No Retreat & No Surrender: Wind Industry’s Victims Left Furious at Government Inaction

 

What the wind industry hates most are facts. Troublesome facts like the health effects caused to neighbours by wind turbine noise.

In Australia, the wind industry has the so-called ‘Wind Farm Commissioner’ to help bury them.

Andrew Dyer has done everything the wind industry has asked him to do; principally his ‘task’ involves ignoring the hundreds of complaints that pileup on his desk, from people like Melissa Ware (among hundreds of others) – people forced to live with practically incessant, turbine-generated low-frequency noise and infra-sound.

Dyer’s other stock in trade is helping wind power outfits do behind-closed-door ‘deals’ with wind farm neighbours – in which they get paid a pittance for the loss of the use and enjoyment of their homes – all wrapped up with bullet-proof gag clauses that prevent their victims from ever uttering a word about the ‘bargain.’

As detailed in this interview with Alan Jones, Melissa outlines her appalling treatment at the hands of a character who is paid handsomely by the Federal Government, on the premise of looking after the interests of Australian citizens.

Instead, the Wind Farm Commissioner has gone out of his way to ensure their lives remain a daily misery. Here’s the link to the audio of the interview, the transcript follows below.

Melissa Ware – Impact of Wind Farms
2GB
Alan Jones and Melissa Ware
4 June 2018

Transcript

Alan Jones: On Friday … we had what I thought was the most ridiculous but disturbing story that … a review of this wind farm commission, found the wind farm commission was doing a great job and it had quite exceeded expectations in dealing with community complaints about wind farms.

They’ve heard me many times to say if these things aren’t injurious to health, put them in Macquarie Street … or put them on Bondi Beach. And if not, why not?

Who conducted the review? Of course, the Climate Change Authority. The outfit that the former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, wanted to get rid of, and of course the Climate Change Authority are very much in favour of wind farms. They believe in climate change. They believe in demonising coal fired power. And the wind farm commissioner is a bloke called Andrew Dyer, who is on $205,000 a year. It’s a part time job, nice work if you can get it, but he just happened to have worked in the renewable energy industry, so there you are.

You have a Wind Farm Commissioner, who worked in the renewable energy industry and the Climate Change Authority and it’s conducted a review into his work and it’s found hello hello, that he had exceeded expectations in dealing with community complaints. That is absolute garbage.

I can tell you that most people have given up on the Wind Farm Commissioner and their lives are miserable. No point in making representations to an outfit that isn’t prepared to resolve anything. Merely apologists for wind power and wind turbines, foreign owned, I might add. So I’ve no doubt that the wind industry wouldn’t have even blinked when the Wind Farm Commission was established and the Climate Change Authority is right behind it and the bloke in charge of the Wind Farm Commission has worked in the renewable energy industry. Against that … way back in August 2015, a Senate committee report was tabled in the parliament into wind farms. 2015.

It recommended subsidies to new wind farms be limited to five years rather than 20. Of course, as you know, I believe there should be no subsidies at all. Why should foreign owned wind farms … businesses … be subsidised by you? And how can any outfit make any sort of claim to commercial viability if it needs 20 years of subsidies.

But, the Senate committee, three years ago, recommended an independent scientific panel be established that would have the power to block new projects being registered by the Government if it believed human health was at risk. The guidelines would include … this is a Senate committee report to the National Parliament, which was ignored. It was called National Standard for Wind Farms and it recommended that the Government address things like infrasound, vibrations, aircraft safety, birds, bats, fire risk went on and on and on. In the light of all this, it’s amazing any wind farm is approved because none of the above has been addressed in all the years since by State or the Federal Governments, and indeed this Senate committee recommended that State Governments do not accept new national measures for infrasound and low frequency noise.

The Senate committee recommended that wind projects built in States should not get renewable energy certificates. Now, of course, carbon dioxide is the problem. Not for me it’s not. It is for these people. Zealots. We emit, one and a bit percent of the world’s total carbon dioxide. One and a bit percent. The Government wants to reduce that by 20%, so reduce emissions by point two of a percent of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions. We’ve gone mad.

Electricity prices are going through the roof. They were going through the roof in Britain and Germany until they put an end to all this nonsense. Tony Abbott, when he was Prime Minister, said he wasn’t going to be chasing Holden up the road with a blank cheque. Why are we chasing foreign owned wind turbine companies up the road with blank cheques. Your money. And we’ve now had, for three years, groundbreaking research from Germany on low frequency infrasound, which adds to the recent body of work that is challenging these wind energy proponent’s insistence that turbines are not linked to health complaints.

I am inundated with correspondence on all of this. I write to Government and they do nothing. So much for Wind Farm Commissioner. There’s an international project led by the National Meteorology Institute of Germany, which has concluded that exposure to infrasound below the range of hearing could stimulate parts of the brain that warn of danger. It says human beings can hear sounds lower than have been assumed, and this is what everyone is telling me in their writing, and the German study suggests that the impact of very low frequency noise of some people is poorly understood. Scientists in Japan have measured brain function and reported three years ago that it showed the brains of Japanese wind turbine workers could never achieve a relaxed state. A study of 45 people buy Tehran University published in 2015 said “despite all the benefits of wind turbines”, and I must say I’m not too sure there are many, “it can be stated”, said this research “that the technology has health risks for all those exposed to its sound”.

Work by Neil Kelley at NASA in the 1980s, on an early model wind turbine, came to the same conclusion. A direct link between wind turbine infrasound, low frequency noise and the health problems of neighbours including sleep disturbance. That’s why they’re not in Macquarie Street. That’s why they’re not on Bondi beach, just let farmers cop it, and they are. And as the number and size of wind turbines has increased, the spread of complaints has grown.

The German Research said, although commonly declared as non audible, which these sounds are, in other words you’ve walked round you just couldn’t hear them. The number of complaints about infrasound exposure has been increasing exponentially in Germany and in other countries. “Serious problems exist”, the research said. The German project leader, Christian Koch said, “it’s been agreed that infrasound is perceived by human beings and it represents an almost unknown hazard to human health”.

Now I’ve got people wanting to speak to me but can’t. I mean we’ve now got the indignity of this review into a wind farm commissioned by the Climate Change Authority saying the Wind Farm Commissioner had done a great job in dealing with community complaints. One person wrote to me, he said, “if we had to buy another property, it wouldn’t be within 200 kilometres of a wind farm. We were excited about the prospect of being part of the renewable electricity industry. I am host to wind towers on my property, the nearest being within approximately one to one point five kilometres. I suffer sleep interruption, mild head agitation, a general feeling of unease, and this only occurs when the towers are turning, depending on the wind direction and the wind strength”. I mean who would want to live in this environment?

One woman living next to the Macarthur Wind Farm in Western Victoria calls these AGL people mongrels. 140 turbines, 150 metres high. 56 metre blades. The biggest monster in the southern hemisphere. Ninety metres from the farmer’s property. Eight turbines, 1.7 kilometres from her home. They fight and fight and get nowhere.

Well, Melissa Ware has lived in Geelong since 2015, not by choice, for health reasons. She previously lived in Cape Bridgewater where her family owned the property from 1998. Her home at Cape Bridgewater had wind turbines 550 metres from the back fence. And a total of 29 turbines within a two kilometre radius. She was medically advised to leave home and now only visits her Cape Bridgewater home for maintenance reasons.

Melissa Ware says the wind farm disturbed her sleep, caused her to suffer high blood pressure, headaches and nausea, no one cares you see, because they’re a minority. It’s frightening this, that this could happen in Australia. Her husband and son have suffered adverse health effects. No one believes them.

Melissa Ware believes she became noise-sensitized to a turbine signature sound, a sound that people cannot hear but impacts on people like herself, and she said the acoustic studies done by wind farms and Government planning departments didn’t cover the turbine signature sound. That’s the one that you can’t really hear. She said she suffered what’s called tower vibration. Every time the wind turned the blades. And the company running the wind farm says “no vibration”. She says, by 2010, she was at wit’s end. She started writing letters. She raised her case with this Wind Farm Commissioner, Andrew Dyer, but nothing happened. Her case was closed. There were no solutions. She’s forced to leave home. She’s on the line, Melissa. Good morning.

Melissa Ware:  Good morning, Alan.

Alan Jones: Well, we’re told the Wind Farm Commissioner has exceeded expectations in dealing with community complaints.

Melissa Ware: The Wind Farm Commissioner is failing to recognise that my health is impacted by wind turbines. He fails to recognise that using dB(A) to monitor sound at wind farms is useless. Steven Cooper did an acoustic study down at Cape Bridgewater in our home and he discovered that amplitude modulation is the cause of disturbance in the acoustic environment there. And-

Alan Jones: But no one listens to Steven Cooper. No one listens to Steven Cooper. No one listens to you. These people are addicted to solar panels and wind turbines. I mean, you’ve had one 550 metres from the back fence. As I say, Melissa, if everything you say is untrue and it has no impact on health, we’ll put these wind turbines in Collins Street, Melbourne, that’s plenty of wind there. Or Macquarie Street, Sydney.

Melissa Ware: We have 18 turbines within two kilometres of our house. And … you know, what upsets me most about this Wind Farm Commissioner is that he can’t do anything about approved wind farms. That’s what the Climate Change Authority is telling us now, after we’ve gone through that process. So I’ve been dealing with this for 10 years … and now I’m being told to go to the Commonwealth Ombudsman. What’s that person going to do for me … and others like me?

Alan Jones: I can’t believe it … I look, I’ve done this before. You know that. I’ve done it over and over again. The wind farm disturbs your sleep, you’d been to doctors, high blood pressure, headache-

Melissa Ware: I’m still going to doctors. I’m still having my health investigated to discover what’s going on.

Alan Jones: Your husband and son?

Melissa Ware:   No. No, they’re going fine now that we’re in Geelong … but we’re paying two mortgages. We can’t afford to take these people to court.

Alan Jones: But the World Health Organisation has said that sleep disturbance is an adverse health impact of wind turbines. It said that. And you quoted the corporate values of the Pacific Hydro Code of Practice – this is a mob that on your wind farms, quote the Code of Practice says, ‘They demonstrate commitment to zero harm and show respect, compassion, and consideration for others, empowering people leading by example and being accountable’. The Code of Practice means nothing.

Melissa Ware: Well, they’re not being made to be accountable for anything Pacific Hydro-

Alan Jones: Well they don’t live there.

Melissa Ware: Their turbines are operating within compliance. Now who monitors that they are operating within compliance and who defines what compliance is?

Alan Jones: That’s it.

Melissa Ware: They do.

Alan Jones: That’s right. And this, this your outfit Pacific Hydro are owned by industry super funds. You wrote to this person, Lane Crockett. This is disturbing. Listen, this Melissa wrote to this mob at Pacific Hydro, terrible stuff, and saying that there was a serious noise nuisance and she said they have stolen years. “You have stolen years from people’s lives, shattered families, destroyed our perceptions of a rural community and are denying the direct causal relationship between your wind turbines and the serious adverse health effects which we residents have been reporting and which our doctors had been recognising and diagnosing since the turbines started operating six years ago”. Melissa said, “I’m appalled at the irresponsibility and inhumane response by Pacific Hydro and its staff to legitimate noise complaints. It’s time you were held accountable. It’s time for noise regulations in Australia to protect people from industrial noise harm”. The issue here, Melissa, is that nothing has happened.

Melissa Ware: Nothing.

Alan Jones: And the Climate Change Authority-

Melissa Ware: And now we have people like Professor Chapman and Dr Creighton saying that it’s the nocebo theory.

Alan Jones: That you’re making it up, that you’re making it up, basically-

Melissa Ware: We are disruptive. People like me who-

Alan Jones: Yeah, because these are apologists for this renewable energy stuff. They are the apologists, renewable energy and you-

Melissa Ware: But they also influence a lot of people.

Alan Jones: They do. They do, but you don’t have to influence anyone if Government already believes that, see, this is the point, Turnbull and Co believe all this stuff, wind power, solar power. They don’t care about you and yet you’ve had to move out of your home just to get a reprieve from noise and vibrations.

Melissa Ware: The other concern now Alan is that they’re setting up these good neighbour agreements. Now, a good neighbour agreement cannot solve the problems of noise and vibration and sensation that we’re experiencing in our homes.

Alan Jones: Honestly, I’m just listening to you. I’ve done everything. I have written to everybody on the planet, whether it’s Frydenberg, the Prime Minister, the lot, and these things continue to be approved without any independent assessment of the impact that they have on public health. And Melissa, the best argument I can offer is, if they weren’t injurious to public health, put them in Collins Street Melbourne, put them in George Street, Brisbane, put them in Macquarie Street, Sydney, put them on Bondi beach there’s plenty of wind there and a lot of people, a lot of people say you need the electricity. A lot of people-

Melissa Ware: You wouldn’t want them there, Alan.

Alan Jones: No, what I’m saying, you know the wind farms keep getting approved. They keep getting taxpayer’s money. The Berejiklian Government approves them. The Andrews Government approves them, the Palaszczuk Government approves them. The Federal Government continues to give them renewable energy certificates. No one is listening to you. Apart from me.

Melissa Ware: Yes. So how can I have social licence to operate in communities.

Alan Jones: I have no idea. I really don’t know. That’s why I’m speaking to you. All I can say is what I say to everybody, try to hang in, but we’ll keep in touch with you Melissa and somewhere along the line we’ll get a break in the wall. But at the moment, it’s a brick wall and these poor people. I get letters like this every day and they’re approved everyday in New South Wales, in Queensland and in Victoria. And the Federal Government gives them your money and they subsidise them and people like this suffer. Melissa Ware I thank you for your time.

2GB