Breakthrough

Barbara Ashbee hadn’t thought much about wind turbines until 22 of them suddenly sprouted around her Amaranth home in 2007—six kilometres from Shelburne. One was planted a mere 750 metres from her front window—another just 457 meters behind her home.

When she first saw the wind factory site plans and complained about how close they would be to her home, Ashbee was told not to worry—they were within Ministry of Environment guidelines.

“We trusted our government to look after us,” said Ashbee. She knows now that was a mistake.

She says living in her home was a form of torture after the wind turbines began to spin. “We never slept. We lay awake in our bed unable to sleep with the constant whoosh sound around us. And when the wind was blowing at a certain angle the turbines caused the entire house to vibrate. It was like living in a washing machine.”

She could no longer live in her home. The noise made it impossible to sleep and it was affecting everything else in her life—her job, her relationships and her health. The wind developer eventually bought Ashbee’s home along with six others. The displaced homeowners were forced to sign a gag order preventing them from talking about how they had been forced out of their homes.

Ashbee defied the agreement and told her story widely—as a warning to others about the hidden threat to their health and well being posed by the proximity of industrial wind turbines. (An interview with Ashbee is easily accessed on Youtube.com.)

Last week the federal government announced it will study the health effects of living near industrial wind turbines. Health Canada will spend $1.8 million to examine what it means to live among bus-sized electricity generating devices mounted on 300- foot towers. The study will focus on residents in about 2,000 homes in 12 new industrial wind factories. The research is being conducted by a team of experts in acoustics, health assessment and medicine.

It is an important step in the battle against industrial wind factories and a madly ambitious and misguided provincial government intent on devastating the horizon for much of rural Ontario. And for what? Certainly not to ensure a meaningful energy supply.

Instead, Dalton McGuinty is neck-deep in a business in which he chooses to overlook, or ignore, the implausiblity of his wind energy ambition. He does this for one simple reason—the naked political goal of being seen to be green. For the majority of Ontarians are like Barbara Ashbee was before the wind turbines arrived at her doorstep—they believe in government. They want to believe wind turbines will solve the ills of a fossil-fueled world. They won’t—but that is a layer deeper than most folks are willing to dig. That is, until a developer is allowed to come along and ruin the place where they live.

Many folks have been warning about the possible health effects of wind turbines in this country and around the world. Carmen Krogh, for one, has documented the stories of hundreds of individuals who present a wide range of symptoms that they say are caused by wind turbines in their vicinity.

But likely few have been as diligent and focused in the pursuit of an investigation into the health hazard of wind turbines than Dr. Robert McMurtry. McMurtry is a highly respected physician and health-care policy advisor. He served as assistant deputy minister of Health Canada and was a special advisor on the Romanow Commission on the future of Health Care in Canada.

In the fall of 2010, McMurtry organized the first international symposium here in Prince Edward County to understand the potential harm to human health from living near wind turbines. That meeting gathered scientists, physicians and researchers from around the world to pool the current knowledge about the then-growing industry.

It was a breakthrough moment in the battle against this misguided wind energy policy. The provincial government was forced to defend its inaction. Earlier that year it had directed Ontario’s chief medical officer of health to scan the current research and studies. Not surprisingly Dr. Arlene King couldn’t find a “direct causal link” between turbines and ill health. The province declared victory.

But that wasn’t what McMurtry and many other Ontarians were seeking. They weren’t looking for a study of other studies—they wanted, instead, a thorough examination of how humans fare living under the ceaseless thrum of wind turbines. Only that way could the province or any other government stand up and say it was safe to live within a prescribed distance from an industrial wind turbine. Otherwise it is just guessing. And when governments guess with our health and safety—innocent folks get hurt.

Now, at last, that examination will take place.

We thank Dr. McMurtry and acknowledge his perseverance in pursuing this important investigation.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca