Niagara Report Gives Wind Turbines A Clean Bill Of Health

By Doug Draper

There is no scientific evidence showing a “direct link” between wind turbines and health effects for people living near them, concludes a report prepared for Niagara, Ontario’s regional government by its public health department and signed by its public health commissioner Dr. Robin Williams.

A wind farm along a shore area in the United States not unlike one that would include four towers and turbines near the shores of Lake Erie in Wainfleet, Ontario.

“While some people living near wind turbines report symptoms such as dizziness, headaches and sleep disturbance, the scientific evidence available to date does not demonstrate a direct causal link between wind turbine noise and adverse health effects,” says the report that was based on a review of available scientific evidence, with the assistance of the Council of Ontario Medical Officers of Health, the province’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion.

That conclusion is bound to be controversial for residents already living near wind turbine farms or near sites, including one in the rural Niagara, Ontario municipality of Wainfleet, where a wind energy project has been proposed. These residents have collected numerous accounts from each other of health impacts from the constant whirl of the turbines.

Just the same, the regional government’s report goes on to say that “the reviewers were satisfied that sound level from wind turbines at common residential setbacks is not sufficient to cause hearing impairment or other direct health effects, although they acknowledged that some people may find it annoying.”

Bill Hunter, a manager in the region’s health department, told members of the region’s public health and social services committee this July 6 that compared to coal-fired energy plants, which contribute to air pollution, and nuclear, plants, which emit about 25 times more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than wind turbines, wind power has a lighter impact on the environment.

Nothing was mentioned in the report about the potential impact of wind turbines on wildlife. A recent feature in the Toronto-based Globe and Mail newspaper raises concerns about “shockingly high” numbers of birds and bats being killed by a wind farm made up of 86 turbines on Wolfe Island, Ontario.

Niagara’s regional government has been working with Rankin Construction, a private Niagara-based company, to build and operate about four wind turbines near the shores of Lake Erie in Wainfleet. The project has so far been sidelined by the province due to a lack of capacity for accepting the energy on nearby transformer lines. But another report, prepared for the region’s corporate services committee this July 7, concludes that “the project remains technically and financially viable,” and there is still a possibility it will get the green light from the province in the not-to-distant future.

(Click on Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater binational Niagara region.)