Monday, May 6, 2013
How loud can the turbines get?
May 4, 2007 • Letters, New York
Noise reports
Some T.I. residents will be saying goodbye to those quiet summer evenings. There are now two wind turbine noise reports submitted by developers along the Thousand Islands corridor. One by AES-Acciona Energy concludes their project in Cape Vincent would not “create a significant noise impact.” PPM Atlantic Renewable, on the other hand, freely admits to Town of Clayton residents that their project “would be clearly audible.” In both cases, developers ignored the biggest potential noise threat from wind farm development — atmospheric stability.
First, we have to better understand wind and noise. When the wind blows, trees and shrubbery produce a lot of noise, enough to mask quieter sounds. When the wind subsides, other quiet sounds, like the sound of a cricket, can become more noticeable. This relates to wind turbine noise, too. Turbines are loudest when the wind is blowing hard. As wind subsides, turbines slow down making less noise. When the wind quits, turbines stop as well. However, there is a condition when turbines can still be noisy even after the wind stops blowing.
During clear, cloudless nights a process called radiation cooling takes place whereby the atmosphere next to the ground becomes stable — it decouples from the air mass just above the ground. What is significant about this decoupling is that there can be no wind at ground level, but the wind can be blowing quite hard at the height of a wind turbine. Here then is the worst-case scenario developers should be considering, turbines spinning loudly with no masking sounds close to the ground. Even worse, it can occur on summer nights with our bedroom windows wide open.
So, how frequent is atmospheric stability and how loud can the turbines get? From my review of Queens University survey, nearly forty percent of spring and summer nights could be associated with atmospheric stability. Therefore, atmospheric stability is notan infrequent occurance. In ground-breaking studies at a German wind park on the Dutch border, the Dutch physicist Dr G.P. van der Berg showed that “wind turbine noise could be up to 15-18 dBA higher than expected.” NYSDEC guidelines indicate that an increase of 15-20 dBA is “objectionable.”
In conclusion, we have the potential for a real problem. Participating landowners and local officials don’t know about this problem, but should. Developers know about the problem, but don’t want to deal with it. In any case, we should all discuss it before we make an unalterable decision that we might later regret, and if you don’t believe it can happen here, just visit Maple Ridge and talk to someone.
Thousand Islands Sun, Letter to the Editor,
Clif Schneider
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5 comments:
Voters for Wind, who deny that they get any financial support, from Bee Pee had one of their members present a scheme to a town committee that would allow 50 Decibels of noise in our town. That scheme was pulled out of a green souvenir bag with a wind developer's name on it and was exactly the same as the one presented by the Bee Pee local manager, Jim Madden, to a planning board chaired by Bee Pee lease holder Richard Edsall. Edsall recused himself by getting out of his chair and moving closer to the wind developer. My point is that the work behind the scheme probably set Bee Pee back tens of thousand of dollars. Then it appeared that it was given to Voters for Wind to use by one of their members. Service in kind is treated just like cash and for Voters for Wind to claim they have not been paid by Bee Pee smells like bullshit to me.
Once, when Clif Schneider tried to ask a question about all this stuff at a Richard Edsall planning board meeting, Edsall shut the meeting down. Then he commented to Schnieider, "If john Byrne were a more honorable man, we would not be having all these problems." For years, Richard Edsall displayed a Voter for Wind sign in his front yard and Mrs. Edsall was cut a check by former Supervisor Tom Rienbeck from the Bee Pee escrow fund for "office supplies". Then, there was the secret Planning Board- Town Board member meeting and Mrs. Edsall was allowed to attend. It appeared that Mrs. Edsall was given a direct pipeline from town proceedings to the Voter for Wind meetings while she was being paid for office supplies.
There is no doubt in the minds of many people that Bee Pee buffered by Marion Trieste was providing a lot of services to Voters for Wind who are now in denial. But, they can't change the history and videos like the one that proves the existence of the secret meeting and that eight town officials lied about the town business being discussed that night.
Please don't let Aubertine, the Democrats and the Citizens for Fair Government take back the Cape and give it to Bee Pee.
Great point. Government grants recognize service in kind as cash and they put a value on it. If a voter for wind gets to chat with a Bp lawyer that is worth 200 or more per hour. Remember Todd Mathes? Speech and letter writing, use of office like Bp's, training sessions, etc. etc. all of that is like cash.
Clif Schneider has done a yeoman's job of producing scientific evidence related to the sound issue involved with industrial scale wind turbines. It is evident that these behomeths create noise that is objectionable and intolerable to nearby residents. It is also evident that this leads to a conclusion that they should not be sited in rural residential areas.
Clif is to be commended for his scientific approach to the matter,and for his determination to see that lax,profit driven, industry standards are not allowed to over-rule science.
I truly hope his work receives the acknowledgement and recognition it deserves, and is not simply cast aside by the bureaucratic review process of ART.X.
My fear is that ART. X was crafted and implemented purposefully to evade the logic and science-based evidence produced by researchers such as Clif, for the sole purpose of carrying out the political,corporate driven energy policy of Andrew Cuomo, and New York State.
With a single legislative action, the State removed our ability and right to exercise autonomy in these decisions, and put it in the hands of five bureaucrats with the ominous authority to ignore our local laws to the advantage of corporate development.
I hope I am wrong. I hope science,logic,common sense, and the general welfare of New York residents, will rule the day.
Somehow I doubt this is Andrew Cuomo's wish as well.
The comments at 7:58 are mine and I intended to include that the sound issue is only one of many reasons industrial scale turbines should not be sited in residential (or for that matter any) areas of New York.
Dave LaMora
"My fear is that ART. X was crafted and implemented purposefully to evade the logic and science-based evidence produced by researchers such as Clif, for the sole purpose of carrying out the political,corporate driven energy policy of Andrew Cuomo, and New York State."
Can you imagine what position the town would be in if they had followed the advice of a few radicals that asked the town to ignore and not even participate in the Article ten process? We would be dead in the water.
Bp is capable of most anything and getting a couple of ringers to give the town that kind of foolish advice is certainly not out of the question. The radical element has insulted and turned on almost every single person like
Schneider who have consumed their lives working for the Cape citizens. Now don't that sound like something Bp would reward?
7:58
You should comment to the PSC and tell them how you feel about their sincerity.
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