Patti Kellar
Submission to Health Canada Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study, 2012
Dear Mr. Michaud:
Firstly, appreciate the federal government stepping in. We have needed you to.
Please consider the following when undergoing the health study you have assumed responsibility for:
1. The need for objective and clear study design, independent from Health Canada, most suitably CIHR (Canadian Institutes for Health Research). I understand they report to the Minister if Health and are designed to and have the capacity to undertake this type of research. No point not using them however if you can explain why they wouldn't be used, I would appreciate it.
2. The design team does not include the major scientists and physicians who have reached expert status on the subject. The study needs to include the studies and science that has already been done by the list below:
Dr. Robert McMurtry, M.D., F.R.C.S. (C), F.A.C.S., Canada, Carmen Krogh, BSc Pharm, Researcher Wind Turbines: Adverse Health and Social Justice, Canada, Mr Stephen Ambrose, Acoustician, USA, Dr. Jeffery Aramini, PhD, Epidemiologist, Canada, Dr Arline Bronzaft, PhD, Noise and Health Specialist, USA, Dr Steven Cooper, ENG Fellow Australian Acoustical Society and Member of Institute of Noise Control, USA ,Professor Phillip Dickinson, Acoustician, New Zealand, Barbara J. Frey BA, MA and Peter J. Haddon, BSc, FRICS, Scotland, Dr Christopher Hanning, BSc, MB, BS, MRCS, LRCS, LRCP, FRCA, MD, Sleep Disturbance and Wind Turbines, UK, Professor Colin Hansen, Acoustician, Australia, Dr Magda Havas, BSc, PhD, Biological and Health Effects of Electromagnetic and Chemical Pollution, Canada, Richard James, Dr Mauri Johansson, Specialist in Community Health and Occupational Medicine, Denmark, INCE Acoustician, USA, Dr. Sarah Laurie, CEO Waubra Foundation, Australia, Dr. Henrik Moeller, Acoustic Specialist, Denmark, Dr. Michael Nissenbaum, M.D., USA, Dr. Carl Phillips, PhD, M.P.P., Dr. Nina Pierpont, Author of Wind Turbine Syndrome, Mr. Robert Rand, Acoustician, Australia, USA, Dr. Daniel Shepherd, PhD, Noise and Health Specialist, New Zealand, Dr Malcolm Swinbanks, Acoustician, UK, Dr. Robert Thorne, PhD, Health Sciences and Acoustics, Australia.
If you do not include the people who have continued to study this issue - you risk being seen as biased as the the proposal already has acknowledged that Canada hopes to expand wind power from 2% to 20% by 2025. The world is watching this outcome. Let us understand your rationale and leave the politics separate please. And please forgive me if I sound jaded. I guess I am.
3. The need to broadly and in a meaningful manner consult with individuals and communities who have been affected. Get around those gag clauses for people who had to leave and sold to the wind companies. Listen carefully to what they have to say.
Turbines have not been approved in our area yet but they have already significantly impacted our lives.
The stress of living in a community who faces turbines and having our democratic rights removed by legislation in order to make it happen leaves a person completely disillusioned and angry.
To have invested your life savings into a home you planned on retiring in is devastating, financially and emotionally. Naturally people cope in different manners so having one family member lagging behind in fully understanding this issue can create great dissent between individual family members not to mention what it feels like to consider suing your neighbors and friends because your property has been devalued because of their choice to believe they are doing the right thing. Or how it feels to argue with someone you live about about what's the best way to go about saving your home?
To look at people with distrust - wondering who is benefiting from your own misfortune is a terrible way to live.
So we can't build on our own property now freely, because the setback to the nearest turbines make that impossible.
Being Completely set up by the government you actually voted in leaves a distinctively rotten taste in one's mouth.
We have an income property- what happens if some tenants can't live there after the turbines are up?
Try spending ALL of your free time running around the countryside for a couple of YEARS, trying to educate people to take a closer look at the information and feel like you are pushing mud up a hill some days - well - that takes an emotional toll.
We take great pride in our homeland property and have had to neglect it in order to do all we canto save it and our way of life.
So how do you measure quality of life?
My partners family cleared and settled this land. We have made it our home. Watching the community being destroyed in this manner is simply tragic. Especially when you realize the actual cost to everyone.
4. Call for a moratorium on all pending projects until results of health study are concluded and appraised.
Direct - indirect Doesn't matter where it comes from when it is you. Sick is sick. We don't think it is too much to ask for the powers that be- figure it out first please. There are too many people sick. Too keep saying it is psychosomatic is insulting and further victimizing people.
We drive through the Melancthon area and my head feels tight- like pressure inside. I feel nauseous. My partner reports the head tightening but no nausea. There has to be a reason for this. Please don't subject us to living around 7 of them within two km of our home before you come up with some answers.
Thank you. Also. I appreciate the extra 30 days we were given extending the comment period. I expect it will help some.
Patti Kellar
72476 Bluewater Highway
Zurich, Ontario
N0M 2TO
519-236-7238
p.s. this is the way long weekends are spent now.....it isn't fun.