WhatFinger


The wind industry has known about infrasound emissions from wind turbines for thirty years since research led by Dr Neil Kelley

Deliberate Harm to the Health of Rural Australians, via the RET, Enabled by the CER, via Parliament



OPEN LETTER Dear Parliamentarian, Tomorrow, the Bill to change the Renewable Energy Target (RET) will be debated in the Federal Parliament.

Consequences

If you vote for the Bill as currently proposed by Minister Hunt, you will be allowing continuation and expansion of serious harm to the health of Australian rural residents, from unmeasured and unregulated infrasound and low frequency noise (ILFN) from large industrial wind turbines. This health harm includes turbine hosts, and results from ILFN from 600kW and larger turbines, extending out to at least 10km1.

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The two inevitable long-term consequences of the failure to measure and regulate ILFN are health damage to many more families, including children, with a risk of permanent health damage and lifelong sensitization to ILFN, regardless of the ILFN source which will restrict where some can work, live and sleep; and the creation of acoustically toxic homes that are valueless and uninhabitable, leading to the creation of rural ghettos. Wind turbine noise is not the only source of industrial ILFN urgently requiring safer regulation – but the subject matter of this particular Bill will not result in harm to human health from industrial noise and vibration from coal and gas fired power stations, coal mines or CSG field compressors2. These sources also cause similar serious harm to physical and mental health, well known to the Federal Department of Resources & Energy3. The wind industry has known about infrasound emissions from wind turbines for thirty years4 since research led by Dr Neil Kelley, which included two branches of NASA, funded by the US Department of Energy, proved that military aircraft and wind and gas turbines generated pulsatile ILFN which directly caused sleep disturbance and physiological stress and a range of other symptoms and sensations, together known as “annoyance” – a descriptor totally inadequate to describe the severe damage to human health. Kelley also identified the issue of progressive sensitization, and recommended ILFN exposure limits to protect health5.

Impacts

Sleep deprivation and chronic stress are both known to cause or exacerbate a wide range of diseases including depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, cardiovascular diseases including heart attacks, high blood pressure and stroke, and immunosuppression resulting in chronic infections and cancers.. Good quality sleep is of particular importance to children’s healthy growth and development. If government planning decisions and noise pollution regulations do not ensure protection of sleep citizens cannot attain the best possible physical and mental health, enshrined in all but one of the UN Human Rights Conventions and Covenants Australia has signed6. The effects of severe or prolonged chronic sleep deprivation were also specifically recognised by the UN Committee Against Torture7:
“The Committee against Torture (CAT) has noted that sleep deprivation used for prolonged periods constitutes a breach of the CAT, and is primarily used to break down the will of the detainee. Sleep deprivation can cause impaired memory and cognitive functioning, decreased short term memory, speech impairment, hallucinations, psychosis, lowered immunity, headaches, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stress, anxiety and depression.”

Who Knows About the Health Damage?

Federal and State Health, Planning and Noise Pollution Regulatory Authorities and Departments are well aware of the health damage caused by excessive environmental noise, with sleep deprivation, neurophysiological stress, mental health problems, cardiovascular disease specifically listed in the major En Health 2004 report on Environmental Noise8. Many Federal and State politicians know. Despite the recommendations for multidisciplinary health research “as a priority” from the Federal Senate Inquiry into the Social and Economic Impact of Rural Wind Farms in June 2011, chaired by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert9, there has been no multidisciplinary health research. However acoustical field work and investigation and psychoacoustic studies by acousticians with no commercial conflict of interest has shown:
  • excessive ILFN out to nearly 10km which would be expected to disturb sleep (Hansen)10;
  • poor sleep quality, seriously impaired mental and physical health indicators in chronically exposed residents reporting impacts, which was even worse than hospital inpatients from comparative population studies (Thorne)11;
  • excessive low frequency noise inside homes, pressure peak pulsations from multiple turbines, and measured wind turbine generated infrasound 30 + km away (Huson)12, and
  • correlation of specific wind turbine operation parameters with severe “sensations” consistent with symptoms and sensations known to acousticians to be directly caused by exposure to ILFN (Cooper)13.
None of this important recent acoustics field research was included by the NHMRC in any of its recent publications, yet has been internationally acclaimed by others working in this area. The NHMRC omitted other important research including the first Australian population survey at Toora, in 2004 by Dr David Iser14. In other words, the NHMRC have fundamentally failed in their duty of care, and have failed the governments and politicians who rely upon them for credible, up to date, independent expert advice.15

Apart from Ignoring the Facts What is the Wind Industry Doing?

The wind industry is predictably busy manufacturing even more evidence to support an alleged nocebo effect, (i.e. scaremongering), to explain the reported symptoms and problems16. In contrast, yet another study has recently demonstrated a direct physiological effect from wind turbine ILFN by showing that the brains of Japanese wind turbine workers showed a physiological stress response, visible in their brains via EEG17.

The Foundation’s Appeal to Politicians

Please help stop the deliberate ongoing abuse and harm to the health of an escalating number of vulnerable rural residents, which the issuing of RECS for health damaging wind developments by the CER is encouraging18. An immediate improvement would occur if the Renewable Energy Act was amended to:
  • prohibit the payment of RECS to wind developments which cause noise nuisance including particularly sleep disturbance and physiological stress; until that noise nuisance is rectified and
  • prohibit the sale of any wind power development until the noise nuisance is satisfactorily rectified.
Yours sincerely, Sarah Laurie, CEO, Waubra Foundation Bachelor Medicine, Bachelor Surgery, Flinders University, 1995 Former FRACGP, FACCRM, Clinical Examiner RACGP, member AMA state Council, SA

Footnotes

  1. The 10km distance was first raised by the Waubra Foundation in its Explicit Cautionary Notice, widely distributed to Government Departments and Politicans on 29th June, 2011. The subsequent acoustic field evidence and population noise impact surveys have supported the 10km distance of impacts on sleep particularly. See for example the Population Noise Impact survey from Waterloo Wind Development by Mary Morris, the sole Australian author included in the 2014 NHMRC Commissioned Systematic Literature Review . Professor Colin Hansen's team's subsequent acoustic survey at Waterloo is here
  2. waubrafoundation.org.au
  3. See section 3.2 "Health Amenity" of the 2009 report from the then Federal Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism
  4. knightlab.com
  5. waubrafoundation.org.au
  6. humanrights.gov.au
  7. waubrafoundation.org.au
  8. waubrafoundation.org.au
  9. waubrafoundation.org.au
  10. Hansen et al. "Noise Monitoring at Waterloo Wind Farm" 2014 http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/hansen-zajamsek-hansen-noise-monitoring-waterloo-wind-farm/
  11. Thorne, B "The perception and effect of wind turbine noise at two Victorian Wind Farms" reissued June 2014
  12. Huson, L Expert evidence given at the Cherry Tree Wind Development case before VCAT October 2013
  13. Cooper, S "The results of an acoustics testing program, Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm", commissioned by Pacific Hydro, December 2014 http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/cooper-s-acoustic-group-results-cape-bridgewater-acoustic-investigation/
  14. Iser, Dr D 2004 Results of Population Survey at Toora, and letters to Victorian Politicians
  15. Open Letter from the CEO of the Waubra Foundation, listing serious errors of omission, misclassified studies, deliberate exclusion of studies which would usually be included in this type of Literature Review and questions which were never answered by the recipients. Other experts critiques of NHMRC literature reviews are listed in the following pages
  16. A description of how the wind industry manufactures research to support its deliberately misleading assertions about a nocebo effects was given in the Waubra Foundation briefing notes to the recent meeting in Pittsburgh, USA at the Annual Conference of the American Society of Acoustics: Laurie, S Invited Presentation to American Acoustical Society meeting in Pittsburgh, 21 May 2015 and briefing notes for research meeting about research priorities http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/acoustical-society-america-conference-2015-waubra-foundation-presentation-notes/
  17. Inagaki Li & Nishi "Analysis of aerodynamic sound noise generated by a large scaled wind turbine and its physiological evaluation" International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology June 2015, Volume 12, Issue 6, pp 1933-1944

    The CER Board were legally put on notice on 5th April 2013 about the serious adverse health effects being reported at existing industrial wind power developments in Australia. They chose to ignore this information, preferring instead to accept the wind industry "product defence" excuse of a "nocebo effect". That correspondence can be located here:
    Letter of Notice from the Foundation CEO to the CER Board on 5th April, 2013.
    Letter from Chloe Munro invoking the "nocebo effect" on 16th April, 2013
  18. Additional References, Documents and Correspondence

    Correspondence between the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) CEO Chloe Munro and the Waubra Foundation Letter of Notice from the Foundation CEO to the CER Board on 5th April, 2013: Letter from Chloe Munro invoking the "nocebo effect" on 16th April, 2013: Critiques of the 2010 NHMRC Rapid Review include the following: "Haste Makes Waste" by the Society for Wind Vigilance in Ontario, Canada Audit of Rapid Review by Mr Brett Horner, Ontario Canada Dr Nina Pierpont Professor Carl Phillips Critiques of the 2014 NHMRC Systematic Literature Review and associated documents include the following: Open Letter from the CEO of the Waubra Foundation, listing serious errors of omission, misclassified studies, deliberate exclusion of studies which would usually be included in this type of Literature Review Professor Colin Hansen, one of the expert peer reviewers Dr Andrew Bell, Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University "The literature that the information paper relies on to make its conclusions on noise from windfarms can be characteristed as scientifically incomplete and misleading" Geoff McPherson, acoustician, Australia -- listing the terms excluded from the search terms, ensuring the literature review was deliberately narrow and excluded terms such as sleep disturbance which is the commonest reported problem by residents. Bill Palmer, Engineer, Ontario NHMRC commissioned expert peer reviews which were eventually made public after Senator John Madigan requested them during Senate Estimates in February, 2015

    Conflict of Interest in NHMRC Expert Panel members Exposed in Federal Parliament

    Senator John Madigan's exposure of Conflicts of Interest on NHMC Expert Panel Senator Chris Back's exposure of vested Interests and undeclared political donations Critiques of many of the Literature Reviews and Reports used by the wind industry to justify ignoring the noise nuisance and known harm to human health their products / industrial developments create Public Responses to AMA Position Statement: More Public Responses to AMA Position Statement: Responses to the ACNC's decision to revoke the Waubra Foundation's Health Promotion Charity status:


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Guest Column Sarah Laurie -- Bio and Archives

Items of notes and interest from the web.


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