Can David Ever Beat Goliath?

[HappyHiker]

Once in a while a small town takes on a giant multi-national corporation bent on environmental degradation and the citizens wage all out war to save their small town...

Often, the results are sad and depressing.

But once in a while...

This battle just took place in my small seaport town on the Southern Outer Banks of North Carolina, very close to the Cape Lookout National Seashore...

What happened?

Take a look here--please click below or paste below URL into your browser:

http://vibrantvillage.com/2011/07/30/sulfurious-citizens-celebrate-vow-to-remain-vigilant/

[herbgeek]

Great story, and that's a beautiful area you're in. Several years ago, we did a vacation through the Outer Banks and spent a couple of days in Beaufort.

[razz]

Neat story to read, thanks. Our area is going through something similar with an invasion of huge windmills project to generate green energy taking over a tourist area. The sound of the the fins turning is creating significant health problems and the site is also a major bird migration route. People cannot sell their homes once the windmills are built so their life savings are depleted.

[HappyHiker]

I'm curious as how the sound of fins turning is creating "significant health problems"--is it from insomnia--or?

[Alan]

I'm curious as how the sound of fins turning is creating "significant health problems"--is it from insomnia--or?

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/are-wind-farms-a-health-risk-us-scientist-identifies-wind-turbine-syndrome-1766254.html

"Dr Nina Pierpont, a leading New York paediatrician, has been studying the symptoms displayed by people living near wind turbines in the US, the UK, Italy, Ireland and Canada for more than five years. Her findings have led her to confirm what she has identified as a new health risk, wind turbine syndrome (WTS). This is the disruption or abnormal stimulation of the inner ear's vestibular system by turbine infrasound and low-frequency noise, the most distinctive feature of which is a group of symptoms which she calls visceral vibratory vestibular disturbance, or VVVD. They cause problems ranging from internal pulsation, quivering, nervousness, fear, a compulsion to flee, chest tightness and tachycardia – increased heart rate. Turbine noise can also trigger nightmares and other disorders in children as well as harm cognitive development in the young, she claims. However, Dr Pierpont also makes it clear that not all people living close to turbines are susceptible."

[loosechickens]

I'm surprised that the wind turbine project is causing such problems. Our old area of PA is the site of a recent wind turbine project, The Armenia Mountain wind project, which is about 175 huge wind turbines on the ridge overlooking the town, and personally, some were already up when we were there, and they looked beautiful to me.

The realization that these turbines would be making electricity, completely renewable, nonpolluting, etc., for many years seemed well worth the small amount of noise, which is really NOT as being described. We have two friends who live right up on the ridge in the midst of the project and have several of the turbines on their land, and one is within several hundred feet of their home, and while you CAN hear the blades turning, it really isn't annoying, they don't turn all that fast, AND each of those turbines is producing about $12,000 in royalties for the landowners, so really sound like money to them, just as the smell of manure smells like money to a dairy farmer.

Unless we are willing to give up electricity, do without our labor saving devices, etc., we need to produce electricity, and far better that it be produced with wind turbines that are not spewing pollutants into the air, producing clean energy, etc., than coal or gas electricity turbines. We must produce the electricity or give up our modern ways of life, so far better that we produce it in ways that do not pollute the air our children will breathe. Nothing is perfect, but wind turbines beat production of electricity using fossil fuels hands down, in my opinion.

It is true that some birds when migrating run afoul of the blades, although new designs in blades and turbines that spin much more slowly than older ones have greatly reduced this problem. And compared to the depredation to birds from family cats left loose to hunt in our neighborhoods, not nearly so serious as how many birds are killed by the "nice kitties".

I loved looking at those wind turbines up there on the ridge, and compared to the terrible environmental damage that is occurring in that area with the drilling of numerous gas wells, pollution of ground water, fracking problems, etc. (that area is also the center of the Marcellus Shale gas boom), those wind turbines look mighty good. JMHO

Now....the folks fighting the molten sulphur thing.....THERE I can relate.

[puglogic]

Nodding and nodding my head to LC's post.

To me, the sound of wind turbines -- except in very extreme cases -- is the sound of freedom.

[JaneV2.0]

"They cause problems ranging from internal pulsation, quivering, nervousness, fear, a compulsion to flee, chest tightness and tachycardia – increased heart rate.

This is exactly the way power mowers make me feel. Exactly. Along with a compulsion to do harm to the person behind the machine. I can't imagine living 24/7 with this feeling.

[CathyA]

We are all very different as to the sensitivity of our nervous systems. I am, unfortunately, one of the ones who has a very sensitive one. For some of us, it isn't a matter of just being emotionally too sensitive.........Its that our neurological systems are tweaked much higher and respond to many things that the "normal" person isn't even aware of. I take a small dose of a beta blocker to calm some of my neuro system's overworkings, but it sure doesn't take care of all of it.
All I am saying is that just because some people have side-effects from these windmills, doesn't mean it isn't having a very real physiological affect on them. I'm not sure what the answer is, since it IS great to have energy alternatives to oil.