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STT hears that the Head Boy has taken a personal interest in the wind farm health inquiry and is keen to make sure that only the best of the best are involved in the task and that there’s a bucket of cash to pay them.
And about time, too.
Acciona’s non-compliant Waubra wind farm has produced plenty of unwilling guinea pigs over the last 5 years.
Some 11 farming families have abandoned perfectly good homes due to incessant fan-generated low-frequency noise and infrasound – at least 8 of those homes being purchased by the Spanish operator from their victims using the solid stream of RECs (a Federal tax on all power consumers) – they collect and that get tacked on top of everyone’s power bills (see our post here).
Among Acciona’s numerous Waubra victims are Carl and Sam Stepnall. Here’s Carl telling their tragic tale.
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Here’s SBS outlining the perfectly avoidable harm inflicted on the Stepnells – and plenty of others – by a bunch of monstrous Spanish wind scammers who refuse to play by the rules (see our post here).
Do wind farms pose a health hazard?
SBS World News Australia
Greg Dyett
29 January 2014
In 2011, a Senate inquiry called for urgent research into the possible effects of wind farms on human health after hearing from Australians who claimed their health was destroyed from living in close proximity to wind turbines.
Similar claims have been made in other countries, including Canada and Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council has been conducting what it calls an independent systematic review.
Carl Stepnell used to live close to a wind farm at Waubra north-west of Ballarat in country Victoria.
“I started getting tingly sensations in the top of my head and then eventually headaches and we both started waking up at night, two in the morning, three, four, five days in a row, it would be 2 o’clock in the morning or middle of the night and you just wouldn’t settle back in to a sleep, you were just awake but you were so tired that you just couldn’t relax back into a sleep and that would go for four or five nights and you were that exhausted and then say five, sixth, seventh night or whatever then you’d probably sleep but still wake up feeling rotten.”
Carl Stepnell says his symptoms developed about six months after a wind farm opened near his then home.
“And then I ended up getting really bad chest pain of a night and a lot of blood noses, like I’d be asleep and just wake up and me nose would be bleeding and it’s just pretty scary stuff.”
Mr Stepnell appeared before the Senate inquiry which called for urgent research into the possible effects of wind farms on human health.
But the new research doesn’t appear to have taken place in Australia.
What has occurred is a series of reviews of the available evidence about wind farms, including by Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council.
It’s presented a draft to the federal government of its latest position statement, but the document hasn’t yet been released to the public.
Its last statement on the subject was in 2010, when it concluded that there was currently insufficient published scientific evidence to positively link wind turbines with adverse health effects.
But it called for a precautionary approach.
In March 2011, council head, Professor Warwick Anderson, stressed the importance of this because of what he called the very early stages of the scientific literature.
He emphasised then that the council was not saying there are no ill effects.
Canadian paediatrician Doctor Nina Pierpont is the author of “Wind Turbine Syndrome”, a book she wrote after coming across patients who lived near wind farms who all reported what she says were remarkably similar symptoms.
She told the ABC most of the people she interviewed ended up doing exactly what the Stepnells did – move out of their houses and away from the wind turbines.
“Well when someone has symptoms that are related to the noise level they hear, so that the intensity is related to that and when they go away the symptoms go away and when they come back and they hear the noise again and the symptoms come back those people know that the turbines are causing the symptoms so those are the people that I focused on in my study and out of the ten families that I ended up interviewing, nine have moved out of their homes.”
Doctor Pierpont’s work has been criticised for lacking scientific rigour, not least because of the small number of people she interviewed.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has told Sydney’s 2GB more research into possible health effects could be warranted.
“Look from time to time we do need to refresh the research. We do need to consider whether there have been new facts that impact on old judgements – and that is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It is some years since the NH&MRC last looked at this issue. Why not do it again?”
Denmark pioneered wind energy back in the 1970s and today 30 per cent of its electricity production comes from wind power.
Doctor Mauri Johansson is a specialist in community and occupational medicine in Denmark.
He’s convinced wind turbines can make people sick and is frustrated that more research hasn’t been conducted.
“We have been fighting hard in our resistance organisation to force the government to start serious and independent research including these medical questions now but they have chosen, three ministers here in early December, they go on saying that there are no health problems related to wind turbines which of course is not correct. And we have to break down this top level resistance in the government and in the parliament to show that they are wrong and that people in reality are badly hurt in many of them staying close or living close to wind turbines.”
Doctor Mauri Johansson says the wind industry is so powerful that it’s managed to have negative research suppressed and has used its influence to prevent fresh research.
“In the Nordic countries, the wind turbine industry has been successful to hide all these informations. We know already from the 1980s, in USA, very serious research was done showing clearly that people get ill but that was buried totally in the late 80s by the industry. It seems then nothing has been done on the medical side. They have shunted out also in Denmark the health authorities both centrally and in local communities.”
Adelaide barrister Peter Quinn is another opponent of wind farms.
He says the health effects are only one reason why Australians should not support wind energy.
In June last year, he addressed a small gathering outside Parliament House in Canberra that was billed as the National Wind Power Fraud Rally.
“Anybody asked the question, are they against renewable energy, well the question has to be conditioned, if the question is are you in favour of renewable energy which operates 30 per cent of the time, at best, has to be backed up a 100 per cent of the time by fossil fuel sources that cost, when the wind is blowing, four times the cost of hydro, coal or gas fired power, four times when the wind is blowing, and drives people out of their homes when they are inappropriately sited, I think the answer would be very different than what’s elicited in surveys. No one in their right mind aware of those facts could support it, unquestioningly.”
And during his recent interview on 2GB, Prime Minister Tony Abbott made it clear he shares these misgivings.
“We do also have to have a look at the impact of renewable energy on power prices. The problem at this stage with renewable energy is that there’s always got to be a back up because sometimes the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. If the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow the power doesn’t flow.”
SBS World News Australia
A rotten little Green called Die Nasty and a former tobacco advertising guru “contributed” to the story – but we took the liberty and chopped their twaddle out. The Green and the guru are fully paid up advocates for wind weasels and are such cowards that they haven’t even got the guts to meet people like Carl and Sam Stepnell face-to-face.
So, until these monsters start acting like human beings, STT will keep their delusional ramblings from sullying our posts.
So, who would you believe? Someone like Carl Stepnell, with nothing to gain from telling the story of his family’s unmitigated suffering?
Or wind weasel parasites – like Die Nasty and the tobacco advertising guru – who have everything to lose?
STOP THESE THINGS 
Greetings from Canada! where it is cooooooold!
Thank you STT for this wonderful website, eh.
And also for saving us from the delusional ramblings of perverts like Simon Chapman. Someone should sue him for trying to damage our reputations with his lies.
As we say in Canada, “keep your stick on your sign!”
The Greens have been pinged as total hypocrites. Environmentalists? Pfffft. Wouldn’t recognise the pinion feathers on a backyard chook let alone a Wedgie.
I have no trouble answering the question – of course its Carl and all those others suffering as a result of IWTs.
They have nothing to gain, except a return to a life of good health, peace and quiet doing what they love to do.
The industry supporters including guru’s (Gutless/Unsavoury/Reprobate/Undesirable) have nothing to gain if research is conducted. The least they can reasonably expect is derision for denigrating those wanting to help the adversely affected as well as the affected themselves while misleading and working to delude with lies.
I sat beside Sam and Carl at the senate Inquiry in Ballarat. I gave evidence that Acciona are a pack of Bs for what they done to us and I thought they were criminals because we were forced from our home. They were dishonest too – they came onto our property to do testing inside of our home for low frequency sound. After agreeing to supply a independent report from Marshal Day, I never received the independent report. The Senate Chairperson said Acciona would be questioned about this tomorrow. I went to Melbourne the next day only to hear Acciona reps lie to the senate by saying Acciona responded to complaints and that reports were given Also no assessment was done inside of homes. Acciona had advertised publicly that testing inside of homes at Waubra was no different than any other country homes whether at wind farms or not. I was advised that Acciona was questioned earlier [presumably before the inquiry started that day] about the report at our property by the Senate, and Acciona reportably said the report was in house. This was not recorded on Hansard – looks like a cosy set up with the senate to me.
I also stated that the noise does not get measured. Regression curves are based on averages and are not measured. The predictions and sound emissions of turbine generators are made without consideration of aerodynamic sound. They are measured in LAeq, which is 2 DB higher than the LA95 used by Marshal Day. The LA95 [not measured] is calculated as the sound level equaled and exceeded for 95% of the measurement time.
The wind farm developers at the Senate inquiry in Melbourne, which included Acciona, were asked about evidence of Low frequency noise testing. Some evidence was put forward using the infamous G weighting, but Acciona did not say that there was a Noise impact Assessment report of the Waubra Wind Farm clearly identifying the amplitude modulation and low frequency noise as a health hazard, associated with the aerodynamic sounds coming from the blades. [which was identified in the NHMRC rapid review].
We are not the liars, the liars are the ones who are paid by the wind Industry to do what the wind Industry wants them to do or say. Acciona has never said to me that me or my family have not gotten sick by the operation of the turbines. What the CEO did say on ABC Stateline September 2009 was that there was NO evidence that people DO NOT get sick by the operation of wind turbines. So once in a blue moon there is a chance a bit of truth may slip between their lips, but this a extremely rare.
Noel Dean.
Die Nasty and the little tabacco advertising guru would not have the GUTS to come and meet with people like Carl & Sam Stepnell to discuss the problems with living next to the useless fans, as they are heartless and gutless.