County News
Missing link
APPEC and PECFN lawyer Eric Gillespie with expert witness Dr. Robert McMurtry.
Tribunal fails to connect sickness to industrial wind turbines
While jubilant celebration erupted around the County last Thursday as the news of the decision to revoke the approval of the Ostrander Point wind project spread, the folks hoping for a broader rejection of the this and other wind energy projects were more subdued in their acceptance of the news.
In a written decision, Environmental Review Tribunal members Robert Wright and Heather Gibbs concluded that the project, and more precisely the weakness of the plan to mitigate the damage, would cause serious and irreversible harm to the Blanding’s Turtle.
However, they were not able to close the gap between the harmful effects of industrial wind turbines upon the humans who must live among them. Specifically, Wright and Gibbs ruled that no causal link has been established between wind turbines and human health effects at the 550 metre setback distance required under this renewable energy approval.
This came as a disappointment and a bit of a surprise to the Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County. They had led the appeal to the Tribunal on the basis that wind turbines cause an array of negative health symptoms to those who live in their shadow.
In a statement APPEC said it was baffled that the Tribunal found the evidence of 11 Ontario residents about the effects they experienced near industrial wind turbines to be credible, yet concluded there was no causal link established at Ostrander Point project.
The panel also agreed that the residents’ reported symptoms meet Dr. Robert McMurtry’s casecdefinition for adverse health effects from proximity to industrial wind turbines. But the Tribunal balked at linking the evidence to the expert opinion. Instead it argued that a recognized medical diagnosis must be established in order for them to overturn the Ministry of Environment’s approval of the project.
“The Ministry of Health has never conducted any health studies on wind turbines,” said Gord Gibbins, president of APPEC. “Yet, under the Liberal government’s Green Energy Act, appellants to the ERT are expected to assume the burden of proof when challenging projects, just as if they were taking on the tobacco industry.”
“It seems that citizens are required to undertake acoustical and epidemiological research,” Gibbins added. “It is not enough to provide evidence of specific, ongoing harmful effects. This requirement turns the standard of proof, ‘the balance of probabilities,’ into a test well beyond the reasonable.”
Nevertheless, APPEC was pleased with the outcome of the appeal and praised the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists in its defence of the Blanding’s turtle and other endangered species.
The only empirically derived basis on which an absence of “direct” health effects from Industrial Wind Turbine audible sound and infrasound annoyance are postulated, come from 3 research studies by Pederson et al, which were responses to “mailed surveys” from which linear statistical inferences were derived. These inferences do not in fact measure any physical relationship between Industrial Wind Turbine “noise and health”, but rather infer a converse perceived relationship based on the social learning construct of “locus of control”. These are not methodologically robust research studies upon which any “cause and effect” critereon can be based. For example, if I were to look at Mike Barnard’s spam based responses from a social learning paradigm I could infer that his responses demonstrate a narcissistic, Machiavellian personality type, typically oriented towards biased, predetermined assertions. In this respect I might even suggest that Barnard change his spam (attention seeking) link address to http://www.barnardupwind from http://www.barnardonwind, since you can literally “smell him coming” from farther away than the typical setback for an Industrial Wind Turbine.
Mike Barnard…..Are you a climate scientist with a specialty on wind energy?
That’s because there is no link between wind turbines and sickness, but only between anti-wind campaigners and health scares.
http://barnardonwind.com/2013/02/17/wind-farms-dont-make-people-sick-so-why-the-complaints/
http://barnardonwind.com/2013/02/20/humans-evolved-with-infrasound-is-there-any-truth-to-health-concerns-about-it/
The Blanding’s Turtle concern is reasonable and valid, as expected. The non-existent health impacts should no longer be allowed to waste time and money in courtrooms and tribunals.
Mike Barnard my family ( children ) never get sleep at night when the wind is blowing from the NW and we are downwind from a turbine 500M from our home .
How would you like to live with knowing of imminent sleeplessness ?
How slanted! There are just many reports suggesting that there are adverse health effects. You say reports that demonstrate health issues are biased but then you refer to AWEA and CanWEA – are you suggesting that the people in the business of selling wind energy are not biased? You say there is “no link” but I say that the government just won’t acknowledge the link – yet. The day is coming.