Last year Dr. Kouwen put together a very competent system for measuring noise and wind speed specifically for wind turbines in Ontario. His first foray into the field demonstrated that the noise from wind turbine projects routinely exceeds both what they predicted and what the Ontario regulations allow. More recently he took his equipment to another location and found, yet again, these violations. There is now an unbroken string of measurements (a sampling: Ashbee, Rand, Shirley, Kouwen, Libby) at homes of complaining neighbors that demonstrates, beyond any reasonable debate, that these noise complaints are caused by (drum roll) noise! I have yet to see a case of a complaining neighbor where there wasn’t some underlying noise or vibration problem that could be traced to wind turbines. Weaver continues this string. continue reading…
Browsing Posts tagged Ontario
David Libby lives in rural Ontario, unfortunately within 700 metres of a wind turbine. He complained to the Ontario MOE about the noise and in December of 2011 they dispatched some noise and weather-measuring equipment to his home. Whenever the noise bothered him, he could press a button and a 10-minute detailed recording period would start. During the 7+ days the equipment was in place he pressed the button 9 times. The MOE ran off and after a while dutifully reported back that the operator was substantially in compliance. Libby released that report to the public back in January 2012, which got a posting on Ontario Wind Resistance. John Harrison then took a look at it, and now we can see just how complicit the MOE is in harming people in order to protect this industry. continue reading…
Humans have used models to describe and predict their environment for millennia. With the advent of computers the number and sophistication of these models has taken a quantum leap. Many have proven their worth, and their impact upon our view of the universe has been profound. Unfortunately, it is almost inevitable that something with this much influence over our affairs will be misused by those whose with a self-serving agenda – much like junk science.
Dr. Nicholas Kouwen, in his study on wind turbine noise, discovered that the models used to predict that noise substantially underestimated it – a most convenient result, given Ontario’s regulatory regime, for the developer who hired the modellers. In his commentary on why this disconnect occurred he mentioned empirical models and their limitations. I thought the topic was important enough for a separate posting, and here it is. continue reading…
Of the many issues surrounding wind energy, noise continues to be a controversial topic. The industry and governments continue to insist that wind energy projects are appropriately sited – far enough from the neighbors so they are not a nuisance. However, around the world the health/nuisance complaints and abandonments indicate that whatever rules are in place are generally not adequate.
Dr. Nicholas Kouwen, a retired engineering professor, had the time and resources to examine the noise issue in some detail for Ontario. Starting in June of 2012 and going into November he took extended noise measurements at five residences in the Grey Highlands region; three of them within the Plateau Project and two “controls” at locations away from the turbines. The Ontario wind project noise regulations, pretty much unique in the world, allow more noise at higher wind speeds so he also recorded wind speeds. He then compared the actual readings with the Ontario limits and it should come as no surprise that those limits were routinely violated. continue reading…
By now probably everyone who reads this already knows about the removal of an active eagle’s nest near Fisherville, Ontario, by Nextera. The tree (a 100+ year-old cottonwood) and nest were apparently in the way of several turbines and Nextera was unwilling to move the turbines or the service road to spare the nest. The pair have been reported flying around the area looking for the nest. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) was responsible for the decision, and one has to wonder if there’s anything they wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice in order to build the turbines. To date the MNR has approved anything and everything – except anywhere close to the Toronto area where the current government’s supporters mostly live. continue reading…
In May 2009 Dr. Arlene King, the Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health, released a review that has subsequently been used by the wind industry to “prove” that wind turbines are safe. The King report was one of Chapman’s 17 reviews and it has been cited repeatedly by developers, especially in Ontario. It is by any standard a real disservice to the health of rural Ontarians in the path of wind energy developments. I’ve posted on it previously as has the Society for Wind Vigilance.
The money sentence is “The review concludes that 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.“ Note the “direct causal” language. You’d think a Ministry of Health would be concerned about all health issues, not just those that were direct and causal. Apparently not in Ontario. continue reading…
The following letter was written by Bill Palmer, who has contributed to these pages before.
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What would you do with $50 Million dollars a year or more wasted in Ontario due to a bad idea fixated on by a government that does not listen? continue reading…
I am fortunate (I think) to be able to own two homes: my main residence in Ohio and a secondary home on Amherst Island, Ontario. One of my great joys (not!) is paying monthly electric bills at both places. Call me A-R, but I’ve still got all those bills, starting with January 2000. Finally, my rat-pack tendencies pay off – I can compare Ontario’s electric rates with Ohio’s, and see how they have changed over the 12+ years. I really feel sorry for ordinary Ontarians. continue reading…
Ben Lansink is on a roll. Earlier this month (October 2012) he published the first-ever case study on the effects of wind turbines on property values, based on 5 sales and resales in the Melancthon, Ontario area. Not content with that, he has just published the second-ever case study on those effects, this time based on 7 sales/appraisals and resales in the Clear Creek, Ontario area. The results are depressingly similar, as related in the following (thankfully clickable) chart:
His study is 58 pages long and includes the supporting data from both areas. For Clear Creek he eliminated (as he did in Melancthon) farm properties and properties with turbines on them. Of these 7, 6 were homes and 1 was a vacant “bush” lot. Two of the homes were sold well before the project went into operation and resold well afterwards. The other five were appraised by MPAC, Ontario’s tax assessor, before the project and then resold on the open market after the project went into operation.
In the Melancthon study Lansink verified that the original sales to the developer were at reasonable market values; in Clear Creek no developer was involved so this step was unnecessary. In desperation, the wind industry might try to argue that the MPAC assessments weren’t accurate but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for them to present any evidence to that effect. These numbers are hard to refute.
When discussing property values, the wind industry seems fond of statistical significance. In that spirit, I offer a quick recap of the 12 properties Lansink has studied. The average decline was 36.99%, with a standard deviation of 12.26. That calculates to 3.02 SD’s from zero – zero being what the wind industry is claiming. That, in turn, translates to a 99.87% chance that the wind industry is WRONG. I’m guessing that those are about the same odds that the wind industry will try to ignore this second very powerful study, and continue quoting the flawed and weak but more agreeable Hoen study.
There are 3 major techniques used to establish property values, in decreasing order of accuracy: case studies, paired analysis (aka comps) and regression. A case study looks at the same properties selling multiple times, a paired analysis uses a similar properties selling at the same time, and a regression study gathers data on all the sales in an area and attempts to figure out how different factors affect the price.
Ben Lansink is a professional Real Estate appraiser based in Ontario. One of his areas of expertise is property value reductions. Recently he published a case study [backup copy] containing 5 sales/resales of property in the Melancthon area. These 5 properties were purchased by the developer when it became clear that the previous owners seriously complained and subsequently resold to third parties with industry-protecting covenants on the titles.
The wind energy industry consistently claims that they have studies (i.e. Hoen) that show wind projects do not reduce property values. Every study they quote uses the weakest technique, regression, to arrive at that conclusion, along with statistical significance. I’ve written a number of critiques of these studies, all of which have significant problems. Regression and statistical analysis, aside from being the least accurate, are also relatively easy to game to suit the sponsor, and gaming has been rampant. Lansink is the first case study I’m aware of. If the wind industry were serious in discovering the truth about the effect of their projects on real estate values they would adopt the findings of this study. But when a man’s salary depends on him not understanding something…
As it turns out, I had posted on most of the same properties some time ago, so these reductions are not new news. What Lansink’s report supplies is a more formal and complete analysis of the sales by a professional.
The study runs 76 pages, the majority of which is the documentation of the sales and resales of the 5 properties. The summary chart is on page 62, and it tells you pretty much all you need to know (click to enlarge):
In my earlier posting I just had assumed that the sales and resales prices reflected the current market values at the times of the sales – mainly, that the developer made a fair market offer when buying the previous owners out. Lansink takes the time to compare these sales prices to surrounding prices and finds that, indeed, the developers made what appear to be honest pre-project market value offers to the previous owners. Since the resales were made on the open market there can be no doubt about their accuracy. Additionally Lansink factors in the area’s general real estate price increases during the several-year interval between the sales and resales. As large as my numbers were, his are larger.
The result is a very robust study that in any sane world would be adopted by everybody who had an interest in an honest reckoning. The consequences of having this fine study actually adopted (i.e. by the courts) are pretty painful for the industry. I’m guessing that the industry will try to ignore it, and if/when forced to confront it, they will mumble something about Lansink being an anti-wind agitator who produces biased and anecdotal evidence. Never mind that it is far stronger than everything they have been quoting for years now.
Will the Ontario government and legal systems care about this? I’m guessing not. Accepting inconvenient facts is not this government’s strong suit. As I mentioned earlier, this isn’t exactly new news. No sentient being should be surprised by this. Unfortunately this government is determined to push these projects in no matter the harm to the neighbors.
Wolfe Island is located at the far eastern end of Lake Ontario and is traditionally considered to be the start of the St. Lawrence River and the Thousand Islands. There is no doubt it is part of one of the loveliest areas in the world as well as an important area for birds. No matter; there are now 86 wind turbines on the island’s western half. For many of the residents on the island this project has been a disaster, and part of their response has been to ask for reductions in their tax assessments from MPAC, the folks who do the assessing for the province.
It is a one-sided contest. The Kenney’s appeal is instructive. It was the two of them against a small army of lawyers from MPAC as well as the government. I understand that MPAC was willing to give them a reduction, but the sticking point was that the Kenneys wanted the wind turbines listed as a cause. The wind industry (for obvious reasons) really wants to maintain the fiction that wind projects do not affect home prices and even a small breach in that fiction might cause the entire edifice to come tumbling down like the house of cards that it is. continue reading…
UPDATE – it turns out that the “Osprey” Conservation Area has nothing to do with ospreys – it was the name of a nearby town. I’m now trying to find out what sorts of wildlife does live there, and I’ll update accordingly.
A major criticism of Ontario’s approval process for wind projects is that each project is “considered” by itself. At no point is there any review of all the projects in an area to see if together they represent an environmental issue. As an example of this problem, while reviewing the maps on my Ontario Wind Turbines site I noticed the area just north of the Melancthon project. Here’s an enlargable snapshot of the area:
Note the empty space in the middle of those projects? One has to wonder why nobody is proposing anything for there. Looking closer, note the “Osprey Wetland Conservation Lands”. At least nobody is proposing a project for the Conservation Area. Originally I thought (of course) that resident ospreys had named the Area but I find out that a town did. Still, whatever uses that area is going to be surrounded. I wonder if there will be any studies undertaken to discover the impacts.
Although I haven’t posted anything new here for a while I have been busy. In spite of all the Google Earth kmz and kml files I’ve produced and the pictures I’ve created, I am still not entirely satisfied that I’ve properly conveyed the extent to which the Ontario government will be changing rural southern Ontario. My latest effort is ontario-wind-turbines.org, where I place the projects on Google Maps, add some javascript and let you look around.
As of this writing I have 83 projects mapped out, including most of the larger ones. I’ll be adding more projects as time allows. Take a look and let me know what you think.
I’ve continued adding maps and pictures to my photo album. The latest are 3 pictures of Google Earth maps of turbine projects in the Elgin – Haldimand area, along the north shore of Lake Erie.
My Toronto Twenty-Two Turbines posting has gotten a fair amount of response, including a number of suggestions of other locations where turbines might be installed. Always responsive to my readers, I’ve added some new turbines to the Toronto skyline. All of these pictures are clickable.
3 in High Park
Queen’s Park
Toronto City Hall, with Queen’s Park’s turbine in the background
Eaton Center, with City Hall’s turbine and even the 3 High Park turbines
Exhibition Place. Note the rather small wind turbine that was placed there several years ago, and which many Torontans think represents what is being installed out in the sticks.
That has a nice alliterative ring, doesn’t it? There’s a big discussion over at Ontario Wind Resistance about putting some wind turbines in Toronto and having the residents there do their part in fulfilling Ontario’s dreams about wind energy. In an effort to constructively add to that discussion, I’ve created a 3-D Google Earth KMZ file that shows 22 turbines placed in Toronto’s harbour.
Happy flying.
Update, 4/30/2012. Someone mentioned putting a turbine on the lawn at Queen’s Park, the seat of the Ontario government. Hey, your wish is my command, and there are more at a follow-up posting. All of these are clickable.
And here’s a picture of the new improved waterfront, with the QP turbine visible up University.
And while I’m at it, here’s the toy turbine compared with what is getting installed now, with even larger turbines soon to follow.
About a month ago I created a series of Google Earth maps of the installed and proposed wind turbine locations across southern Ontario. I took a snapshot of the turbine locations in Chatham-Kent and posted it on this site. It got a lot of notice, including a couple of comments (#’s 7 and 12) from one Mike Barnard that the pins were misleading and out of scale to the actual size of the turbines. He is correct, given that in Google Earth the pins are a fixed size with respect to the screen and not the underlying scale, so the size of the pins has no relation to the size of whatever it is they are marking. But before Mike crows about “telling us so” let’s do a little calculating.
First, the picture I showed in the earlier posting wasn’t complete. Trying to get an accurate count of what projects are in the pipeline is surprisingly difficult, made more difficult by the constant buying and selling of projects and the sense of secrecy that always seems to accompany the wind energy business. Below is my latest picture, which has roughly another hundred turbines that weren’t on the earlier one, and which now includes Essex County. And I still have little confidence I’ve got them all. Please click to enlarge.
Second, note that most of the pins are grayed out, as they are too packed in to all show up. As an example, in the red rectangle above there are maybe half-a-dozen yellow pins. Upon zooming in, we see that there are quite a few more actual turbines. Just to short-circuit any complaints about me choosing a particularly egregious example, this area was chosen only because it shows the location of the 7 turbines the Chatham-Kent council wants to have eliminated from the Erieau project.
Third, while the size of the turbines may be smaller than the pins (they are actually about 1/4 the size of the pins’ stickers), their noise and visual impacts are somewhat larger than the pins show. I measure the pins to be about 2km across. The visual impacts, especially in the flat C-K terrain, extend for at least 10km. So there will be no place in that entire area where you will be out of sight of multiple turbines. There will be no place where you will be able to see the night sky without blinking red lights. The noise impacts depend on the weather, but often will extend to further than 2km. I doubt there will be any place in that entire area where you will be entirely free of their noise.
Fourth, I’m not showing the off-shore proposals. Just imagine the Canadian sides of Lake St. Clair and eastern Lake Erie filled about as densely as the on-shore picture. I do have a picture of the proposals if you don’t believe me. For now there’s the moratorium on turbines in the Great Lakes, but let’s not kid ourselves – there was an earlier moratorium that was lifted as soon as the election was a memory, and I doubt it will be any different this time around.
So my thanks go to Mike, for giving me an excuse to update the picture, along with the incentive to explain the picture with more clarity.
Gilead Power wants to put a wind energy project at Ostrander Point, which is possibly the worst place to put one – right in the middle of an Important Bird Area, and right in the middle of a major migratory route. Ontario owns the property with the Ontario MNR overseeing it. The Ontario MOE voluntarily opened up the project to public comment, citing the “harming, killing and harassing” of two endangered species (Blanding’s turtle and the Whip-poor-will) who had found the Point to be suitable habitat.
The comment period was ended yesterday, February 19, and I imagine they got hundreds of comments, many of them well-researched and documented. One very powerful submission was a letter from Ian Dubin, along with a longer more detailed Information Note. They are both suitably-written for a general audience and are worth the time.
Dubin, Ostrander Point Information Note
I also emailed in a submission, not nearly as well-put-together as Dubin’s. Who knows, maybe something will get traction. If Ostrander point is sacrificed, why stop there? White Pines is next, followed by Amherst Island, etc etc.
It is often said that one picture is worth a thousand words, and often that is true. And words don’t do justice to the wind turbine build-out going on in the Chatham-Kent area in southern Ontario. So I’ve gathered up the coordinates of the wind turbines for a number of projects and placed the turbines on Google Earth with kml files. The picture below shows the spread south from the 401 to Lake Erie, and even the picture doesn’t do it justice. There are 462 push pins on the picture, one per turbine, and many of them are not visible in this overall picture. Upon request I can send the kml files so you can import them into your Google Earth to get the entire effect as you zoom on in. The picture below is clickable, thank goodness, but even that doesn’t really show everything.
The yellow mass is roughly 100km long and 20 wide at its widest, and aside from the empty section SE of Chatham it is pretty much saturated with wind turbines. Also, I know there are more turbines north of the 401 that I’m not showing, so if anyone out there can get me some of those turbine locations (or tell me where to look) I’ll add them to the picture.
One thing I discovered as a result of creating this picture is that there are 8 turbines within 300m of the 401 itself, with the closest just 155m away – almost as close as the turbine is tall. I wonder how much insurance they carry.
UPDATE, March 21, 2012. There’s now a follow-up to this posting.
William Palmer continues to gather facts about Ontario’s electrical grid and the uselessness of wind energy in it. This is very much unlike Ontario’s government and any number of ENGO’s, who simply repeat their slogans over and over until enough voters believe them to keep them in power. This time he has put together two charts and a longer paper showing Ontario’s generation mix for the last quarter-century and they pretty much put to rest two of these pervasive slogans: (1) that wind energy is eliminating coal generation, and (2) that coal generation is related to asthma and respiratory deaths.
UPDATE – Feb 29, 2012. Palmer has also started a series at MasterResource that expands upon this topic. Part two.
