MCSEA has purchased a booth at the trade fair (Little Current Complex, June 3-5). We will unveil our new banner “Save the Great Spirit Island”. We will have a model of Manitoulin showing hundreds of Industrial Wind Turbines planned for our Island. Visitors will be able to imagine what will become of our beautiful country and channel views and our famous “dark skies”. We will have a new handout detailing  21 important facts about IWT’s and why they are WRONG for Manitoulin. We hope to have support from local elders at our booth and will be showcasing their petition which calls for NO INDUSTRIAL WIND TURBINES ON MANITOULIN ISLAND. Come and join us. Sign our petition. Our movement is growing because we have the truth on our side.

Another “public information meeting” will be put on by Northland Power at the time indicated above. It will be held at the Legion in Little Current.  Once again there have been significant changes announced regarding the project – changes in turbine locations and more significantly an increase in the size and height of the turbine by 20%. (Turbines are now estimated to be in the range of 500 ft. or 2 1/2 times the height of McLeans Mountain)   MCSEA is urging all landowners and other concerned citizens from on and off Island to attend. MCSEA is still receiving correspondance every day from concerned citizens who have not been fully apprised of the impacts of the proposed projects or had thought it was too late to make their concerns known. It is not too late. Now is the time to speak up.

How McGuinty’s windmill dreams became a nightmare

What do we stand to lose?

* Our health, and our livestock’s health

* Our safety, (on roads and on our property)

* Our natural environment (and wildlife)

* Control of our agricultural lands

* Property values

* Affordable electricity

What have we done so far?

* Warned the MOE of the implications of wind projects

* Reviewed and commented on all the Province’s documents

* Requested Environmental Assessments for proposed wind farms

* Wrote letters

* Signed petitions

* Meetings… Protests…

Now we are taking the Green Energy Act to court.

Mail cheques to  Ian Hanna Fund

                                   c/o APPEC

                                   Box 173

                                   Milford Ont.

                                   K0K 2P0

ian-hanna-2011-donation-form1

Ray Beaudry compiled this list of useful facts taken from John Laforet’s presentation in Little Current on Dec. 5, 2010. There was a good crowd out despite the snowy evening.

Manitoulin is currently supplied by a renewable source. Water generation and
storage.
 
Major IWT projects here are for off Manitoulin Island use.
 
Practice shows that are very few long term jobs created by industrial wind projects.
 
“Wind turbines must be paired with fossil generators when attached to
the grid.”
 
Tactics used by the wind industry divide neighbours and communities. Lack
of transparency and opportunity for complete community input into developments.
 
“Wind turbines don’t do what they’re supposed to do. Since the Wind
Industry is not storing the energy created by wind so it must be paired with fossil generators when
attached to the grid.”
 
“Coal is not being replaced by wind. Since wind turbines must be paired
with fossil generators when attached to the grid, coal is just being replaced by another fossil
fuel.” Gas generation.
 
Wind needs fossil.Wind turbines must be paired with fossil generators
when attached to the grid, does it make sense to increase our hydro rates by at least 35% and
pushing industry out of the province.
 
High electricity rates due to a heavily subsidized wind “Green” industry
affect municipality costs also which in turn affect tax increases. Increases to arena,
curling club, water and sewer rates costs.High cost effects would be devasting to communities.
 
Industrial wind turbines kill thousands of birds and bats every year,
make people sick, etc.. for nothing?” The goal of getting off coal in this model doesn’t work.
Scrubber technology is not being implemented where lower coal emmissions could be controlled
more readily,effectively and economically.
 
Industrial wind turbines, with their finacial impact to humans also have
a human health impact.
There are at present 107 people with reported symptoms of suffering from
health related issues when IWT are placed within distances too close to their homes.Causes seem
to be related to inaudible or low frequency sound. Terms are wind turbine syndrome or
vibroacoustic disease.
 
The Green Energy Act and its continuous revisions for IWT development are
directly affecting non participant landowners rights of use and enjoyment.
 
“The hope is that “some day” the issue around the storage of wind energy will be resolved.
Right “now” wind turbines are being paired with fossil generators when attached to the grid.”
 
“Storing the energy from wind power might “some day” reduce the need for fossil fuels. Are we not
putting the cart before the horse by pairing wind turbines to fossil generators “now”?
Shouldn’t wind turbines be paired with a storage medium before they are attached to the grid?
 
Contact your MPP to hold them responsible for this development in this area as they will be
held accountable in the upcoming provincial election.
 
This message of contacting those MP’s and MPP’s with any concerns in relation to the GEA was
also stated to those in attendance from Michael Mantha, a representative from MP, Carol Hughes
office.

The Global Wind Industry and Adverse Health Effects – A Summary
This international symposium was organized by the Society for Wind Vigilance (www.windvigilance.com ) and was held over the weekend of 29th/31st October 2010 at the Waring House Conference Centre in Prince Edward County.
Orville Walsh opened on Friday evening by reviewing the regulations on turbine noise limits in various jurisdictions. The limits covered a range from 35 dBA to 60 dBA with most at 40 dBA. Orville probably has the most extensive collection of these regulations.
John Harrison followed with a review of sound, its perception and how it is measured. He used a sound propagation model to demonstrate how sound varies with distance for on-shore and off-shore turbines. This enabled turbine noise limits to be converted to setback distances from homes. Typically, these are much smaller than recommended by health authorities. The reason for the disconnect is that the sound propagation modelling is inadequate.
Rick James, a noise control engineer, likened the present adverse health effects from turbine noise to the problem of 1980’s sick buildings. This earlier problem was eventually ascribed to inaudible modulated low-frequency noise from the ventilation systems. Rick has made extensive measurements of turbine noise and showed examples of noise spectra (noise level as a function of the sound frequency) demonstrating enhanced modulated low frequency noise. The problem is often aggravated by the build-up of the noise due to resonance effects in rooms.
Nina Pierpont, a New York State paediatrician, was the key-note symposium speaker and opened the Saturday morning session. Nina has published a book describing wind turbine syndrome, a set of diagnosed adverse health effects common to many of those subject to living in proximity to wind turbines. She started by describing the impact of noise on the learning ability of children. She then explained that there are multiple sensors of acoustic noise and vibration in the body, including the vestibular organs. Some of the problems of affected adults were described, including chest sensation, panic attacks, breathing problems, waking in a state of alarm. There was a correlation with motion sensitivity and motion sickness.
Alec Salt, a specialist in cochlear physiology at Washington University in St. Louis, made an interesting observation: there are many instances of intrusions on the human body that cannot be sensed and yet do harm. For instance salmonella cannot be tasted; carbon monoxide cannot be smelt; ultraviolet light cannot be seen; infrasound cannot be heard. The inner ear has both inner hair cells and outer hair cells. The 2
former respond to velocity and the latter respond to displacement. The inner hair cells respond to audible sound. The outer hair cells respond to low frequency sound and infrasound. Interestingly, activation of the outer hair cells shuts down the response of the inner hair cells. He described animal studies that demonstrate that the outer hair cells within the ear respond to infrasound that is 40 dB below that at which the inner hair cells respond. There is a separate nerve channel (type 2 nerve cells) from the outer hair cells into the brain; they do not generate audible sound. In addition, low frequency noise is detected by the vestibular system which is inherently a low frequency detection system.
Arlene Bronzaft, a professor at City University of New York and a specialist on noise impacts, talked about her work on the impact of noise on children. She has determined the impact on reading ability of living near airports and demonstrated that achievement in life is associated with growing up in quiet homes. Of especial significance was her work demonstrating the impact on learning and reading ability of children in classrooms in a school close to a New York City railway line. The evidence was so compelling that the City added rubber to the rail lines and added sound insulation in the classrooms. To her relief she was able to demonstrate reversal of the learning and reading problems after the changes were made. Other schools in proximity to rail lines were identified and the changes to classrooms and rail lines were adopted in these cases. Her message is that environments responsible for learning problems can be identified and remedies introduced. However, the process needs a high level of activism and plain hard work to overcome inertia and vested interests.
Chris Hanning is a renowned sleep specialist from Leicester in England. He started by reviewing the normal cycle of sleep modes during a night’s sleep. During the night there can be, typically, 4 or 5 arousals or very brief periods of awakening. In general these are too short to be remembered upon waking. The effect of noise on sleep is to inhibit falling asleep, to inhibit the return to sleep after an awakening, and to increase the number of arousals. People have different sensitivities to noise. This sensitivity is related to the spindle rate, the rate of bursts of high frequency brain waves during sleep. Nevertheless, for any spindle rate the probability of undisturbed sleep decreases as the noise increases. Chris discussed the character of turbine noise and its propensity to disturb sleep: there is the swishing, thumping, pulsing; it is “in your face” noise; it is not masked by background noise at the same sound pressure level (he quoted Hayes who reported detectability 10 to 15 dB below background noise). Referring to regulations, he noted that they were based upon outdated assumptions about noise, ignored modern research, used inappropriate averaging and were designed without the involvement of health experts.3
Michael Nissenbaum described his extensive clinical study of health impacts caused by the Mars Hill wind energy facility in Maine. The facility has 28 120-metre tall turbines on a ridge. There were 38 adults within the target area, a distance of 600 metres from the turbines, and 41 adults in the control area beyond the target area. The study used the internationally accepted SF-36V2 protocol in interviewing the study subjects. The analysis was blind; the analysts were independent of the interviewing team. Following standard epidemiological techniques, the data was corrected for age etc. The final results showed a clear dependence between both sleep quality and mental health and distance of the homes from the turbines. Interestingly, the dependence continued beyond the target area, for those in the control group.
Carl Phillips, director of an epidemiology research institute, addressed the symposium via video. He emphasized that there is ample credible evidence that wind turbine noise is indeed causing health problems. He decried the attempts by the wind industry consultants, mostly without credentials in epidemiology, to deny this evidence on the basis that it is anecdotal. Dr Phillips emphasized the significance of case-crossover evidence, the onset and then absence of adverse health impacts on living in proximity to the turbines and moving away. He emphasized the need for a large-scale study to determine the true nature of the health risk of living among turbines.
Carmen Krogh, a pharmacist who has held various executive positions within the profession, addressed the issue of social justice. She knows and has interviewed many of those suffering health effects and brought forward some of their stories.
Eric Gillespie discussed the legal avenues open to those suffering adverse health effects and to those under threat of having turbines put up in proximity to their homes. He covered private litigation, public litigation and proponent litigation. Private litigation would follow, say, a renewable energy approval for a new development. There is a very short time frame for this and therefore preliminary work would need to be in place. The Ian Hanna legal challenge is an example of the more general public litigation. This is a challenge to the noise regulations associated with the Green Energy Act and especially the seemingly arbitrary 550 metre minimum setback. The challenge is based upon the precautionary principle that nothing shall be done that could cause harm. Unlike private litigation, the onus is on the proponent and Ministry of the Environment to demonstrate that the regulations were designed in such a way that no harm would result. Proponent litigation refers to challenges to local government conditions for the issuance of building permits; an example would be the requirement for certification from Health Canada that there will be no adverse health impacts.4
The Sunday morning session opened with a devastating analysis of the pollution impacts on health in Ontario by Ross McKitrick, an economics professor at the University of Guelph. First he demonstrated that in Ontario particulate matter, sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide level have been dropping consistently since the 1970s and are now at or below recommended levels. Ozone has not decreased to the same extent largely because of the complex nature of its creation and the generation of its chemical precursors in the USA. By showing maps of coal generating plants in North America with and without the Ontario Lambton and Nanticoke coal plants he demonstrated the hopelessness of decreasing the pollutants by closing those plants. He next took issue with the economic argument for closing the coal plants and introducing renewable energy on a large scale as compared to retrofitting the coal plants with modern pollution controls. The economic argument adopted by the Ontario government was flawed by an unrealistic estimate of the health costs associated with the remaining pollutants. Associated with the Ontario governments plan to close the coal plants by 2014 was the abandonment of the retrofitting of pollution controls at Lambton and Nanticoke after retrofitting only 6 of 12 units. Dr. McKitrick then criticized earlier epidemiological work on the link between pollution levels and lung disease and presented the work of his own group. There was no correlation between hospital admissions and pollution levels. He finished with the sensible argument that if the goal is to reduce greenhouse gases then price those gases directly.
Dale Goldhawk, a well-known and popular broadcaster was the final speaker and inspired us all with his “rally the troops” talk. He discussed the movement to prevent a dump over perhaps the best aquifer in Ontario. He used his radio station to make residents in Simcoe County and surroundings aware of what was proposed and why, scientifically, the project could be a disaster for the aquifer. Gradually the county councillors came onside and within a week of the first load of garbage being dumped at the site a stop order was issued. Subsequently, the politicians who had most pushed for the dump site lost their seats in the recent local government elections. The former Minister of the Environment, John Gerretsen, had already been replaced over a separate matter. Dale is right behind those fighting to convince the Ontario government that there really are adverse health effects from wind turbine noise and will use his influential broadcasts to help our case.
Bob McMurtry closed the symposium with a brief summary and the promise that the work will continue. The main organizers, Carmen Krogh, Beth Harrington, Brett Horner and Bob McMurtry are to be congratulated on a very well organized symposium.

Please submit your comment to the EBR.  Deadline: November 21, 2010.
The Ontario government plans to make it easier to get industrial wind projects approved.  They are pandering to the wind industry again. They are changing the rules of the game to make it harder for you to protect your interests.

Application Eligibility
This amendment is intended to provide greater flexibility to the Director in the processing of applications and reduce unnecessary burden (for whom?)
Definition of Noise Receptors
Structures without servicing built to allow temporary or intermittent uses such as hunting, trapping or other similar uses are not intended to be considered noise receptors for the purposes of measuring setbacks.
Vacant Lots
a future building would normally be constructed near an existing road to facilitate access and servicing (550 metre minimum setback would be measured to a site near the road, not the property line, allowing turbines to be much closer to property lines)
Noise Receptor Setback Prohibitions
Proposed amendments in sections 54 and 55 of the regulation would require proponents to consider only noise receptors that existed at the time of application.
that consideration be given only to those noise receptors that existed at the time the draft site plan was issued
These proposed amendments will provide additional certainty to proponents in planning wind projects.