Wind Vane: "Annoyance" Risk - Part II

To illustrate Blowin’s hapless argument of needing somehow to dilute facts, he/she offers a link to an article who’s authors are demonstrated pro-wind industry consultants. Reading the ‘Frontiers in Public Health’ article (refer to previous Patch blog), it’s obvious that the nocebo effect is, without question, “frontier material”! According to the article, nocebo effect is merely a hypothesis! A hypothesis that hasn’t evidence enough to be proven in Falmouth (to say nothing of anywhere else). In reality, the totality of local evidence, coupled with the Canadian study, are a measure of facts enough for Falmouth’s Board of Health to validate their previously held suspicion.

FACT:

Health Canada admitted in their preliminary report, it had no way of knowing whether ‘annoyance’ expectations pre-date the operation of the wind turbines. Falmouth’s Board of Health (FBoH) did have a way of knowing. Ninety eight percent (98%) of those providing testimony at the May 24, 2012 BoH hearing, adversely impacted by Falmouth wind project, were emphatically in support of Falmouth’s wind project. (Debunking pre-determined expectation theory)

No town agency, department or board has any record or recollection of noise complaints for the impacted neighborhoods in question, for the period before Falmouth’s first industrial wind turbine became operational. Falmouth’s Board of Health easily deduced that the rate of noise annoyance complaints after March 2010 (from once project supporters) were likely correlated to wind turbine operations.

The “frontier” piece goes on to say that health complaints (from epidemiological work) have primarily been located in areas that have received the most negative publicity about the harmful effects of turbines.

FACT:

Of all Town Meeting minutes leading to the project’s funding approval, NOT ONE Falmouth Energy Committee member or Town Manager office official, in their “sales pitch,” included anything regarding negative publicity or any adverse effects of turbines. The Assistant Town Manager Heather Harper, in fact, said the project was to be “a home run” for the town. History has proven otherwise.

As Blowin’s credibitly flails with more of these preposterous smearing of facts, the ‘smoke and mirror’ tactic (schooled by the wind industry promoters) won’t obscure the facts known to the community, to the FBoH, and even to the Courts (the legislature has little to do with Falmouth’s wind turbine health problem). Common sense, Falmouth facts and recent corroborative scientific evidence, will dictate the continuance of a town trend relating to wind turbines too close to neighbors. Look no further than the modification of our wind turbine bylaw by Town Meeting and the Planning Board.