Dr.Schomer is chair of the International Organization for Standardization working group on environmental noise and chair of the American National Standards committee on noise and holds other leadership roles in noise measurement. His findings identified "tricks" used by Hessler to arrive at pre-determined conclusions.
In Schomer's summary he explains how Hessler permitted summertime insect noise to contaminate the sound surveys to show background noise levels as high as 45-50 dB(A). In fact, Schomer's own survey showed noise levels in Cape Vincent to have an overall level of 30 dB (arithmetic average using A-weighted L90 levels). This included day, evening and night sound levels.
Dr.Schomer found that Hessler's study for the Cape Vincent Wind Power Facilities appears to have selected the noisiest sites, the noisiest time of year, and the noisiest positions at each measurement site.
Collectively, these choices resulted in a substantial overestimate of the a-weighted ambient sound level, 45-50 db.
Consequently, Dr.Schomer’s report had the potential to cause big problems for Acciona, and British Petroleum if it were not discredited.
Previously the Town of Cape Vincent had commissioned Cavanaugh Tocci and Associates to analyze the noise study by the wind developers. The Cavanaugh Tocci report was critical of the current flawed sound study as well ; and subsequently the report was suppressed.
This was discovered with the legal release of FOILED documents by Supervisor Hirschey . Because the information that was released pertaining to Cape Vincent’s sound study would be damaging to Acciona ,Acciona's project manager Tim Conboy led a charge at the Town Board meeting to discredit Supivisor Hirschey by accusing him of releasing the engineering documents illegally.
The email below is from David Hessler ~ [Hessler and Associates ]the Acoustical Consultants hired by Acciona to conduct the noise studies for Acciona's St. lawrence Wind project to Blayne Gunderman ~[Environmental Permitting Manager for Acciona energia]
This email is part of the engineering correspondence concerning Acciona's flawed sound study. That was legally released through a FOIL request.
Kris Dimmick
From: Mathes, Todd
Sent: Monday October 26, 2009 1:35 PM
To: Kris Dimmick
Subject: FW: FW: St. Lawrence Wind
From: David Hessler
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 1:14 PM
To: Gunderman, Blayne
Cc: Zedick, Pete; Mathis, Todd
Subject: Re: St. Lawrence Wind
Blayne,
I just tried several times to call Schomer to get to the bottom of this, but he’s not there.
This is what I know-
When we first were made aware of the Schomer study in July I wrote a letter to Paul explaining the circumstances surrounding the summer test and summarizing some of the results of the winter test, which he had not known about. The gist of the letter was to ask that he make a serious effort to retract his criticisms, which were overly harsh, totally undeserved and apparently written with the express intent tell his client, the Industrial Wind Action Group, what they wanted to hear.
Some time prior to this in the late spring , my father , George Hessler ( the other half of the company) was asked by Paul to chair a session a the Noise- Con 2009 conference in Ottawa in late August . At that conference, the two of them talked face to face about the Cape Vincent situation. During that discussion, my father was told that Paul now understood the background circumstances and no longer objected to our study principally because the levels he measured during his own wintertime survey were comparable to and in some cases even higher than we got. Amicable relations resorted, my father was told that Paul was going to immediately write a letter to Cavanaugh Tocci essentially retracting his objections. We had no reason to doubt he was going to do that. However, we have never received a copy as we had requested.
As an additional note, our work on the BP project largely ended with the submittal of the summer and winter background test reports and we did not prepare an impact assessment for the project, but rather an assessment was written without our knowledge by the general environmental consultant (ERM) basing the impact on, I believe, the summer background levels because they were much more favorable to the project. Evidently, it was this DEIS assessment that rankled the anti- wind people and prompted them to hire Schomer to do an “independent” field survey
David
Gunderman, Blayne wrote:
Can you help here?
Blayne
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was at the Ottawa INCE conference when David Hessler's father George was lobbying Dr. Paul Schomer to recant his criticism of Hessler Associates BP study. In fact, George Hessler was the chair of the section when I presented my paper on background sound levels in Cape Vincent.
I am very familiar with the issue and the circumstances outlined in this post. Hessler's complaint was Schomer's report was "overly harsh, totally undeserved and apparently written with the express intent tell his client, the Industrial Wind Action Group, what they wanted to hear." On the contrary, Hessler was upset because someone of impeccable professional standards, Dr. Schomer, exposed his questionable, unprofessional study for BP.
Hessler can complain all he wants, but in the end he was the one who recanted his summer study.
Schomer stood by his report and its conclusions, and he stands by them today.
Clif Schneider
--------------Original Message------------------
From: Mathes, Todd
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 11:57 AM
To: Zedick, Pete
Cc Cogen, Richard; K. Dimmick; Gunderman Blayne
View Schomer Report -->here
3 comments:
The famous Hessler standard. At 3 centimeters the male mole cricket sound level is an average of 90 decibels. Remember those annoying little bastards in fall when one or two get in the house and chirp your brains out? Ask Mr Hessler if a coupe of crickets at 35 db would be ok to sleep to. Then again. all them female crickets that'll be coming around. Be like Saturday night at the ho-down , women drink for free. Hessler, wasn't that the name of the guy who invented that torture device in WW2 that destroyed people's eardrums with sound? Colonel Hessler, yeah, that was him. Are there still Nazis working for the US Government after all these years? Guess so.
BP "bumbling idiots", there are no conspiracies? BP sits waiting to exploit NNY with ACCIONA. Both are foreign corporations, both have connections to the White house, and most other federal agencies, including Homeland Security. According to criticism, this is a "conspiracy theory" , and should be disregarded as such, with all of the usual comments. BP uses intimidation to cover up it's crimes.This is what they do in the Gulf. What will they do in Cape Vincent? The only media that covered this story was CNN. Sorry to say, it was not reported in the New York Times. " What happened is that Lance Rosenfield, a photographer working for ProPublica (http://www.propublica.org), was standing on a public road, taking photos of a BP refinery in full public view. After taking his photos, he was tailed by local law enforcement officials to a gas station, where they demanded to look at the photos he had just taken. A private BP security goon then showed up at the scene, and an official from the Department of Homeland Security soon arrived and began to intimidate Lance. With his wits about him (and some basic knowledge of the Bill of Rights), Lance at first refused to show his photographs to local law enforcement. They threatened to detain him (probably under the Patriot Act) if he didn't, so he gave in and let them see the photos. Later, when private BP security personnel asked for Lance's personal information, he refused to give it to them. So -- get this -- the police turned over his private information to the BP security goon! " I write these thing to tell people that there are more than a handful of local scumbags behind this scandal. So , focusing on sound levels is hardly any tactic to discredit these crooks. Focus on their crimes,and those hefty subsidies.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/029153_British_Petroleum_Police_State.html#ixzz1c3pgBhkp
Or see "TI", he'll provide you with a tin hat and maybe some meds. Your vote will have a lot more impact than you think, it's called "missing the bullet". Like one blogger says, stay focused. Just don't be myopic.
I was at the Ottawa INCE conference when David Hessler's father George was lobbying Dr. Paul Schomer to recant his criticism of Hessler Associates BP study. In fact, George Hessler was the chair of the section when I presented my paper on background sound levels in Cape Vincent. I am very familiar with the issue and the circumstances outlined in this post.
Hessler's complaint was Schomer's report was "overly harsh, totally undeserved and apparently written with the express intent tell his client, the Industrial Wind Action Group, what they wanted to hear."
On the contrary, Hessler was upset because someone of impeccable professional standards, Dr. Schomer, exposed his questionable, unprofessional study for BP. Hessler can complain all he wants, but in the end he was the one who recanted his summer study. Schomer stood by his report and its conclusions, and he stands by them today.
Clif Schneider
Post a Comment