Dear Ministers, Councillors, Staff:
David, his wife and their two children were the first to file noise and health complaints on Easter Weekend 2013 as the CAW now Unifor industrial wind turbine began operating.
They live in Oakville and in Saugeen Shores they are seasonal residents and members of the Beachers Organization living on Shipley Ave.
Their home is 600 m from the Unifor turbine. The closest home being at 215 m also continues to file health and noise complaints as do many others.
For over 7 years these families have had their lives and peaceful enjoyment of their Saugeen Shores properties negatively impacted by audible and inaudible emissions from the Unifor turbine. Besides audible noise complaints health impacts including sleep disturbance, headache, dizzyness, nausea, tinnitus, involuntary body tremors and even fearful pet behaviour have been documented in complaints filed with the Ontario government.
Some like Charley and Anne Kelly who suffered no symptoms when away from the turbine moved out of their new home on Stickle St. at a significant loss to protect their health. The president of Unifor met Mr. Kelly, acknowledged his health concerns but refused to attribute them to his turbine.
New homes continue to be built in this same area where realtors are mandated to warn buyers of the presence of a wind turbine for noise issues. 15-20 % of the population are sensitive to feeling the health effects of inaudible low frequency noise exposure. Our Community Complaint Analysis of the first 600 complaints bore this out to be true.
After record numbers of complaints were filed and protests held, in 2014 the then Ontario government changed the turbine regulations so that a turbine like Unifor’s could never be built again without the minimum 550 m provincial safety setback from homes. But the government grandfathered the harm allowing it to continue versus shutting the turbine down.
After four years of purposeful, government condoned non testing of noise levels the Unifor turbine was noise tested and found to be emitting illegally high levels of audible noise. To this day Unifor is allowed to continue turbine operations without third party independent testing. Unifor says it’s now within the 45 dB noise limit yet the harm and complaints continue unabated.
Saugeen Shores council must enact changes to the official plan and pass related bylaws preventing this human catastrophe from happening again somewhere else in Saugeen Shores.
We implore council to continue its support of the area residents’ goal of the Ontario government mandating a shutdown of the turbine located in our cottage / resort neighbourhood.
STOP whose resident members have spent in excess of $150,000 proving the harm, continues to lobby the provincial government to cease operations of this now illegally sited industrial wind turbine.
Greg Schmalz
Founder STOP?
President – Beachers Organization Port Elgin
