Searching For Sanity At An Anti-Wind Turbine Meeting

By Mark Taliano

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity.”
William Butler Keats

The thought of going to an anti-green lobby group espousing the end or curtailment of wind turbines was akin to going to a Tea Party meeting, but I went anyways.

A bumper sticker from the anti-wind turbine citizens coalition, Wind Concerns Ontario.

It was a moderate drive from Grimsby, Ontario – more than this meeting in neighbourhing municipality of West Lincoln deserved – but then Grimsby is solidly Conservative, so it wasn’t that difficult.  I don’t mean disrespect to Conservatives, after all, it’s the Conservatives in Germany who are arguably more “green” than the Greens of Canada (Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions are 20 percent below 1990 levels, and well past the KYOTO target.), but the Conservatives in Grimsby are about as green as trans-national corporations —  more purplish I’d say, with some green washed in.

Why did I go?  Mainstream media gives more press to anti-wind turbine groups than it does to real science and progressive ideas, so I thought I’d try to counterbalance the insanity.

Before leaving, I researched some of the issues which were to be discussed at the meeting, specifically health effects, environmental costs, and real estate issues. Here is what I found:

The Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) Report, dated 2010, had this to say: “…while some people living near 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.  The sound level from turbines at common residential setbacks is not sufficient to cause hearing impairment or other direct health effects, although some people may find it annoying.”  In other words, they’re not very loud; quite quiet actually.  More like the breath of God than the sound of, say, hydraulic brakes. More like a “clean” sound.

Electricity from wind turbines is environmentally low impact, meaning clean rather than dirty.  According to the Canadian Wind Energy Association, energy from the wind “has very low lifecycle environmental costs — largely associated with producing and installing the turbines…” Further, adds the report,” there is no need for extraction, transportation, or any other environmentally damaging process…”  It’s beyond me how anyone could consider wind turbines dirty when compared to the alternatives of nuclear (think Japan), or coal, or “natural” gas, but some do still argue that wind turbines aren’t “green”.  Maybe they’re referring to the color of paint on the turbines.

Finally, if we peel the skin off the turbine onion, we find what is likely a significant “raison d’etre”for the protest’s support: real estate values.  Here’s what I found. According to the “Wind Energy Study – Effect on Real Estate values in the Municipality of Chatham-Kent, Ontario, a study prepared by George Canning, AACI, P.App. and L. John Simmons, AACI, FRI.,CMR, PLE, wind turbines DO NOT impact residential real estate values.  Specifically, ”In the study area, where wind farms were clearly visible, there was no empirical evidence to indicate that rural residential properties realized lower sale prices than similar residential properties within the same area that were outside the viewshed of a wind turbine”.

When I discussed the findings with George Canning, he indicated that they searched far and wide (U.S, Europe, Canada) for credible studies showing a correlation between wind turbines and lower real estate values, and they found nothing.  That being said though, he does acknowledge that if there hasn’t been a study conducted in the Niagara Region, then a professional, Independent study should be conducted here.

So much for the long preamble.  Here’s what happened.  There were three presenters, none of whom were particularly qualified.  A significant emphasis was placed on sickness related to turbines, so much so that I started to feel sick, thinking of the fans overhead and the fluorescent lights, but then I remembered the medical notion of psychosomatic sickness and somehow waved the illness goodbye.

At question period, when an electrician’s probing questions were stifled, I had to follow him out, and then I found the real story.  Some at the meeting were not necessarily supportive of the meeting’s objective, but were there for the information, like me. Those who were opposed to the turbines in this small but possibly representative group were not sure about human-induced global warming.

Those of us who are sure about anthropogenic global warming seemed to be supportive of wind turbines. The electrician clarified the “dirty electricity” issue, referring to proper ‘grounding” and other esoteric electrical facts.  I suggested to the lady who was concerned about real estate values that her catastrophizsing could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I also indicated that I wasn’t an expert, but that I relied on experts, hoping that she would do the same (the internet can be a double-edged sword).

Finally, the small group in which I found myself heard and smelled the cars going by.  It was a poignant reminder of the evolution of car technology (compare the Toyota Prius to an early model gas guzzler) and the fact that wind turbines, too, are evolving, and will continue to do so. Maybe they deserve a chance.

Mark Taliano is a Niagara resident and regular contributor to Niagara At Large.

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