‘Silence has become a luxury’

Wind energy symposium brings the brightest minds and clearest voices to Prince Edward County

The folks of Mars Hill, Maine were once like residents in many rural communities across North America. They were concerned about the environment, climate change and their nation’s reliance on offshore oil to run their economy. They welcomed wind energy developers into their community. Now to a man and to a woman, they feel betrayed, cheated, used, ignored, and dismissed, according to a report in the local newspaper.

“Collectively, as they gather on a Saturday morning inside a home that sits in the shadow of the turbines, their anger is barely palpable. Since the turbines started up, they say, silence has become a luxury.”

This story is being repeated again and again in mostly rural communities across the U.S. and Canada. Many are beginning to speak up. Thousands are telling their stories of serenity ruined, communities torn apart and families forced from their homes.

So many wind projects were rushed into unsuspecting communities so quickly, it has taken some time for science to catch up to the developers. Now the gap is closing.

This weekend some of the world’s leading authorities and brightest minds in the study of industrial wind turbines on human and natural health are in Prince Edward County. For many, the County is the next front in the battle against wind developers in North America.

Dr. Nina Pierpont headlines the event. The Princeton and Johns Hopkins-trained physician and behaviourial specialist has produced Wind Turbine Syndrome—the seminal work in the study of wind turbines and the ill effects suffered by some nearby residents.

In her book Dr. Pierpont describes how sustained exposure to low frequency noise, as emitted by wind turbines, contributes to a “constellation of symptoms” suffered by those who live with the never-ending pulsating swoosh.

Wind Turbine Syndrome is a peer-reviewed work, meaning that it can’t be easily dismissed y misguided governments or proponents of industrial wind development.

“You have laid a remarkable, high quality, and onest foundation for others to build upon with the next stages of scientific investigation. In doing so, you have made a commendable, thorough, careful, honest, and significant contribution to the study of (what we can now call) Wind Turbine Syndrome,” said Ralph V. Katz, DMD, MPH, PhD. Dr. Katz is a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology as well as professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion at the New York University College of Dentistry.

Dr. Pierpont is scheduled to speak at about 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning at the Waring House Conference Centre in Picton.

Later in the day Dr. Michael Nissenbaum will report on a controlled study he has conducted on the community of Mars Hill, Maine. Dr. Nissenbaum is a radiologist at the Northern Maine Medical Center, Fort Kent, Maine. He has held positions including Junior Faculty at Harvard University and Associate Director of MRI at a major Harvard teaching hospital.

Dr. Nissenbaum has documented adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines on the people of Mars Hill. He says his findings in Maine cannot be dismissed as anecdotal, and indicates an urgent need for robust clinical health studies of this issue.

While the topics to be discussed during of the two-day symposium are heavily weighted toward the risk of health effects related to wind turbines—the event also features several important voices speaking about the folly of wind energy policy.

Robert Bryce is an American author and journalist who has written extensively on energy and politics. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Counterpunch, and Atlantic Monthly.

This past April, Bryce published Power Hungry: The Myths of Green Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.

In March 2009, he testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to discuss the limits inherent in renewable energy, saying “no matter how you do the calculations, renewable energy by itself, cannot, will not, be able to replace hydrocarbons over the next two to three decades, and that’s a conservative estimate.”

The two day symposium is taking place at the Waring House Conference Centre beginning on Sunday morning. For complete conference details including registration information is available at windconcernsontario.wordpress.com.