The following is an article from the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness May newsletter.

Wind farms are running into opposition from private property owners throughout the world. And it is not just a problem of blighting the view. Nor are the environmental hazards restricted to the “Cuisinart” effect on migratory birds.

 The most obvious problem is the noise pollution. The upper limit of allowable sound measured 100 ft in front of a locomotive is 98 dB (A), where the “A” refers to sound audible to human beings. The Vestas 1 .8-MW wind turbine generates 95.6 dB (A) 10 m above the ground at the tower, at a wind speed of 4 m/s. At a wind speed >8 m/s, the sound level is 103.5 dB (A) (The Energy Advocate, November 2010).

 According to the British Wind Energy Association, the sound produced by a wind turbine generating electricity, outside of the nearest houses, which are at least 300 m away, is comparable to that of a flowing stream 50 m away or “leaves rustling in a gentle breeze.” Yet the noise is widely reported to be more annoying than that from airplanes, roadways, and railways. This is because the sound from wind turbines has very high levels of low-frequency infrasound inaudible to the human ear, suggests Alec Salt of the Cochlear Fluids Research Laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis. The assumption that humans are unaffected by sounds they can’t hear is incorrect, he states. The outer hair cells of the cochlea are stimulated by low frequency sounds at up. to 40 dB below the level that is heard.

 Infrasound has been used in Sweden in a nonlethal weapon for riot control. The infrasound from air-conditioning systems has been implicated as a cause of sick building syndrome (S.S.). Infrasound affects the vestibular system, causing symptoms resembling seasickness, accompanied by headache, dizziness, and “deep nervous fatigue.” It can affect ocular reflexes, causing nystagmus; spinal reflexes, causing tremors; and autonomic reflexes, causing shortness of breath. In the 1970s, army physiologists carried out studies on how long military personnel could perform their duties under conditions of high levels of infrasound, as in a tank, the engine room of a ship, or a space capsule, but results are secret, writes Claude. Regard of the Naval College & Military School of the Fleet (France).

 The wind turbine syndrome also includes sleep problems, irritability, and depression. The variable audible noise results in frequent awakenings or arousals, which may not be remembered. The disruption of sleep prevents the proper laying down and storage of memory. It is also associated with an increased incidence of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Arousals during slow wave sleep may trigger parasomnias (sleepwalking, night terrors), reports Dr. Christopher Nanning, an expert in sleep disorders.

 Persons especially vulnerable to wind turbine syndrome include elderly, young children, children with developmental disabilities (especially autism spectrum disorders), and migraine sufferers.

There is also a vibroacoustic disease, which has been studied mostly in aviation workers. Different parts of the body, especially the chest and skull, have differing resonance frequencies’, writes Dr. Nina Pierpont. Air pressure (sound) waves of certain wavelengths resonate within these closed spaces, setting up vibrations to which the body responds by reinforcing soft tissue with extra collagen, which could cause thickening of the pericardium and cardiac valves, fibrosis of the lungs, and proliferation of glial cells in the brain.

 Because of its long wavelength, infrasound is attenuated much less than audible sound, and diffraction by obstacles such as trees and bushes is much reduced. Thus it propagates over much longer distances. It can travel over hills, and is reflected by temperature inversion zones. This explains why the explosion of Mount St. Helens was felt all over the world, and how elephants can communicate with each other over tens of kilometers thanks to the temperature inversion zone that forms between sunset and sunrise.

 Still another problem is shadow flicker, or a strobe effect. Some people lose their balance or experience symptoms of seasickness. Like other flashing lights, the strobe effect can trigger seizures in persons with epilepsy.

 Some people are so severely affected that they abandon their homes. In Germany, real estate agents report a 20% to 30% loss of value for property within sight of wind farms. In some places in the U.S., wind turbines may render nearby property unsalable. A study of the proposed Cape Wind project in Massachusetts concluded that the total property value loss of about $1 .35 billion would exceed the $800 million cost of construction.

 Animals may be even more severely affected by the sound from turbines, especially the low-frequency sounds. The animal kingdom relies upon a wide range of sound frequencies inaudible to humans. Basic survival functions including hunting, self-protection, and reproduction are impaired, and habitat may be abandoned. The irreversible destruction of habitat may be even more serious than collision mortality for birds. Livestock businesses are destroyed: hens stop laying; cattle exhibit aggressive, destructive behavior; sheep have disturbed respiration and reduced feeding. In Taiwan, 400 goats died after eight wind turbines were installed nearby, apparently because they couldn’t sleep.

 Although the wind industry has often stated that “there is no peer-reviewed scientific evidence indicating wind turbines have an adverse effect on human health,” the evidence is indeed accumulating. John Droz, Jr., notes that North Carolina mandates no human health review for a wind project, though the impact on birds is reviewed. He provides a wealth of information at www.WindPowerFacts.info.

 The “dirty” electricity produced by the turbines may also be harmful. The output from the inverters is contaminated with a lot high-frequency transients, which cause “radio wave sickness” symptoms that disappear on leaving the area. Radio, TV, and satellite dish reception is also impaired (Canada Free Press 4/28/09).

 Wind energy has substantially raised the cost of electricity everywhere it is installed. The goal, of course, is to reduce CO2 emissions. But as even the Green Party has recognized, 20,000 turbines in Germany, the world’s leader in total wind energy capacity, have reduced CO2 by not a single gram (Der Spiegel 2/1 1/09). In fact, because of the inefficient use of gas turbines as spinning reserves to cope with the variability of wind-power output, emissions may actually increase (D. White, Renewable Energy Foundation, December 2004). The largest theoretical reduction in CO2 emissions from wind, compared with coal or gas, is 10%, since traditional power stations with 90% of the total capacity of wind must be online at all times to assure continuous power- (Inhaber H. Rénewabre Sustainable Energy Rev 201 1;15:25572562).

 Turbulence from wind turbines, causing vertical mixing of heat in atmospheric layers, might even affect local temperatures and rainfall (Nature 12/23-30/10).

 World investment in ‘clean” energy was $243 billion in 2010, a 630% growth in finance and investments since 2004, according to the Pew Environmental Group (TWTW 6/25/1 1). The U.S. is winning the wind race with China, having installed 8.5 GWe (nameplate) of wind capacity in 2008, versus 4.7 GWe for China. But China is not running that race; it is, instead, installing affordable, dependable energy for the prosperity of its citizens (TWTW 1 1/20/10, www.sepp.org). Wind and solar are export industries for China, and they are suffering ‘because the Europeans are running out of mad money,” writes Norman Rogers.

 If the CO2 emissions reduction game doubles the cost of electricity in the U.S., the extra $300 billion is half the cost of Medicare in 2008. It would be a big savings, Rogers suggests, for the government to bribe people to stop building windmills (Amer Thinker5/1/1 1). But it’s all about political power—not human health.

More on wind turbine’s effect on wildlife:

 Windsmills are killing our birds

 Wind Turbines Spread While Bats Take Beating

 Bats, Birds, and Blades

 See also:

 Electricity generated by wind power may raise temperatures and costs

As the Arizona Daily Star reported today, the EPA is considering lowering the allowed concentration of dioxane in drinking water. That would cost the city millions to build a new water purification plant.

Current EPA standards allow up to three parts per billion. Tucson Water mitigates some contaminated water from Tucson’s south side by diluting the water and now delivers water with 1.15 parts per billion dioxane. The EPA says that under current standards, drinking the water for 70 years would give you a one in 1 million chance of getting cancer from dioxane. That’s about the same as the chance of getting hit by lightning in the U.S.

Here’s the rest of the story:

The EPA is running into trouble over these standards from the Department of Defense and some industry groups such as the Alliance for Environmental Responsibility and Openness (AERO). AERO says that the “only studies that show … dioxane causes tumors are very high dose rodent studies.” There is no reason to assume, as the EPA does, that there is any evidence to suggest a “proportional or linear relationship between health problems experienced in rodents at high doses and those that would be expected to occur in humans exposed to the chemical in more typical environmental circumstances.”

The Department of Defense (DOD) warned the EPA that it may face challenges under the Data Quality Act because the EPA changed conclusions of peer-reviewed studies after the fact. The changes included “the number of animals, the number of animals that had tumors, the doses given to the animals, and changes in both the statistical procedures and . . . calculations,” DOD says.

What all that means is that the EPA may be mired in lawsuits before it can impose any changes.

By the way, dioxane is a byproduct of the production of materials used in cosmetics, notably sodium myreth sulfate and sodium lauryl sulfate (check your shampoo). Since 1979, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has conducted tests on cosmetic raw materials and finished products for the levels of dioxane, and found dioxane levels up to 1410 parts per million(ppm) in raw ingredients, and levels up to 279 ppm in off the shelf cosmetic products. But EPA bureaucrats are now trying to scare us with three parts per billion.

The chemophobia of the EPA seems founded on a political agenda and upon pure guess work based in part on the “linear threshold” hypothesis. Simply stated, this hypothesis maintains that if a large dose is harmful, then smaller doses are also harmful in proportion. That is equivalent to saying that the harm from one man falling 100 feet is equivalent to that of 100 men falling one foot. This reasoning is applied to many natural phenomena and potentially carcinogenic substances to justify regulation and government programs.

The December issue of Consumer Reports (page 54) contains an article on Bisphenol A (BPA) which is used in plastic bottles and food-can liners. CR tests found BPA in almost all canned food tested. The question is how much, if any, has adverse health effects.

The FDA currently puts the daily upper safe limit of exposure to BPA at 50 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. Consumer Reports says that standard is based on experiments done in the 1980s and that more recent tests show abnormalities in animals at much lower exposures.

Consumer Reports recommends that manufacturers and government “should act to eliminate the use of BPA in all material that come into contact with food.” Consumer Reports fails to cite the new studies referred to.

The Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University takes Consumer Reports to task:

“Consumer Reports made so many factual errors in presenting its data on BPA in canned goods that no-one could have possibly read the actual research. A call for a ban on the chemical puts the public at risk from deadly food borne pathogens.”

“Consumer Reports have come out with a purported investigation into the chemical Bisphenol A that shows scant familiarity with any of the risk assessments of the chemical. Given that BPA is used to prevent food spoilage in cans, and given that food spoilage can lead to bacterial infection putting people at risk from botulism, and given that there is no safe and effective alternative as yet for BPA, these errors and exaggerations and omissions are not trivial. Consumer Reports seems to be oblivious to the extensive research on BPA carried out by the European Union, the Environmental Protection Agency, and others, all of which refutes the magazine’s claims about the chemical. ”

The STATS article goes on to list specific reasons why they think CR did a bad job. The STATS article also provides links to recent research from Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, and the U.S. which conclude that BPA does not pose a hazard.

Read the STATS article and make up your own mind. http://tinyurl.com/yg5zhrw

Note: I am a subscriber to Consumer Reports