Kim Terry

Submission to Health Canada Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study, 2012

Here in the UK we are now experiencing applications for wind farms on a terrifying scale. There is hardly a day when I don’t hear about a new application for a major wind farm and for individual turbines applied for by landowners or farmers. It is not only the large turbines that cause a problem. The smaller ones can give grief to families. A friend of mine has a small turbine which has been erected only 230 m away from her home but over 600m from the owners who will be receiving the over generous benefits from the FIT. She is downwind of the prevailing wind most of the time and her and her family have experience numerous sleepless nights for over 2 years. She has now been forced to pay thousands of pounds to acousticians and lawyers to try and get the owners to move the turbine but they refuse saying that if they move it they will not earn so much money as the wind is not so strong in the position where it would need to be for them not to experience this terrible noise.

She is now suing them and it has caused her and her family immense grief. Her husband is an HGV driver and his sleep is important. He feel tired all the time and is worried about his job. He has been admitted to hospital with heart problems and very high blood pressure. All this has come about since the turbine was installed and her son has experienced severe depression and has had to move out of their rural home into the local town to get some sleep.

Some nearby neighbours of ours live around 900m from large turbines and have experienced health problems and severe problems sleeping at night for 6 years now and nothing has been done about it. The local authorities clearly do not have the expertise and do not really understand the implications of the problem and the developers have done everything possible to try and twist the noise data in their favour. All the usual things like putting the microphone next to noisy things, covering it with plastic bags, and denying that it was working on one such occasion that the wind was so high the noise monitors went wild.

I myself, live 5km from this wind farm. When we moved into our property we did not know anything about this wind farm being granted permission to be built. It just suddenly took form in the distance. We did not know anything about wind energy then. We never hear it as it is at the distance it is but looking back, about 4-5 months after it was erected I started to experience heart palpitations. I have always kept fit and am not overweight and take plenty of exercise everyday. These palipations got worse but it was not until I could not get my breathe one evening that I finally went to my GP. They monitored it at the local hospital and the recording showed that I did indeed have a blip occasionally. This becomes worse when it is windy and when the wind blows more towards us. Even then we don’t hear anything. I now feel that maybe the turbines are to blame. Obviously, I cannot prove this but I also have problems with my ears and this is another new thing since living near to a wind farm.

I would like more testing to be done in regard to turbines and close proximity to homes and until then, no more wind farms to be erected until it is proved in a totally unbiased study that wind turbines are not bad for human health.

Kim Terry
Laigh Letterpin Bungalow
Pinmore Girvan
S Ayrshire
KA26 0HX

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