County News
Unhealthy setback
Stephana Johnston says wind turbines make her ill. She will testify this week at the appeal to overturn the approval of a wind turbine project at Ostrander Point.
Ostrander Appeal to hear firsthand what it means to live under the persistent presence of industrial wind turbines
Stephana Johnston retired to a small rural community on the north shore of Lake Erie after a career in teaching. Her newfound home was quiet, peaceful and friendly. She imagined she would live out her days in Clear Creek. But five years ago, trucks arrived to erect 18 industrial wind turbines around her home. Her dream retirement came to an abrupt and rude end.
When the turbines turn Stephana becomes disoriented, dizzy and has great difficulty sleeping. Relief comes only when the wind doesn’t blow or she is away from her home. Wind energy proponents and developers don’t believe the massive machines are making her sick. Her government doesn’t believe her either. Its officials have weeded through the existing medical literature and can’t find anything linking Ms. Johnston’s complaints to the busload of magnets and current spinning above her home.
This week the octogenarian will testify how industrial wind turbines have altered her life—making her home unlivable and next to impossible to sell. Stephana Johnston is one of more than a dozen witnesses testifying to the direct effects of wind turbines before an appeal of a nine-turbine wind project approved for Ostrander Point in Prince Edward County.
It is time for those who have endured sleeplessness, nausea, and torment as a result of industrial wind turbines built near their homes to explain what these machines have done to their health. To their lives.
The first two months of the hearing focused on the harm the project will have on birds, animals and the natural habitat on this rugged bit of shoreline on the south shore of the County. Now the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) will hear from those who say that industrial wind turbines built too close to homes and people can damage their health.
The panel consisting of Robert Wright and Heather Gibbs will hear from experts such as Dr. Robert McMurtry, who will lay out the most current evidentiary data pointing to harm from turbines. They will hear from residents of Wolfe Island, Chatham-Kent and elsewhere across the province—people who endure what the neighbours of Ostrander Point are likely to face.
This is the first hearing in which these victims are being permitted to explain what has happened to them as a result of industrial wind turbines built too close to their homes.
The appeal hearing has set aside the remainder of this week as well as Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week to listen to the evidence for the appellant, the Alliance for the Protection of Prince Edward County (APPEC).
After that the Ministry of the Environment’s lawyers will call their witnesses. They are expected to argue that in the absence of a direct causal link between industrial wind turbines and the symptoms nearby residents report, the decision to approved the project should not be overturned.
Similarly the developer, Gilead Power Corporation, is expected to dismiss health concerns as unproven and therefore not amounting to a basis upon which to overturn the approval of its project.
The ERT is scheduled to convene today (Wednesday) at Sophiasburgh Hall in Demorestville starting at 9:30 a.m. before moving to Toronto on Thursday and Friday. Interested residents can listen to the Toronto hearings by teleconference. To do so they must contact Paul Demedeiros at Paul.Demedeiros@ontario.ca or by calling 416.314.4600.
Malcom,
I don’t believe you. Is this your real name?
Full disclosure: retired wind energy developer says it all I guess. Were you paid to post this submission?
How many bags of our tax money in form of F.I.T. were you able to stash away? Did you investigate the off shore accounts?
Shame on you for being such a jerk.
It’s only a matter of time before law suits come your way.
Do you think the fat cats will run and hide; fall off the face of the earth?
I live with five windmills outside my front yard and seven beyond my back yard in the Plateau wind farm. The closest one is 867 meters from my residence. My wife and I spend most of our time (4-5 days per week) there and we’ve never had any sleep disturbance or other symptoms. We have frequent guests, including my 2-year old grand-daughter, and they are incredulous that anyone would complain.
The hosts of those windmills (11 residences and over 25 people) never have symptoms and they’re very pleased with their royalty payments. Their livestock hasn’t suffered either.
I would also recommend that people should follow the sworn testimony of people suffering near windmills by reading http://ertnotes.wordpress.com/tuesday-may-14th/ and subsequent posts. You’ll find that their suffering has little to nothing to do with windmills and a lot to do with the myths floating around the internet and the fear campaign being waged by anti-wind groups. Read and make up your own mind. The mark of a rational mind is that it can change when it hears new evidence.
Full disclosure: I’m a retired wind energy developer and fully supportive of renewable energy.
My great grandfather smoked White Owl cigars and lived to be 93. Following the logic of Mr. Hamilton, this must prove that cigar smoking is harmless.
to Mike Barnard,
How can you be so uneducated, arrogant and revulsive. You sir have a very poor aptitude towards the truth . The only one “taking advantage” of people are the ones
putting money in their pockets from these turbines, you mr barnard are a real idiot for writing such a unfounded statement . I suggest you read carefully the website
windvigilance.com
Barnard must be on something. His evil conjecture smacks of mental illness to suggest others are suffering from delusions. In fact it is Barnard who is suffering from delusions probably brought on by the fact that he or somebody he is associated with is sucking on the government money tit!
The depths to which wind shills like Mike Barnard (who has never lived any where near a wind installation himself) will sink continues to astound. It is well documented that most wind victims were 100% in favour of industrial turbines coming to their area. In fact, almost all are still in favour of renewable energy. The issue is one of placement so close to residences.
For years, the wind industry has denied any effects by their giant machines, but now that the truth is coming out and their colossal money-making scam is being exposed for what it is, they go from denying any effects, to attacking the victims themselves.
And Mr. Barnard has the temerity to claim that HE is disgusted.
The symptoms of people suffering from wind turbines are not caused by pre-existing illnesses or medical issues. The symptoms that victims are describing are specific to the presence of wind turbines. When victims are away from wind turbines they denote that the symptoms go away. That is why many people who live near wind turbines like Stephana have safe apartments or trailers away from wind turbines to stay at so that they can have a chance to recover their health. Paying for 2 places is very cost prohibitive and some people just can’t afford this option and have to suffer with no respite, Mike Barnard’s continued lack of compassion for people suffering like Stephana is saddening.
It would be interesting to know if there are any otolayngologists who will state categorically that wind turbine noise will not cause vertigo, nausea, panic episodes?
I have yet to see one testify for a wind company.
Well Michael,
I guess I’d be impressed if you were truly sincere about the plight of others and would like to see them medically treated properly, but as a pro-wind zealot, I find that unlikely. I’d like to know the medical training you posses and how you came to the conclusions you did. I’d be careful as to what groups “use” to back up assertions made. You and your ilk think nothing of using outdated material and bought-off medical personnel that suit your narrative.
I’m certain people are sure of what medical issues they have. I’m also certain that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s from a wind turbine.
I know your tactic of posting something provocative, and then running away and hoping the anti-wind groups go crazy. Not so. I’ve read your “handbook”, seen others use it and will now call you on it everytime you try to use this tactic. I don’t expect you to return to comment further, but I’ll let everyone now know not to take your rancid bait.
Revulsion? You don’t know the meaning of the word.
Having read through much of the health-related testimony at the ERT as well as all of the peer-reviewed research on wind and health and most of the reviews conducted worldwide, I have a rather different opinion.
I am disgusted that anti-wind lobbyists are taking advantage of people who are suffering from real medical problems including ischemia, inflammatory osteoarthritis, diabetes, sleep apnea due to physical obstructions and obesity-related high blood pressure. These are not problems caused or causable by wind turbines, yet the medical records of these people entered and assessed at the ERT show that these are the real problems these people are facing.
Are the anti-wind lobbyists and campaigners working with these people to ensure that they are getting the appropriate treatment for real issues?
No, they are supporting the delusion that these are caused by wind turbines and preventing these people from getting the care they actually need and doing the work they must do to become healthy. They are promoting the idea that these symptoms are caused by wind turbines and making other people sick too, and preventing people from realizing the health problems they have and what needs to be done about them.
Disgusted is inadequate. It doesn’t begin to cover my revulsion.
Mike,
These wind turbines have impacted healthy children, teens, young adults, mature adults, elderly, pets and livestock.
To suggest they are caused by pre existing conditions is ridiculous.
People were FINE before the turbines started. They got SICK from loud audible cyclical noise, low frequency noise/infrasound penetrating their home and dirty electricity…
The jig is up. The evidence is in and whether people like yourself and our government authorities wish to admit it or not, it is beyond question now.
Shame on you for attacking the victims. It is not very becoming of you.
I am disgusted that people such as Mike Barnard who continue to deny the truth of an individual’s response and experience to being exposed to wind turbine emissions. Needing to seek “appropriate treatment” quite clearly shows that harm to human health has, is and will continue to occur.
Individuals with pre-existing medical conditions or children, logically will be more sensitive and vulnerable to the adverse effects of turbine operations.
Blaming the victims doesn’t change the truth that these machines are inefficient, expensive, and generate unacceptable harmful effects to human health and the environment. Health is not just an absence of disease… it includes a state of well-being. Having to abandoned one’s home demonstrated clearly the severity of the intolerable effects of living close to operating turbines. Turn them off NOW!
I would encourage anyone wondering about this to read the transcripts for themselves including especially the cross-examinations where medical histories that pre-date wind farms are brought out.
http://ertnotes.wordpress.com/tuesday-may-14th/
And I would point out again that I and others concerned with this are not blaming the victims, we are blaming the ones making them sick and exploiting them simultaneously. As I said: revulsion.
“blaming the ones making them sick and exploiting them” Really? So you believe people leave their homes because anti-wind lobbyist’s have influenced them to do this? Really? So you don’t think these people have the ability to know how they felt per and post turbines? Now they finally have a forum to speak and you believe this is because they are being exploited? What planet are you from? Please give these people some credit – they are not sheep. your comments are demeaning at best and clearly show a lack of understanding, compassion and respect. Really.
The ones making them sick is the whole scam of lies of industrial wind. Your concern is like crocodile tears. Place the blame exactly where it belongs on the governments in collusion with wind developers who are hiding behind the dream of renewable energy. Nothing wrong with the dream but the reality of wind turbines is a living nightmare for those next to the machines.
Industrial wind is a green fantasy that is robbing tax payers dollars to erect machines that are emitting harmful emissions. No benefit other than transferring monies to the pockets of a select few. No other product would be allow to operate with the amount of complaints generated. Using the wind as a fuel doesn’t change the facts.
You think they are so grand than fix the dam things.
I think I detect a conflict of interest Mr Barnard.
I’ve passed your comments along to people I know whose families are suffering (including children). They’ve asked me to extend an invitation to you, Mike. The next time you are back in Canada, they would love to meet with you so they can explain fully and clearly just how much their lives have been devastated by having wind turbines placed too close to their homes.
The invitation has been extended. Let’s see if you have the guts to accept.
@ Mike Barnard… your “agile” business strategy is serving you well as attested to in this commentary. Your many years of contributing to the development of this strategy in your employment with IBM has indeed done you well in this respect. Whilst I share your focus on delusion in human cognitive processes, I might suggest that your penchant for arrogant judgmental responses, stated in pejorative terms such as “disgust” and “revulsion” for example, as opposed to unbiased curiosity, is actually the antithesis to the application and integrity of scientific methodology, which you disingenuously purport to apply.
I’m sure you’ll agree that an undergraduate Arts degree with a major in English Literature with a few elective courses in “environmental studies” would not merit the understanding and experience of application of scientific methodology necessary for the conclusions and inferences you apply. Even your IBM endeavors in the business application of “communicable disease” software does not merit credibility in this respect.
Stephana’s sad story is being played out all over Ontario—Kincardine, Ripley, Shelburne, Ridgetown, and more—as the Ontario government ignores this growing environmental health problem. If wind power generators were any other product, like a car or other piece of machinery, it would be off the market for investigation after a dozen or so complaints. Instead, we have our own government and the powerful, huge corporate wind power developer lobby continuing to put these projects forward and assuring people there is no problem.It is beyond imagining that Ontario has come to this.