Wind farms, rows and columns of giant electricity generating windmills, make a lot of noise, no one debates that. As the wind turns the propeller like blades, the blades spin a turbine, and that creates noise. When a lot of such turbines are placed together in one place, the nose can be deafening. Now, new reports are popping up that suggest that those that live close enough to such wind farms might be experiencing some forms of illness. In one recent incident, the Pantagraph, reports, two brothers came to blows after one of them installed a small windmill farm near the other. The second insisted the sound was making him and his family crazy. After just a few months, the two came to blows and eventually a lawsuit was filed. In another report, the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that despite little concrete evidence that wind mill farms really do cause illness, several lawsuits have been filed by people who live close enough that they claim it’s caused symptoms from high blood pressure to sleepiness and headaches.
In another report, a group has created a website they call the Wind Turbine Syndrome, where they cite quasit evidence suggesting that windmill farms emit what they call “infrasound”. Sound they say that is of a frequency that cannot be heard, but which causes maladies in the people that subconsciously “hear” them.
The fact is, such claims have a rather long history. As far back as 2004, The Telegraph was reporting that windmill farms were harming the health of people that lived a mile away. And two years ago, there was a report by the Observer that people in Canada were reporting they’d become sick after the recent installation of a wind farm in their area.
Despite all this anecdotal evidence, the scientific community is dubious, to say the least. The Herald cites numerous studies that have debunked such claims and have in fact showed, many times over, that wind farms do not cause illnesses of any kind.
On the other hand, in the same article, several people involved in disputes with windfarm owners were interviewed for the article and all swore they’d become sick after the windfarm was built. What’s not clear here, however, is how far the team ill can be carried.
In most such instances where people claim to have been made sick by windfarm noise, it appears that the symptoms don’t really differ from those reported by people who live near airports for example, or close to manufacturing plants that make a lot of noise. Thus, it appears at least at this time, that the illness reports that are cropping up will likely fade away as have reports of such illnesses by other groups over other noisy situations. Which doesn’t of course mean they’re not getting sick, it just means they either move away or, stop complaining about it.