard’s Hill. The corruption and collusion between government organisations, local councils and VCAT is appalling and disgusts me.
But Never Give Up. If I had have walked away and given up the fight, I would feel like I have let myself down. We are here to fight for our homes, our lives and are not going anywhere! You will have your emotional ups and downs, it’s tough, there will be tears and laughter through this journey. But Never Give Up.
Jan Perry, aka The Thorn IN Simone Holmes a Court’s side.
Brian his family and neighbours have suffered the cruelty by Pacific Hydro for more than 5 years. The only evidence provided to the senate inquiry [2011] in regards to low frequency noise and infrasound was prepared for Pacific Hydro by Sonus, dated November 2010 and titled ‘Infrasound measurements from windfarms and other sources’.
I consider that this can only be a deliberate act of fraud in assessing the impact on humans for two reasons. One is that I do not consider a result using filtered measurements valid because the sound impact experienced by a person or persons is not filtered and the complaint is about the sound impact experienced. The second reason is that the sound measurements were done in a 50 cm deep and 50 cm square hole, with the measuring device 100 mm from the bottom – no body can live in a situation like this.
Your situation Brian is much like ours with Acciona. Acciona have a report of their own done inside our house and also a peer reviewed Noise Impact Assessment report of the Waubra Wind Farm, yet they refuse to supply an agreed third party response to these reports. I consider these actionable as a deliberate act of fraud. They surely must now pay the money back and their license to operate these wind farms revoked for non compliance.
Noel Dean.
About a year ago, I spoke to a doctor, well known to this web site’s readers, about testing for wind turbine related stress and he said something along the lines of “connect people in houses impacted by low frequency and infrasound to an EEG and measure the brain waves whilst the turbines were turned on and (completely) turned off. Job done and dusted.”
Is it perhaps that simple? Should we be doing more collectively to gather the test data, rather than waiting for complicit governments to come up with little better than fudged test data, or untested denial?
Pacific hydro are dogs, just like the rest of the companies pushing this crap.
The only way to stop this is to target personally those in charge. Call them at all hours of the day and get all your mates and other community members to as well. Let them know in no uncertain terms they are not welcome in your town.
Pacific hydro are now targeting people In Chile with this rubbish as well. It’s time they copped a hiding publicly and privately. You can’t be nice to this scum, find out where they live and give ’em hell!
Thermal power stations must maintain continuous emissions monitoring of important emissions and woe betide any power plant operator who doesn’t comply with the strict emission limits of its EPA licence. But it’s “chalk and cheese” when it comes to industrial wind power plant operators, compliance with permit noise emission limits is pretty much optional.
Sadly we see all levels of Australian government and associated QANGOs falling over themselves to look the other way when it comes to compliance with permit noise limits, e.g. here and here. This despite the manifestly inadequate noise compliance standards – standards that ignore impulsive infra sound (by far the highest sound pressure level generated by wind turbines) and leave loop-holes large enough for the wind weasels to drive a B-double truck through when it comes to noise in the audible (dBA) frequency spectrum. If one was sceptical, you could be forgiven for thinking the standards had been designed to meet the wind weasels requirements, hmm.. funny that?
There never has been an acceptable excuse for Governments or anyone else not to act on people’s reports of suffering adverse effects from these things. Denial of the obvious is nothing more than a copout by Governments, the companies and/or their supporters.
There are planning regulations and guidelines to meet – and remember guidelines are not fundamentally accurate, guidelines are there to be tested and queried if and when there is any concern about their suitability.
Why then are the noise guidelines for Industrial Wind Turbine structures considered as sacrosanct?
Why do the EPA and others, when the measure the noise these things emit, use these guidelines as the fixed final word?
Why do they not take into account the reported adverse effects on people living near them?
Surely if these guidelines are there to protect people, any consistent reports of them failing requires prompt action to establish what is causing the effects. This may require considering the noise being measured is not the only one causing problems and/or the existing guidelines are fallible as conditions alter overtime.
They should consider when and in what manner the guidelines were established. Are there any changed circumstances, such as have the structures changed, are they bigger, has the design changed in anyway, were the guidelines established taking into account the location and/or land base they are constructed on, as well as the number of turbines in a given area? They should ask questions relating to whether the distance from human occupation and work environments needs to be accounted for, or whether there needs to be restriction on the allowable size and number of these structures.
To simply come up with a guideline and expect it to suit all situations is deplorable, and frankly is a completely unscientifically acceptable method of securing public health.
For Governments to accept such wishy-washy guidelines when human health and welfare is at stake is the sign of a Government devoid of understanding of the concept of Duty of Care.
It’s an interesting thing that when the CSIRO and government agencies talk about ‘coal seam’ gas they all mention community opposition as a reason not to mine it, but when it comes to ‘wind farms’ there is never any mention of any opposition at all.
The reason is that the ‘goat cheese’ suburban inner circle of greenies won’t have any truck with nasty fossil fuels but god condemn any rural morons who dare speak up about the impacts of wind farms.
Keep ‘squealing’ Brian, there are more listening than you realise!
Pacific Hydro must hand back the money if they are non-compliant! No ifs, No buts, No maybes! Any other government funded “non-compliant” project would have to.