Falmouth's Sleep Disruption Hoax

Falmouth’s two town-owned wind turbines, located in a 314 acre wastewater plant, haven’t spun at night since May 2012. Recently published research sheds light on the justification, or actually lack of justification, behind the nightly “curtailments”.

Falmouth’s board of health discussed wind turbines in a hearing on May 21, 2012. The board’s chairman, the late Dr. Gail Harkness, said research did not support health problems related to turbines, but that some research indicated a possibility of sleep disturbance. Three days later, in a subsequent hearing to gather public testimony, sleep disturbance suddenly emerged as a leading complaint. The sleep disruption problem was born. It wasn’t long before Falmouth selectmen ordered the turbines turned off at night - a policy which has cost Falmouth’s taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost electricity generation.

Fast forward to January 2016. Peer-reviewed scientific publications are emerging from the massive Health Canada study. A paper is released in the journal SLEEP, a joint publication of the Sleep Research Society and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. The paper describes research on the effects of wind turbine noise and sleep quality. Over 1200 people participated in the study, and 654 wore “Actiwatch” sensors while sleeping.

“Self-reported and objectively measured sleep outcomes consistently revealed no apparent pattern or statistically significant relationship to wind turbine noise (WTN) levels.”

The article is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5665/sleep.5326

Looks like it’ll be Falmouth’s taxpayers losing sleep over this.