Harm to Children

In Spite of Evidence, Wind Pushers Still Trying To Deny Wind Turbines Make People Sick!

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Lloyd, G. Headache for Residents After Monitoring Reveals Bad Vibes — Cape Bridgewater

Graham Lloyd, Environment Editor, The Australian
August 02, 2014

Melissa Ware at Cape Bridgewater wind farm in Victoria; she has a hearing disability but can tell from inside her home what is happening with the turbines outside. Picture: David Geraghty Source: News Corp Australia

 

FOR the past two months, Melissa Ware’s 150-year-old stone foundation house in the shadow of the Cape Bridgewater wind farm in South Australia has been wired to monitor sounds that cannot be heard easily by the human ear.

Ware, who is partially deaf, and two nearby families have kept a diary of the physical sensations they were experiencing at regular intervals. A scorecard was developed ranking three factors — noise, vibration and sensation — on a scale of one to five.

The research has been funded by wind farm owner Pacific Hydro and undertaken by acoustics specialist Steven Cooper, who has had a long interest in why wind turbines have produced so many health complaints that defy easy explanation.

For six years, since the wind turbines started operating at Cape Bridgewater, Ware has complained of headaches and other “pressure” effects she can attribute only to the arrival of the renewable energy project she once had supported enthusiastically.

The early results from comparing the readings from Cooper’s highly sensitive microphones and Ware’s diary notes provide uncomfortable evidence for the wind industry and some relief for Ware, told for six years that her problems were all in her head. 

During the eight-week trials at Cape Bridgewater, from inside her house, Ware has been able to express with 100 per cent accuracy what is happening with the wind turbines outside.

In a report-back meeting to residents and the company, Cooper posed the theory that high sensations, including headaches and chest pains, correlated to times when the turbine blades were not efficiently aligned to the wind. 

The results from recordings and residents’ diaries show that a change in power output of more than 20 per cent leads to a change in sensation for the residents.

 “The main thing I get from the study is that there is a direct correlation from the noise coming out of the wind farm and the response in my body to that noise,’’ Ware says. “I have a bilateral hearing impairment, and I don’t always hear from the wind farm, but I feel it from the ground, the floor or the furniture I am sitting on.’’

Cooper has said the Pacific Hydro Cape Bridgewater development complies with existing noise guidelines. Issues of ambient noise from waves on surrounding cliffs and wind direction also are relevant in the data.

Pacific Hydro has published the minutes of the report-back meetings and Cooper’s preliminary findings but has drawn no public conclusions. Company spokesman Andrew Richards says Cooper’s work has “resulted in some interesting data” but “doesn’t necessarily provide any conclusions or outcomes”.

But Richards acknowledges there a problem. “Whatever they are experiencing is real for them,’’ he says.

University of Sydney public health specialist Simon Chapman has used the term “necebo” to argue that the complaints are psychosomatic and exacerbated by warnings from anti-wind farm groups.

In a new paper, Chapman says “The statement that ‘more than 40’ houses have been ‘abandoned’ because of wind turbines in Australia is a factoid promoted by wind farm opponents for dramatic, rhetorical impact.’’

A review by the National Health and Medical Research Council says there is “no consistent evidence that adverse health effects are caused by exposure to wind turbine noise’’.

However, it says: “While no research has directly addressed the association between infrasound from wind turbines and health effects, the possibility of such an association cannot be excluded on present evidence.’’

Concerned residents in Australia want the federal government to use Cooper’s research methodology at Cape Bridgewater as the basis for an independent study that has been promised by Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane.

Visit the Pacific Hydro website to view the preliminary findings:http://www.pacifichydro.com.au/english/our-communities/communities/cape-bridgewater-acoustic-testing-presentation/?language=en

Original story available at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/headache-for-residents-after-monitoring-reveals-bad-vibes/story-e6frg6xf-1227010639170

Important Workshop Video’s Re: Wind Turbines & Noise….Vermont

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This is the site where the Board posts presentations and other filings in the sound standard investigation docket
 
Workshop #1, Noise Experts, April 29, 2014
 
Workshop #2, Neighbors Speak, May 13, 2014
Individual Speakers:  The numbers indicate the order in which people spoke
Neighbors With Problems
Living Around First Wind’s Sheffield Clipper Liberty 2.5 MW Wind Turbines
24. Luann Therrien http://youtu.be/4Raci04GUC8
25. Steve Therrien http://youtu.be/4larrLlrDkw
20. Keith Balleck http://youtu.be/tmSGday7q7I
3. Paul Brouha http://youtu.be/FLASEzrubWU
4. Byron Savoy http://youtu.be/IK_xqNrFC58
5. Don Gregory http://youtu.be/HBitJUirs9k

Living Around David Blittersdorf’s Georgia Mountain Goldwind 2.5 MW Wind Turbines
26. Reggie Johnson http://youtu.be/kFwjtMTDIzg
27. Melodie McLane http://youtu.be/9WcQXhGJbGA
28. Scott McLane http://youtu.be/yJyK19ccfy4
29. Matt Parisi http://youtu.be/5DTslhh62BM

Living Around GMP’s Lowell Vesta v112 3 MW Wind Turbines
7. Linda Hill http://youtu.be/XDqnRuEbGzA
30. Deborah Willey http://youtu.be/zuNHlnBfw80
31. Roger Willey http://youtu.be/LAbPbxm988Y
32. Keith Christiensen http://youtu.be/7m1ixorrU-k
34. Robbin Clark http://youtu.be/oOh1lB29vBE
38. Steven Clark http://youtu.be/7XrjNQ1N8LQ
33. Sandra Watterman http://youtu.be/7r4DKUBO3Nc
42. Sam Mason http://youtu.be/USeyqhWAhkU
37. Mike Nelson http://youtu.be/MqKWTjjn4Jg
35. Carol Irons http://youtu.be/3MnePOXmqhM
41. Jack Brooks http://youtu.be/Ui2WtUYWgTs
44. Gordon Spencer http://youtu.be/sakPKWP8KbU

Others Speaking about concerns re Noise from Vermont Wind Turbines
36. Kathleen Nelson http://youtu.be/U1ZWb6XVet0
23. Kim Fried http://youtu.be/iYgA8nRHKXk
43. Noreen Hession http://youtu.be/IS-jti1Xis0

Living Around Wind Turbines, with Financial Connections to Wind Developers
6. Alice Soinenen http://youtu.be/iNjl6OQE1bs
9. Tom Soinenen http://youtu.be/S6SucZS0jog
21. John Soinenen http://youtu.be/PLKqCR0NlPE
8. Andre Tetreault http://youtu.be/MuaNYBU5-Zo
19. Gertrude Tetreault http://youtu.be/P7GyOZ1bG7s
14. Dan Wright http://youtu.be/ASvazKGaPlY
15. Mike Tetreault http://youtu.be/US_CLAX3kuM
10. Pam Tetreault http://youtu.be/iKRa_CsRqlY
22. Vince Doaner http://youtu.be/gr7ae_t9xIA
40. Kristi Hutchins http://youtu.be/Bgdsyi6S6mE
1. Tammy Barrows http://youtu.be/7UZD-n4sHN4

Others Speaking about Not Hearing Wind Turbine Noise
18. Beth Martell-Viera http://youtu.be/Anvomvxrx5E
13. Dave Robitille http://youtu.be/yTQDCBp4Vhw
16. Esther Weber http://youtu.be/W9lgHnpwupw
39. Karen Staniels http://youtu.be/vdv136sRiEI
2. Lloyd Banchand http://youtu.be/3tSbXYaytZ8
11. Marie Harm http://youtu.be/58lFHu_CaAI
17. St. Onge http://youtu.be/8m_x1tEqamE
12. William Harm http://youtu.be/qchdRCi9jKA

 
 
Workshop #3, Noise and Health, July 29, 2014
Video of Presentations to Vermont’s Public Service Board, in order of appearance, July 29, 2014 as part of the PSB’s Sound Standard Investigation.  
Opening and Department of Health: http://youtu.be/2e0nYqdg05I
Sandy Reider, MD: http://youtu.be/kS2wuQSCP6U
Arline Bronzaft, Ph.D. http://youtu.be/uaJJt_pV-ms
Agency of Natural Resources http://youtu.be/oIhO754NiwA
 
Annette Smith
Executive Director
Vermonters for a Clean Environment
789 Baker Brook Road
Danby, VT  05739
 
 

 

Liberals Hide the Truth about Bloated Taxpayer-funded Pensions!

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Liberals sat on report critical of bloated pensions in hydro sector

Kathleen Wynne government’s is being ripped for sitting on report critical of bloated pensions in hydro sector since before the June 12 election.

 
 
A report critical of bloated, taxpayer-funded pensions in the hydro sector was written by Jim Leech, a former head of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

COLIN MCCONNELL / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

A report critical of bloated, taxpayer-funded pensions in the hydro sector was written by Jim Leech, a former head of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

 
By: Queen’s Park Bureau, Published on Fri Aug 01 2014

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government is being ripped for keeping secret a report critical of bloated, taxpayer-funded pensions in the hydro sector since well before the June 12 election that lifted the Liberals to a majority.

The 45-page study into Ontario Power Generation, Hydro One, the Electrical Safety Authority and Independent Electricity System Operator recommends dramatically lower public contributions to “generous, expensive and inflexible” retirement schemesposing a “significant risk” to electricity prices.

At Hydro One, for example, taxpayers have been contributing an average of $5 for every $1 from employees, far higher than most civil service and private sector pension plans. Two-thirds of Ontarians have no workplace pension plan.

The report is dated March 18 and was posted on the Ministry of Finance website Friday on the eve of the Civic Holiday long weekend.

“This is awfully suspect,” said Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli, his party’s finance critic, questioning Wynne’s oft-stated goal of running an “open and transparent” government.

“There was ample opportunity to release this document with good public scrutiny. What are they hiding? What didn’t they want us to know?”

NDP pensions critic Jennifer French (Oshawa) said the Liberals “have been sitting in this report for five months.”

Government officials said they had intended to make the report public after Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s May 1 budget — which was rejected by opposition parties, forcing the election — and that posting it without fanfare was an oversight.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said the late release of the report is a blow to Wynne’s credibility as she pushes forward with an Ontario Registered Pension Plan (ORPP) for citizens without workplace pensions.

“Why now, why not before the election so people would have known what’s happening?” said Plamen Petkov, whose lobby group opposes the ORPP as too expensive.

“We’re very worried to see government agencies where employees are paying only 20 cents on the dollar for their pensions when taxpayers pay the other 80 cents. No wonder the government itself expects electricity prices to go up 42 per cent over the next five years,” he told the Star.

“It’s really disappointing. We recommend the government clean its own house first before they ask employers to contribute $3.5 billion a year to the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan.”

The report was written by Jim Leech, a former head of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan appointed last December to find ways of making electricity sector pension plans more affordable as the government struggles to eliminate a $12.5 billion deficit by 2018.

“The pensions are generous,” he concluded, noting benefits are “very close” to the maximum allowable under the Income Tax Act, “richer than most of the broader public service plans and employee contributions are also lower.”

For example, the Ontario Power Authority’s pension plan has a 50/50 employer/employee contribution ratio — a level that Leech recommends be reached within five years.

His report provides “advice on a roadmap and potential destination that is both affordable and financially sustainable,” said Beckie Codd-Downey, spokeswoman for Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli.

“The government will be reviewing the report in consultation with union representatives to assess the recommendations.”

Pensions will be subject to collective bargaining between the electricity agencies and their employees.

Stop the Windweasels Dead in Their Tracks! It’s a SCAM! NO R.E.T.!

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Lessons from Germany’s Wind Power Disaster

August 3, 2014 by  

crystal-ball

All lies and promises – the wind industry has finally been rumbled in Germany and is about to be shown the door in Australia.

The wind industry and its parasites have been guilty of more than just a little hubris.  Claiming to be able to deliver cheap, reliable sparks was always going to be their undoing. Gradually, Europeans are waking up to the unassailable fact that wind power is based on a technology that was redundant before it began.

No modern economy can run with electricity delivered at crazy, random intervals.  To compensate for that meteorological fact, Germany is flat out building more coal fired power stations – not less.  Around the globe the wind industry promises to displace “dirty” coal fired power and Germany is no exception. But the reality is very different: the facts have finally caught up with them – wind power will never replace fossil fuel generators and the costs of having capacity to back up wind power is astronomical.

German industry is bailing out and heading to the US – where power is a third of the cost that it is in Germany – and some 800,000 German homeshave been disconnected from the grid – victims of what is euphemistically called “fuel poverty”. For Germans the attraction to wind power is fading fast – funny about that.

A group of Swiss energy market economists have launched a scathing attack on Germany’s wind and solar policies: “Development And Integration Of Renewable Energy: Lessons Learned From Germany” – Hans Poser; Jeffrey Altman; Felix ab Egg; Andreas Granata; and Ross Board
July 2014 (pdf available here).

We’ve extracted some of the key findings and conclusions below.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Over the last decade, well-intentioned policymakers in Germany and other European countries created renewable energy policies with generous subsidies that have slowly revealed themselves to be unsustainable, resulting in profound, unintended consequences for all industry stakeholders. While these policies have created an impressive roll-out of renewable energy resources, they have also clearly generated disequilibrium in the power markets, resulting in significant increases in energy prices to most users, as well as value destruction for all stakeholders: consumers, renewable companies, electric utilities, financial institutions, and investors.

The rapid growth of renewable energy in Germany and other European countries during the 2000’s was due to proactive European and national policies aimed at directly increasing the share of renewable production in their energy mixes through a variety of generous subsidy programs. Two main types of subsidy programs for renewable power developed in Europe include feed-in tariffs (FITs), which very quickly became the policy of choice for Germany and many other European countries, and quota obligation systems.

FITs are incentives to increase production of renewable energy. This type of subsidy guarantees long-term (usually for 20 years) fixed tariffs per unit of renewable power produced. These fixed tariffs normally are independent of market prices and are usually set by the government, but can be structured to be reduced periodically to account for technology cost decreases. The level of the tariffs normally depends on the technology used and the size of the production facility. Because of their generosity, FITs proved capable of quickly increasing the share of renewable power, but since the FITs are set administratively, it is difficult to meet renewable energy goals in the most cost-effective way possible.

The most important lessons learned include:

Policymakers underestimated the cost of renewable subsidies and the strain they would have on national economies. As an example, Germany’s FIT program has cost more than $412 billion to date (including granted and guaranteed, but not yet paid FIT). Former German Minister of the Environment Peter Altmaier recently estimated that the program costs would reach $884 billion (€680 billion) by 2022. He added that this figure could increase further if the market price of electricity fell, or if the rules and subsidy levels were not changed. Moreover, it is estimated that Germany will pay $31.1 billion in subsidies for 2014 alone. A recent analysis found that from 2008 to 2013, Germany incurred $67.6 billion (€52 billion) in net export losses because of its high energy costs, compared to its five leading trade partners. Losses in energy intensive industries accounted for 60 percent of the total losses. This was further highlighted by a recent International Energy Agency report, which stated that the European Union (EU) is expected to lose one-third of its global market share of energy intensive exports over the next two decades due to high energy prices, expensive energy imports of gas and oil, as well as costly domestic subsidies for renewable energy.

Retail prices to many electricity consumers have increased significantly, as subsidies in Germany and the rest of Europe are generally paid by the end users through a costsharing procedure. Household electricity prices in Germany have more than doubled, increasing from €0.14/kilowatt hour (kWh) ($0.18) in 2000 to more than €0.29/kWh ($0.38) in 2013. In Spain, prices also doubled from €0.09/kWh in 2004 to €0.18/kWh in 2013 ($0.12 to $0.23) while Greece’s prices climbed from €0.06/kWh in 2004 to €0.12/kWh in 2013 ($0.08 to $0.16). Comparatively, household electricity prices in the United States average $0.13/kWh, and have remained relatively stable over the last decade.

Fossil and nuclear plants are now facing stresses to their operational systems as these plants are now operating under less stable conditions and are required to cycle more often to help balance renewables’ variability. Investments in retrofits will be required for these plants in order to allow them to run to these new operational requirements. Moreover, renewable resources are dramatically changing thermal plants’ resource planning and margins. As a result, many of these plants are now being retired or are required to receive capacity payments in order to economically be kept online.

Large scale deployment of renewable capacity does not translate into a substantial displacement of thermal capacity. Because of the variability of wind and solar, there are many hours in the year during which most generation comes from thermal power plants, which are required to provide almost complete redundant capacity to ensure the reliability of the system. In turn, grid interventions have increased significantly as operators have to intervene and switch off or start plants that are not programmed to run following marketbased dispatching. For instance, one German transmission operator saw interventions grow from two in 2002 to 1,213 in 2013. It is higher amounts of renewables with low full load hours relative to the total portfolio of power production that creates greater variability and strains on the grid. In the case of Germany, it is the large-scale deployment of both wind and solar that has impacted the entire system.

Large-scale investments in the grid are being required to expand transmission grids so they can connect offshore and onshore wind projects in the north of Germany to consumers in the south of the country. The total investment cost for the build-out of German onshore and offshore transmission systems is estimated to be around $52 billion (€40 billion) over the next 10 years. Moreover, the grids are now being challenged to meet the dynamic flows of variable renewables and require significant additional investment to accommodate increased penetration of renewables. All of these costs will ultimately be passed on to electricity consumers. This has not gone unnoticed in Germany or in the EU. A report was released in late February 2014 by an independent expert commission mandated by the German government, which concluded that Germany’s current program of incenting renewables is an uneconomic and inefficient means to reduce emissions and therefore should be stopped. Moreover, the European Commission released new guidelines on April 9, 2014, with effect starting in 2017 that will correct market distortions. It will essentially ban all FIT subsidies and introduce technology agnostic auctions as the only incentives for renewables.

Large thermal as back-up – grid interventions 

The more variable renewables there are, the more the thermal power plants will serve as back-up and balancing for renewables.

Fig 24

Figure 24 shows the daily production of solar, wind, and conventional generation in Germany. The maximum daily solar and wind-combined production in 2012 was 530 GWh on January 5, 2012, while the minimum was only 30 GWh on December 19, 2012.

Given the average daily power consumption of around 1,643 GWh in Germany, this means that in spite of the 13.2 percent share of wind and solar power in total power generation, there must be almost complete redundant capacity of thermal plants or storage.

Wind and solar energy, by their very nature, are highly variable, with fluctuations in weather conditions causing significant variance over multiple timescales: seconds (gusts of wind and passing cloud cover), minutes (wind speed variations, briefly overcast skies), days (diurnal cycles, creating peaks of solar condition), months/quarters (seasonal cycles), and years (annual variation in environmental conditions).

At yearly and seasonal levels, both wind and solar generation can be forecasted with relative certainty. It is when considering diurnal (daily) generation profiles that variability occurs and requires system operators to intervene and make sure that supply and demand of electricity are equal at all times.

In Germany, as the percentage of renewable power increased, so did the number of times that grid operators had to intervene to rebalance the market. In 2012, there were 1,213 such interventions.

fig 25

For new thermal power plants to replace the currently uneconomical power plants once they reach their technical lifetime, current prices will have to rise. The effect of fewer operational hours needs to be compensated by higher prices in these hours. As a consequence, it is likely that markets will experience lower prices in times when there is sufficient renewable power and much higher prices at other times.

Renewables generate higher direct costs than traditional power production. Traditional base load wholesale power can be generated in Germany at around €65/MWh, but wind power and solar PV in Germany receive a FIT of around €90 /MWh.

Because renewables, like wind and solar, do not produce at certain times, available back-up power to the system is required. The back-up capacity must be financed even if it is used only occasionally as back-up. Therefore the little power that is produced in the back-up plants will become expensive. Data drawn from business models of Finadvice show that a CCGT can produce 3000 GWh per year at fixed costs of €11/MWh, in a power system without renewables. If renewables reduce the production of the CCGT to for example 1500 GWh, the price needed to recover fixed costs will double to €22/MWh. In a nutshell, this could mean that the cost of power in the hours with renewable power is the subsidized €90/MWh instead of conventional €65 MWh, and when there is no renewable power, the (back-up) power price will be €76/MWh (65 + 11).

CONCLUSION: TAKEAWAYS OF THE GERMAN AND EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE WITH RENEWABLES

The United States and other countries have a unique opportunity to assess the lessons learned in Germany and other European-member states and achieve positive results at lower cost and risk for all stakeholders.

The large increase in market share of variable renewable generation (mainly from solar PV and wind) is changing the dynamics and operations of electricity markets, as exemplified in Germany:

  • While in the past, German wholesale prices followed the demand curve, they now react to the weather, going down when the sun shines and the wind blows, and up, during times of high demand, when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow. Accordingly, price forecasts and power trading now require new modeling and different inputs, including a much greater focus on weather forecasting.
  • Power trading has become more short-term (intra-day, quarter hour, regulation, capacity) than in a conventional generation environment.
  • Regulatory policies were not designed to incentivize flexible renewable power to be available where and when needed. Therefore, further regulatory interventions will be required to create a balanced system that will ultimately impact investments for both renewable companies and utilities over time as various energy markets transition to an increased portfolio of renewables.
  • The power grid has to be upgraded to accept dynamic power input from many decentralized and distant variable sources.
  • In the absence of energy storage, current electric systems cannot easily cope with the surplus of renewable energy, and curtailment will be required at times in order to maintain reliability.
  • Intermittent renewables, like solar and wind, tend to cannibalize their own market by reducing prices when they are available. With current cost structures, if wind and solar are to produce a significant share of the power generation, they will likely require support through energy storage or additional subsidies to be profitable.

In conclusion, the lessons learned in Europe prove that the large-scale integration of renewable power does not provide net savings to consumers, but rather a net increase in costs to consumers and other stakeholders. Moreover, when not properly assessed in advance, large-scale integration of renewables into the power system ultimately leads to disequilibrium in the power markets, as well as value destruction to both renewable companies and utilities, and their respective investors.

Finadvice FAA Financial Advisory AG
July 2014

The takeaway from all that is that if Australia wants energy market chaos; energy poverty; and to kill what’s left of its manufacturing sector it need only keep following Germany’s lead.

The mandatory RET must go now.

abbottcover

Wind Turbine Syndrome Showing Up in Vermont Doctor’s patients!

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Medical doctor sees Wind Turbine Syndrome in his patients (Vermont)

 

stethoscope

“Wind Turbine Noise & Adverse Health Effects”

Testimony before the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) 7/29/14

….— by Sandy Reider, MD

My name is Sandy Reider, I am a primary care physician in Lyndonville, and I have been practicing clinical medicine in Vermont since I received my license in 1971.  [Dr. Reider is a graduate of the Harvard University School of Medicine — Editor.]

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not being paid for involvement in this issue, nor did I seek this out; rather, it found me by way of a patient I had known well for several years, and who, in late 2011, suddenly developed severe insomnia, anxiety, headaches, ringing ears, difficulty concentrating, and frequent nausea, seemingly out of the blue. This puzzled us both for a few months before we finally came to understand that he suffered from what was, then, a relatively new clinical entity known as “wind turbine syndrome”, related in his particular case to the comparatively small NPS 100 KW turbine that began generating power atop Burke Mountain in the fall of 2011.

In the course of the 2012 legislative session, I described this patient in detail in testimony for the Senate Natural Resources and Health Care Committees, as well as the Governor’s Siting Commission. Since his symptoms were so typical and similar to those described by thousands of other individuals living too close to large wind turbines all over the globe, I have attached my testimony for the Senate Health Care Committee and encourage you to review it for its very characteristic description of what it is that this board, I trust, hopes to mitigate by recommending more protective sound standards for these industrial wind installations.

I should add that I have seen 4 additional patients living close to the large Sheffield and Lowell projects, as well as an individual living near another single NPS 100KW turbine in Vergennes. All presented with similar, though not identical, symptoms to those described in my testimony.

That there have already been so many complaints here in Vermont related to wind turbines suggests that the current noise standards may be inadequate. Either the utilities have been regularly out of compliance with the current existing standards (Shirley Nelson’s detailed daily records suggest this has indeed occurred with some regularity) and/or that the scientific data and studies upon which the current noise standards are based is incomplete, or possibly just plain wrong.

Over the past 2 years I have reviewed much of the relevant scientific literature, and out of my 42 years of experience and perspective as a clinician, respectfully offer the following observations and comments.

Firstly, I do not doubt at all that these large turbines can and do cause serious health problems in a significant number of persons living nearby, even though the vibrational-acoustic mechanisms behind this harm are not yet completely understood (1,5). Repetitive sleep disruption is the most often cited adverse effect, and disturbed sleep and its resulting stress over time is known to cause or exacerbate cardiovascular illnesses (2, ), chronic anxiety and depression, as well as worsening of other pre-existing medical problems. This is especially concerning for the most vulnerable among us — children, the elderly, those who are naturally sensitive to sound,  or prone to motion sickness or migraine headaches, and, as mentioned, those who are  unwell to start with.

The position adopted by developers of large industrial wind projects, and thus far supported by regulatory and health agencies, has been that there is no evidence of a direct effect on health from wind turbines; rather, that the claimed adverse health effects are indirect, due mainly to the individual’s negative attitude about the wind turbines (so-called “nocebo” effect), and therefore it is their fault, it’s all in their heads, and so on. Not only is this incorrect, it is disingenuous. There is simply no clinical justification for ignoring harm being done to individuals and communities, whether direct or indirect, on these grounds — simply put, harm is harm, whatever the mechanism.

However, good evidence for direct adverse effects has existed since the mid-80’s when Neil Kelley headed a group of researchers, under the auspices of the US Department of Energy and NASA, and found conclusive evidence that adverse effects, very similar to those that describe “wind turbine syndrome”, were due primarily to very low frequency sound and inaudible infrasound (6). This role of infrasound was subsequently confirmed by Kelley’s team under controlled laboratory conditions, and resulted in a complete redesign of turbines from the downwind trestle-mounted turbines to today’s upwind turbine on a single massive tower.  Furthermore, he recommended protective maximum levels of this low frequency sound.

The joint radiation levels (expressed in terms of acoustic intensity and measured external to a structure) in the 8, 16, 31.5 and 63 Hz standard (ISO) octaves should not exceed band intensity threshold limits of 60, 50, 40 and 40 dB (re 1 pWm –2) more than 20% of the time. These figures compare favorably with a summary of low-frequency annoyance situations by Hubbard.

(It is worth noting that very often infrasound levels are higher inside a building than outside, the structure acting as a resonating chamber and amplifying the lower “vibration” frequencies. Thus measurements for low frequency sound should be made inside the structure as well as outside. Also, low frequency sound levels are not only building design and geometry specific, but also site specific, especially in a place like Vermont where the topography and climactic conditions are so variable. There may be unacceptable indoor infrasound levels in one home, while another home over the hill may have undetectable or very low levels.)

The wind industry’s assertion that the Kelley study is irrelevant and that infrasound levels are negligible with the current, newer turbine design and may be ignored is unfounded, and more recent evidence confirms this.  (See the 2012 Falmouth study by Ambrose and Rand; Bob Thorne’s excellent quality of life study in 2011 [12]; Steven Cooper’s preliminary results in Australia, final results due in September 2014 [11]; and others.)

The aforementioned studies were performed by independent professional acousticians not connected to the wind industry.  Incidentally, the severely affected patient described in my 2012 testimony never did perceive any audible noise from the turbine (and this is quite typical, the sound is more felt than heard), nor did he harbor any feelings pro or con about the installation when his problems began, though after he understood the source of his ill-health, I have no doubt that the “nocebo” effect may have added to his stress, adding insult to injury.  He has since abandoned that home, and is once again sleeping soundly and feeling well.

The current sound standards, based as they are on dBA weighted acoustic measurements, gives particular weight to audible frequencies in the soundscape, but very little or no weight to low sound frequencies and infrasound, particularly below 10 Hz, which comprises a significant proportion of the sound generated by large turbines. People do not hear dBA, they hear qualitatively different sounds, birds, insects, running water, wind in the trees, etc.  Basing noise criteria solely on this single number ignores the unique nature of the sound produced by large wind turbines, with its constantly  changing loudness, frequency, harmonics, pitch, and impulsive quality.

It is precisely these qualities that make the sound feel so intrusive and annoying, especially in quiet rural environments where these projects are usually located (12).  Parenthetically, the word “annoying” is somewhat misleading, as it implies a minor, temporary, or occasional nuisance that perhaps might be mostly ignored, rather than what it is: a  repetitive stressor that can degrade one’s short and long term health and well being, and from which there is no escape over the lifetime of the project short of having to abandon one’s home.

It is worth repeating here that the current Public Service Board threshold  of 45 dBA of audible sound, averaged over an hour, has never been proven safe or protective, and that most studies agree that  audible sound should not exceed 35 dBA, or 5dBA above normal background sound levels. (This is especially important in rural areas where background noise is minimal.)  The level should be a maximum, not an hourly average. Above 35 dBA there are likely to be significantly more complaints, particularly difficulty sleeping.

chart

Before concluding, I would like to emphasize that the bulk of scientific evidence for adverse health effects due to industrial wind installations comes in the form of thousands of case reports like the patient I described. One or two sporadic anecdotal cases can legitimately be viewed with a wait-and-see skepticism, but not thousands where the symptoms are so similar, along with the ease of observing exposure and measuring outcomes, wherever these projects have been built. I agree with Epidemiologist Carl Phillips, who opined that “these case reports taken together offer the most compelling scientific evidence of serious harm.  Just because the prevailing models have failed to explain observed adverse health effects does not mean they do not exist”, and, as he succinctly, though in my opinion a bit too harshly, concluded: “The attempts to deny the evidence cannot be seen as honest scientific disagreement and represent either gross incompetence or intentional bias” (13).

I am aware that the members of the PSB bear a heavy responsibility for Vermont’s overall energy future and have many other issues on their plate besides this one. Rather than presenting you with a long list of literature references, most of which would likely go unread (but they are included just in case ), I recommend a careful review of just one study in particular:  Bob Thorne, a professional acoustician in Australia, presented an excellent and well thought-out clinical study to the Australian Senate in 2011 (12). It really does cover the waterfront, including WHO quality of life measures, audible and infrasound measurements, and health measures, in a balanced and scientific way. For your convenience there is a hard copy of this study included with my presentation today.

His comprehensive (including the full sound spectrum, not only dBA weighted sound) and protective recommendations for sound criteria are reasonable, and if adopted, would be likely more acceptable to neighboring households and communities. However, given that wind developers are these days building bigger turbines atop taller towers in order to maximize power generation and profits, adoption of these safer limits would necessitate siting the installations farther from dwellings.  A 1-2 km setback is not nearly sufficient; significant low frequency sound pressure measurements have been recorded in homes 3-6 miles from large projects in Australia.

The outcomes of the study are concerned with the potential for adverse health effects due to wind farm modified audible and low frequency sound and infrasound. The study confirms that the logging of sound levels without a detailed knowledge of what the sound levels relate to renders the data uncertain in nature and content. Observation is needed to confirm the character of the sound being recorded. Sound recordings are needed to confirm the character of the sound being recorded.

The measures of wind turbine noise exposure that the study has identified as being acoustical markers for excessive noise and known risk of serious harm to health (significant adverse health effects):

(1) Criterion: An LAeq or ‘F’ sound level of 32 dB(A) or above over any 10 minute interval, outside;
(2) Criterion: An LAeq or ‘F’ sound level of 22 dB(A) or above over any 10 minute interval inside a dwelling with windows open or closed.
(3) Criterion: Measured sound levels shall not exhibit unreasonable or excessive modulation (‘fluctuation’).
(4) Criterion: An audible sound level is modulating when measured by the A-weighted LAeq or ‘F’ time-weighting at 8 to 10 discrete samples/second and (a) the amplitude of peak to trough variation or (b) if the third octave or narrow band characteristics exhibit a peak to trough variation that exceeds the following criteria on a regularly varying basis: 2dB exceedance is negligible, 4dB exceedance is unreasonable and 6dB exceedance is excessive.
(5) Criterion: A low frequency sound and infrasound is modulating when measured by the Z- weighted LZeq or ‘F’ time-weighting at 8 to 10 discrete samples/second and (a) the amplitude of peak to trough variation or (b) if the third octave or narrow band characteristics exhibit a peak to trough variation that exceeds the following criteria on a regularly varying basis: 2dB exceedance is negligible, 4dB exceedance is unreasonable and 6dB exceedance is excessive.
(6) Definitions: ‘LAeq’ means the A-weighted equivalent-continuous sound pressure level [18]; ‘F’ time-weighting has the meaning under IEC 61672-1 and [18]; “regularly varying” is where the sound exceeds the criterion for 10% or more of the measurement time interval [18] of 10 minutes; and Z-weighting has the meaning under AS IEC 61672.1 with a lower limit of 0.5Hz.
(7) Approval authorities and regulators should set wind farm noise compliance levels at least 5 dB(A) below the sound levels in criterion (1) and criterion (2) above. The compliance levels then become the criteria for unreasonable noise.

Measures (1-6) above are appropriate for a ‘noise’ assessment by visual display and level comparison. Investigation of health effects and the complex nature of wind turbine noise require the more detailed perceptual measures of sound character such as audibility, loudness, fluctuation strength, and dissonance.

To exclude careful independent well-designed case studies like Thorne’s ( and others ) in a review of the scientific literature that purports to be thorough is, I repeat, a serious omission and is not “scientific”. Careful consideration of these independent well done studies, if nothing else, should encourage regulatory agencies to adopt a much more precautionary approach to the siting of today’s very big industrial wind projects in order to adequately protect public health.

For better or worse, in today’s “information age” we are perhaps too fascinated by computers and mountains of data, but truth is truth, wherever you find it, even in small places.

Contact:

….Sandy Reider, MD
….PO Box 10
….East Burke, VT 05832
….(802) 626-6007
….sandyreider@yahoo.com

*Many thanks to Dr. Sarah Laurie, CEO of the Waubra Foundation, for her tireless work, and generosity in sharing so much information.

1.  Pierpont, N 2009  from the executive summary of her peer-reviewed study,http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/wind-turbine-syndrome-executive-summary/

2.  Capuccio et al 2011 “Sleep Duration predicts cardiovascular outcomes: a systemic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies” European Heart Journal, (2011) 32, 1484–1492 http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/sleep-duration-predicts-cardiovascular-outcomes/

3.  Nissenbaum, M Hanning, C and Aramini J 2012  “Effects of industrial wind turbines on sleep and health”  Noise and Health, October 2012

4.  Shepherd, D et al 2011 “Evaluating the impact of wind turbine noise on health related quality of life” Noise and Health, October 2011 http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/evaluating-impact-wind-turbine-noise-health-related-quality-life/

5.  Arra, M & Lynn H  2013  Powerpoint presentation to the Grey Bruce Health Unit, Ontario, “Association between Wind Turbine Noise and Human Distress”http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/association-between-wind-turbine-noise-and-human-distress/

6.  “Acoustic noise associated with Mod 1 Turbine, its impact and control”http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/kelley-et-al-1985-acoustic-noise-associated-with-mod-1-wind-turbine/

7.  James, R 2012  “Wind Turbine Infra and Low Frequency Sound: Warning Signs That Went Unheard” Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 32(2) 108 – 127, accessed via Professor Colin Hansen’s submission to the Australian Federal Senate Inquiry Excessive Noise from Windfarms Bill (Renewable Energy Act) November 2012 http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/testimony-hansenc-excessive-noise-bill-inquiry-submission/.  James references another useful bibliography of references of the early NASA research, compiled by Hubbard & Shepherd 1988 “Wind Turbine Acoustic Research:  Bibliography with selected Annotation”http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/hubbard-h-shepherd-k-nasa-wind-turbine-acoustics-research/

8.  Hubbard, H 1982  “Noise induced house vibrations and Human Perception”http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/hubbard-h-1982-noise-induced house vibrations-human-perception/

9.  Ambrose, Stephen and Rand, Robert  2011 “Bruce McPherson Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise Study” http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/bruce-mcpherson-infrasound-low-frequency-noise-study/

10.  http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/schomer-et-al-wind-turbine-noise-conference-denver-august-2013/

11.  http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2014/pacific-hydro-commended-initiating-wind-turbine-noise-acoustic-survey/

12.  http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/wind-farm-generated-noise-and-adverse-health-effects/

13.  “Properly interpreting the Epidemiological evidence about the health effects of Industrial Wind turbines on nearby residents” Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society vol 31 No 4 (August 2011) pp 303–315 http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/properly-interpreting-epidemiologic-evidence-about-health-effects/

See:  Bob Thorne, “The Problems with ‘Noise Numbers’ for Wind Farm Noise Assessment,” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 2011 31: 262.  DOI: 10.1177/0270467611412557, http://bst.sagepub.com/content/31/4/26
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Hoosac Wind Turbines, Consistently Out of Compliance, & Using Unscrupulous Testing Methods

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Hoosac Wind Fails Noise Test

Ribbon cutting ceremony December 201UPDATE 7-31-14:

WAMC Radio reporter Jim Levulis describes the reaction of the MassDEP to Iberdrola’s mitigation plans for the Hoosac project  “Report Finds Hoosac Turbines Out of Compliance.”

Impacted resident Michael Fairneny is not impressed with the plans:

“Forget this mitigation,” Fairneny said. “I would want curtailment…these things shut down. If they’re found to out of compliance then I want something real done about it. I don’t see them ever being in compliance. I mean they are quiet a few days here and there. But the majority of the days when they’re not tested, if I’m not getting pounded the people on Tilda Hill are getting pounded.”

Hoosac Wind is loud. It’s too loud to comply with  Massachusetts noise limits. That’s why an April 28, 2014 letter to the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection offers remedies for the loud sounds. Iberdrola lists the exceedences measured in tests performed in January and February 2014 at monitoring stations at Tilda Hill Road and Moores Road:

• January 9, 2014 measurements were 42.4 dBA average Lmax at Tilda Hill South and 37.5 dBA average Lmax at Moores Road North. Ambient at those locations was 32.2 DBA and 26.7 dBA, respectively.
• February 20, 2014 measurements were 44.8 dBA average Lmax at Tilda Hill South and 44.4 dBA average Lmax at Moores Road North. Ambient at those locations was 27.8 DBA and 27.5 dBA, respectively. These unusual sound levels are attributed to a blade icing condition.

Too bad the company has not informed residents in Florida and Monroe, as it says in its letter it will do:

In addition to these technical modifications, New England Wind [Iberdrola Renewables] will be contacting neighboring residents inviting them to an information session. In that session New England Wind will listen to the concerns of landowners, discuss the sound test results, and detail our technical modifications. In addition, New England Wind will be offering scheduled tours of the site.

This report confirms what several acousticians noted after reviewing the original noise testing results from April 2013. Rob Rand  analysed the initial acoustic report, and Stephen Ambrose illustrated the issues in “Back to the Future II” for a Townsend, Vermont presentation in November 2013.

The large increase in noise above what is a quiet rural background turns this sparsely populated rural area into an industrial zone. But because wind turbines are not regulated like normal industries, the noise continues through the night.

Among numerous issues raised about the initial testing in 2013 were:

  • The turbines were run at a reduced power, which means that the turbines were producing less electricity and emitting lower noise. Iberdrola hired the acoustician (RSG of Vermont) to do the test and therefore was completely aware of the date and time of the testing.  This was true in the April 2013 testing and again in the latest January and February 2014 testing.  Even though the turbines were run at reduced power they still exceeded the Massachusetts noise pollution regulations.
  • Much of the original April 2013 testing was unattended when the MassDEP guidance says the testing should be “attended,” which means the noise is monitored by a person with a sound meter.
  • The test microphones were inappropriately placed near trees, raising the background level.

Independent acousticians also found raw data tables in the April 2013 test report that indicated noise violations, but the company rejected the data on those sampling occasions because they were assumed to be anomalies.

Before the project was ever built, the original modeled noise assessment indicated to acousticians that there would be “widespread complaints” and “strong appeals to stop the noise.” This modeling was performed on a computer in California, without any background noise measurements done in Florida or Monroe MA.

People whose lives have been impacted by the Hoosac project should have a chance to be heard. They will have ideas for mitigation that allow them to have a good night’s sleep.

Wind Action Meeting in Harriston, Aug. 16th. Hope to see you all there!

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Saturday, August 16th, 2014, Meeting for Wind Warriors at the Royal Canadian Legion in Harriston:

 If you haven’t let me know that you are coming already, please let me know before meeting day so we can accommodate everyone comfortably.

 

Royal Canadian Legion in Harriston, 53 Elora St.  Phone is 519-338-2843.  Legion is almost next to the Ford dealership on the main Street of Harriston. There is parking behind the Legion and usually the front door is open but you can always get in through the back doors.

 

People are generally able to stay to talk to those newer to the issue who want more info, after the meeting.  In fact we often seem to have an informal meeting afterwards at the local restaurant while we have lunch and would love to see you join in!

 Please send any other agenda item you want to see up for discussion.

Agenda to date:

 

The only rule we have and hold to is that we DO NOT rehash frustrations with wind company or govt.  We do not rehash common knowledge re wind company and govt as per what might be discussed at a public info session. Meetings are held to discuss next steps and concrete plans for action. 

 

–  Ontario Regional Wind Turbine Working Group becoming Ontario Wind Action: 

There is keen interest in changing this meeting group currently known as Ontario Regional Wind Turbine Working Group into Ontario Wind Action, with development of a website to go along with the change in name and specific contact names for media use.  Regional group has always been about concrete action and next steps in the battle against industrial wind turbines.  This development has the potential to help build strength, inclusiveness and focus to the fight.  Bring your ideas for this one.  (FYI, below please see minutes of very first Regional/Actiongroup meeting from Dec. of 2010.  So many people have been hard at work ever since!)

 

– Paul Kuster will speak to the initiative he is using to sell seeding trees to plant as an alternative to ‘planting’ giant turbines in communities. A handout on turbines goes with the seedlings.  It’s a wonderful opportunity for your group to both educate and fundraise! 

 

–  Municipal elections are coming up quickly.  It’s important to discuss some strategies now, before election time is upon us. 

 

–  SWEAR will update on Julian Falconer legal work and upcoming Divisional court dates

 

–  Sherri Lange will present the possibility of launching succession demands and working to qualify for special powers under the Charter of Rights.  Possibilities include giving urban centers a wake-up call on why there is the major divide between urban and rural Ontario.

 

– Jaki of West Grey’s  http://howgreenisthis.org.  will give a brief lesson on using social media, ie ‘twitter’, facebook, etc. to further spread the message of STOP the Wind Turbines.

 

Please send any other agenda items you want to see up for discussion asap.  We will  leave some time for discussion on ‘Orange Zone’, MPAC and any items we would prefer not out in print in an email.  Merci!

____________________________________________________________________ 

For your interest, below please see minutes of the very first Regional meeting held in Maxwell in December of 2010. These were the days of wind industry open houses every week, townhall info sessions almost every week, a barrage of letters to the editor, protests, struggling to find a legal stand; anything and everything….

 

While moving the meeting place to Damascus and then to Harriston, Regional meetings continued to occur approximately 4 times a year, every year since then and continue to date. 

 

Renewable energy scam! Far Too Much Pain…..Far Too Little Gain!

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Renewable energy is not working

Published on Thursday, July 31, 2014, updated Thursday, July 31, 2014

Too much cost, not enough output or too little emissions reduction

My Times Column explores why renewable energy has been so disappointing.

On Saturday my train was diverted by engineering works near Doncaster. We trundled past some shiny new freight wagons decorated with a slogan: “Drax — powering tomorrow: carrying sustainable biomass for cost-effective renewable power”. Serendipitously, I was at that moment reading a reportby the chief scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change on the burning of wood in Yorkshire power stations such as Drax. And I was feeling vindicated.

A year ago I wrote in these pages that it made no sense for the consumer to subsidise the burning of American wood in place of coal, since wood produces more carbon dioxide for each kilowatt-hour of electricity. The forests being harvested would take four to ten decades to regrow, and this is the precise period over which we are supposed to expect dangerous global warming to emerge. It makes no sense to steal beetles’ lunch, transport it halfway round the world, burning diesel as you do so, and charge hard-pressed consumers double the price for the power it generates.

There was a howl of protest on the letters page from the chief executive of Drax power station, which burns a million tonnes of imported North American wood a year and plans to increase that to 7 million tonnes by 2016. But last week, Dr David MacKay’s report vindicated me. If the wood comes from whole trees, as much of it does, then the effect could be to increase carbon dioxide emissions, he finds, even compared with coal. And that’s allowing for the regrowth of forests.

Despite the best efforts of the Conservatives to rein in their Lib Dem colleagues, the renewable-energy bandwagon careers onward, costing ever more money and doing real environmental harm, while producing trivial quantities of energy and risking blackouts next winter. People keep telling me it’s no good being rude about all renewables: some must be better than others. Well, I’m still looking:

Tidal power remains a (literal) non-starter; if you ask ministers why nothing has been built, they say it’s not for want of proffering ludicrously generous subsidies on our behalf. Yet still no takers.

Wave power: again, the sky’s the limit for what the government will pay if you can figure out how to make dynamos and generators survive the buffeting of waves, corrosion of salt and encrustation of barnacles. Nothing doing.

Geothermal: perhaps great potential in the future for heating homes through district heating schemes, though expensive here compared with Iceland, but not much use for electricity. Air-source and ground-source heat pumps, all the rage a few years ago, have generally proved more costly and less effective than advertised, but they are getting better. Trivial contribution so far.

Solar power: one day soon it will make a big impact in sunny countries, and the price is falling fast, but generating for the grid in cloudy Britain where most power is needed on dark winter evenings will probably never make economic sense. Covering fields in Devon with solar panels today is just ecological and economic vandalism. Solar provides about a third of one per cent of world energy.

Offshore wind: Britain is the world leader, meaning we are the only ones foolish enough to pay the huge subsidies (treble the going rate for electricity) to lure foreign companies into tackling the challenge of erecting and maintaining 700ft metal towers in stormy seas. The good news is that the budget for subsidising offshore wind has almost run out. The bad news is that it is already costing us billions a year and ruining coastal views.

Onshore wind: one of the cheapest renewables but still twice as costly as gas or coal, it kills eagles and bats, harms tourism, divides communities and takes up lots of space. The money goes from the poor to the rich, and the carbon dioxide saving is tiny, because of the low density of wind and the need to back it up with diesel generators. These too now need subsidy because they cannot run at full capacity.

Hydro: cheap, reliable and predictable, providing 6 per cent of world energy, but with no possibility for significant expansion in Britain. The current vogue for in-stream generation in lowland streams in England will produce ridiculously little power while messing up the migration of fish.

Anaerobic digestion: a lucrative way of subsidising farmers (yet again) to grow perfectly good food for burning instead of eating. Contrary to myth, nearly all the energy comes from crops such as maize (once fermented into gas), not from food waste. Expensive.

Waste incineration: a great idea. Yet we are currently paying other countries to take it off our hands and burn it overseas. If instead we burned it at home, we would make cheap, reliable electricity. But Nimbys won’t let us.

Over the past ten years the world has invested more than $600 billion in wind power and $700 billion in solar power. Yet the total contribution those two technologies are now making to the world primary energy supply is still less than 2 per cent. Ouch.

If we had spent that sum on research, and steadily replaced coal with gas as a source of electricity, we would have done far more to cut carbon emissions and kept prices low. A new report by Charles Frank of the Brookings Institution has come to the startling conclusion that if you encourage gas to replace coal, you get fewer emissions per dollar spent than if you use wind or solar.

In Mr Frank’s words: “Solar and wind facilities suffer from a very high capacity cost per megawatt, very low capacity factors and low reliability, which result in low avoided emissions and low avoided energy cost per dollar invested.” In short, we are picking losers.

I would not suggest Drax goes back to burning only coal, partly because I have a vested interest in the coal industry and partly because more than 40 per cent of the coal we burn in this country comes from Russia, so we are more exposed to Vladimir Putin for our coal than for our gas. The answer is staring us in the face. Gas is the cheapest clean way of making electricity, and we are sitting on one of the world’s richest shale-gas fields. Yet investment in gas-fired power is deterred by the government’s preference for renewables.

Lefties Trying To Pretend That “Agenda 21” is a “Good Thing”! Maybe for them…..

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Panic in “Sustainable City”

July 30th, 2014 by Tom DeWeese

The attacks came fast and furious, from March through June. A coordinated attack to vilify, ostracize and neutralize efforts by local citizen activists who are standing in opposition to Agenda 21 and its policy called Sustainable Development. The terms “conspiracy theory,” “extremists,” “fear mongers,” and “far right,” are all over these obvious attempts to smear any opposition to the agenda of the Sustainablist planners that now swarm over nearly every community in America.

It started with the American Planning Association (APA) delivering yet another report in a continuing effort to understand the fierce opposition to its “innocent,” “locally- driven” programs. Apparently it is a mystery to the APA why there would be  opposition to its plans to reorganize entire communities which sometimes result in turning people’s lives upside down.  The APA has done a series of studies over the past few years in an attempt to find a way to silence or counter our opposition to planning. The latest report, issued in March, 2014, entitled “The Actions of Discontent,” was perhaps the most honest of the reports the APA has issued, when it said the opposition to planning is “marked by deep philosophical differences between activists and planning proponents…”. That’s certainly better than saying we’re just nuts, unlike most of the usual attacks against us.

Case in point, the next attack came in April from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), yet again. This makes at least four SPLC reports I’m aware of, to specifically focus on me as the ring leader of the opposition. This report, entitled “Agenda 21, The UN, Sustainability and Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory,” says “it’s time to call out the conspiracy theorists.” It demands that “politicians who spread falsehoods about Agenda 21 and its effects need to be shamed by other politicians, by editorial boards and other commentators and by the citizenry at large.” Those are pretty strong words. Apparently they are getting desperate to stop us.

That report was followed by another from the Natural Resources Defense Council entitled “Agenda 21 Conspiracy Theorists Threaten Cities’ Sustainability Efforts.” Next came another rant from “Treehugger.com,” calling me the “Conspiracy King.” Then came articles in two national news magazines, each relying on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s attack. Newsweek started it with a cover article entitled “The Plots to Destroy America.” Then came Fortune magazine and its smear of activist Rosa Koire, head of Democrats Against Agenda 21. Rosa told me that it started out as an interview, then, just to “even the playing field,” reporter David Morris decided to bring in ICLEI and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yep. Two against one. That’s a little fairer odds than we usually get.

What we are witnessing is the panic of a collapsing tyranny which they thought was well in hand.  And for a couple of decades it was all going the Sustainablist’s way, until some of us started to expose their hidden truths. Watch and learn America. This is how tyrants react to anyone who dares to challenge them.  As is always the case, their tactic is a scorched earth policy to lash out in every direction with vicious force in hopes that something will stick.

In its complete exasperation, the SPLC demands that the business community, the Chamber of Commerce, local governments and the news media “needs to stop reporting on Agenda 21 as if it were a bona fide controversy and plainly state the facts about the plan.” Further, the SPLC demands that communities “need to be encouraged to return to or start to develop such plans in tandem with responsible groups like the American Planning Association.” In other words, just as in the climate change debate, the SPLC demands that there be no debate, no discussion – just shut up and do it!

Meanwhile the tyranny of sustainable policy builds in town and after town, neighborhood after neighborhood.

In the Western states, the EPA is on a tear to control water, making it impossible to run the ranches. The Interior Department is forcing reintroductions of wolves and Grizzlies at the peril of livestock, family pets, children and natural herds of elk and deer.

In Orem, Utah, Betty Perry was arrested, handcuffed, and put in a holding tank because the grass in her front yard was dying. Violation, said the zoning enforcement officer. More recently, as the drought rages in California, a couple has been threatened with fines of $500 because their grass in their yard was dead. The reason it was dead is because they were obeying a California state government mandate that told them to preserve water or face a $500 fine. Tyrants always want it both ways.

Julie Bass, in Oak Park, Michigan, wanted to plant an organic garden in her yard. She even asked the mayor and city council if it was OK to plant and they both answered yes. But as she went to work on it, she too was arrested by the local zoning enforcement officer and faced 90 days in jail.

In Naperville, IL, two women were arrested for trying to prevent the local power company from installing smart meters that they clearly stated they did not want. The police came to the aid of the installers, cut a lock off their fences and trespassed on their property as the women tried to prevent it.

In Montgomery County, Ohio, Jennie Granato’s home was rendered basically  worthless as the regional government enforced the installation of a bike highway across her front yard, bringing the lane within seven feet of her front door. To date she has not been compensated a red cent for the land they took as the regional government plays games with the legal system to deny Jennie her day in court.

Across the nation, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is swarming over producers of unprocessed milk, confiscating products and shutting down plants, arresting producers and buyers alike, even though there have been no reports of sickness or deaths. Not even a complaint. And the assault on small farms continued in Michigan where entire herds of a certain breed of pigs were destroyed, accused of being feral, even though farmers had raised them for decades.

In Fauquier County, VA, the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) has colluded with local county government to harass organic farmer Martha Boneta for hosting a children’s birthday party in her little farm store. The store was forced to close as she was threatened with fines of $5000 per day.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced last summer a decree to make American neighborhoods more “diverse.” It’s called “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing,” calling for the federal government to gather and track data on “segregation” and “discrimination across America before deploying a wide range of social-engineering schemes to ensure more “diversity” in U.S. neighborhoods. It’s right out of the UN’s social justice plank.  Bottom line, if your neighborhood lacks the government mandated diversity breakdown, you won’t be able to sell your home to anyone but the racial quota they demand.

And on the international level, smug, arrogant, well-funded, white Sustainablists have determined that it’s a proper use of government power to ensure black residence of Africa continue to live in mud huts without electricity, clean water or an infrastructure to provide jobs. As Paul Driessen (author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power – Black Death) reports, some 2.5 billion people still do not have electricity or get it only sporadically, and so must burn wood and dung for heating and cooking, which leads to wide-spread lung disease. No electricity means no refrigeration, safe water or decent hospitals. All of this is just fine with the perpetrators of Agenda 21 because such a life style, in their opinion, is sustainable! In reality it’s environmental racism.  And that is the real outcome of “social justice.”

All of these are examples of massive government overreach using the excuse of protecting the environment or controlling development or containing sprawl, or, in short, Sustainable Development. These, and many more outrageous government attacks on our once-free society, are the reasons why Americans are starting to show up at public meetings to demand that their elected officials protect them and their property from such out of control government sprawl. There is no justice, no reason, no compassion under sustainable policy dictates — just the rush to raw power for power’s sake.  Americans are feeling that reality first hand.

As a result, people are starting to listen to my warnings because they can clearly see the results. When they do feel that impact, and when they do ask questions, they are treated to stonewalling, lies and contempt by arrogant officials. So a growing number of Americans have stopped accepting their scare tactics and dire warnings of Environmental Armageddon. I’ve said for years that Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is built on a house of cards – on lies. And when such a foundation is finally challenged – it blows down rapidly. That is what is starting to happen across America. And that’s why the powerful Sustainablists are in such a panic over my efforts to expose these outrages.

Over the past three years pro-freedom activists have managed to convince more than 150 cities to end their memberships with ICLEI, one of the leading NGOs whose declared mission is to entrench sustainable policy into every community in the world.  A close associate of mine reported that the head of ICLEI USA told him they are scared because ICLEI can’t get new American cities to join them – because we made the very name “ICLEI” political poison. ICLEI is panicked.

More and more state legislatures are seriously considering anti-Agenda 21/pro-property rights legislation. Of course, Alabama has already passed such legislation, while  Oklahoma and Tennessee have passed similar attempts in at least one house of their legislatures. The Virginia legislature, after a two year battle waged by property rights activists, passed the Boneta bill to stop local harassment and over reach by local governments over small farmers. The legislation was a direct response by property owners to the enforcement of sustainable policy overreach. And it was a major defeat to the NGO’s pushing it. And it has them panicked!

Almost every day, now, I receive calls and emails from newly elected city councilmen and county commissioners from around the nation asking me what they can do to stop Agenda 21 policy in their community. I am starting to teach them new tactics to block new programs and ways to eliminate existing ones. We are especially focusing on strong language to define and defend private property rights. The fact is, Agenda 21 cannot be enforced without damaging property rights. Stand strong on that one issue and it can be stopped.

Regional governments and planning commissions are a major piece to the sustainable plans to change our government and impilment sustainable policies. With enough of these non-elected councils, sustainable policy can be enforced almost unopposed. The UN Commission on Global Governance defined the reason for the drive toward regionalism; “Regionalism must proceed globalism. We foresee a seamless system of governance from local communities, individual states, regional unions and up through to the United Nations itself.”

Forewarned is forearmed. So property rights activists are focusing on stopping the imposition of non-elected regional government councils that are now springing up across the nation. In just the state of Ohio, several local county and city governments have refused to join regional planning groups. Geauga County commissioners passed a resolution rejecting the Agenda 21 planning objectives put forth by the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC). A month later the community of Lordstown, Ohio passed a similar resolution. The commissioners in Ohio’s Pickaway County refused to join the Central Ohio Regional Planning Commission. And of course, the outrageous destruction of Jennie Granato’s property for the sake of a bike lane exposed the near untouchable control yielded by the Miami Regional Planning Commission in Montgomery County, Ohio. The local property rights activists now understand the power they face.

Another reason for the Sustainablists to panic was the just-completed Climate Change conference sponsored by the Heartland Institute. This was a gathering of the so-called “skeptics,” the scientists and engineers who actually practice sound science in the pursuit of truth. They all have one thing in common from their research. They can’t find proof of the dire predictions of man-made Global Warming. These men and women of science have suffered greatly for their insistence on truth, no matter the cost. As a result, for years they have been black balled from science journals, denied funding for projects, and ridiculed for their opposition to the Climate Change hysteria. But they have persevered and they are beginning to turn the debate and the conference was full of a positive feeling of accomplishment. And right behind that conference, Australia became the first developed nation to repeal its Cap and Trade program, dumping the center piece of global sustainable policy.  And the Sustainablists are panicked!

And finally, there is this bit of news to turn any “Green” to a gray depression. Carroll County Commissioner Richard Rothschild (the man who led his governing body to be the first in the nation to send ICLEI packing) won his primary reelection bid with 58% of the vote.  Commissioner Rothschild was targeted in the Republican primary by a Democrat-turned-Republican just for the occasion. The labor unions threw all of their massive resources of manpower and money into the effort to make him an example of what will happen to officials who dare oppose them. Richard defied them, speaking clearly and precisely on the dangers of sustainable development and all the policies that go with it. He didn’t try to hide his conservative views. In fact, he put the word “conservative” along with the word “leadership,” on his yard signs. He told the truth. And he won. The battle isn’t over. He still has to win the November election. But he has proven that standing up and openly fighting sustainable development is a winning issue. And the Sustainablists are panicked!!!

To all the individuals and local activist groups who feel overwhelmed and hopeless in your fights – take heart. The Sustainablists are armed with billions of your tax dollars. They are powerful in the back rooms of your government. They have an open mike to any news outlet and they have had nearly a thirty year head start. But it is THEY who are now in a panic as their well-laid plans are starting to crumble under the weight of their own lies and arrogance and rotten policy. Obviously, for those smug, once-powerful NGO forces who thought they could crush their opposition with ridicule, there’s panic in Sustainable City!

The forces of freedom should gain energy from the NGO’s panic and increase our efforts to stamp out these self appointed tyrants once and for all. We certainly have a long way to go to restore our precious Republic. But it’s D-Day on Omaha Beach and, though we continue to face fierce fighting, we have established a beachhead and are moving inland.  And the Sustainablists are panicked.

As you face them in battle after battle, just remember these immortal words from Rocky Balboa; “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit…how much you can take and keep moving. That’s how winning is done!”   

– See more at: http://americanpolicy.org/2014/07/30/panic-in-sustainable-city/#sthash.58o1TTKq.dpuf