A Thunder Bay city councillor says she is willing to delay a proposed wind-farm project several years, if necessary, in order to get scientific evidence one way or the other about the health effects wind turbines have on human populations.
Coun. Linda Rydholm on Friday said there has yet to be a scientifically-based, thorough study from an independent third-party, and until one exists, she will continue to oppose a $75-million project, 18-turbine wind farm proposed for the Nor’Wester Mountain Range by Toronto-based Horizon Wind Inc.
“For someone to say we’ve had wind turbines here for 20 years, there’s no proof that cardiac arrhythmias, headaches, sleep deprivation, etc. is related, that’s anecdotal,” said Rydholm, whose Neebing ward is the proposed home of the Horizon Wind project.
“You’d have to actually study the people, get all their health information, and do it in a nice orderly scientific fashion to get that evidence, over years and see what trends there are.”
However, David Colby, the acting medical officer of health at the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit, and the co-author of an international study on the effects of sounds produced by wind turbines on human health, said wind-farm opponents are too quick to blame turbines for adverse symptoms they automatically tie their proximity to the power-generating towers.
Colby countered Rydholm’s request, saying an independent study is not necessary as there is no way to tie adverse health effects to turbines and that the infrasound produced is at the level of a quiet office.
“We’re not talking about a lot of noise, and despite what you may read, there’s absolutely unique about wind-turbine sound. There isn’t ground-borne vibration that makes people sick that you hear,” Colby said, reached by phone in southern Ontario on Friday afternoon.
“The beating of our heart, and the opening of our heart valves produces infrasound. There’s nothing spooky about that, and the amount produced by wind turbines is neither weird nor excessive. They really don’t produce anything that could plausibly make people sick.”
Colby , who also produced a report for Chatham-Kent city council that presented similar findings, said the symptoms Rydholm mentioned can also be attributed to annoyance, a great deal of which turbine opponents deal with day in and day out.
Nor’Wester Mountain Escarpment Protection Committee spokeswoman Margot Freitag, who on Tuesday presented council with a New York City phonebook-size report opposing turbines, dismissed the Chatham-Kent report, though admitted she hadn’t read it.
“There’s never been a health study to determine (safe) setbacks between turbines and people,” Freitag told Thunder Bay Television in a brief phone interview on Friday afternoon. “The evidence shows people are getting sick and we need a health study.”
Horizon president Anthony Zwig, whose company hosted an invitation-only luncheon in Thunder Bay on Friday afternoon, said he’s heard of the Chatham-Kent report, but it wasn’t really necessary as the province, in his mind, has already conducted the independent study everyone seems to be looking for.
“Nobody here has put the kind of resources into looking at this as the province,” he said. “The pros at this and the experts are the people working down at Queen’s Park.”
Zwig said the province has already determined safe setbacks and set them at 550 metres from residences. He pointed out that 98 per cent of the turbines his company is proposing will be a least two kilometres from the nearest house – and none will be closer than 1.1 kilometres.
On Monday, council is expected to get legal advice that will determine its next course of action. In 2007 the city signed a deal with Horizon agreeing to lease the company 17,000 acres of municipally owned land, but has final say over the exact location of the turbines.
The province, through the Green Energy Act, will determine whether or not the project can go ahead.
Last Tuesday council debated whether or not to ask administration to bring forth a report on May 17th giving thumbs up or thumbs down to Horizon’s revised plans, but opted to wait at least a week, leading some to believe they might use Monday’s closed-door session to look for a legal way out of the lease option, expected to earn the city between $200,000 and $300,000 a year.
Rydholm wasn’t biting when asked if that was the case.
“I decline comment,” she said.
Zwig said he remains confident the city will give Horizon the approval it’s seeking, and evaded questions about any potential legal recourse should the city change its mind.
