Author Archives: Jess Bidgood

March 10, 2011 | 4:27 PM | By

Extended Interview: ‘What Can We Learn From Falmouth?’

We heard from Liz Argo in this morning’s story, The Falmouth Experience: The Green Debate. Argo is a Cape Cod resident who has been a wind and renewable energy advocate since 2003. She has worked in sales and management for renewable energy and is now a renewable energy consultant. She’s been a vocal advocate for onshore wind. You can read or hear more of her interview here (and don’t miss our extended interview with wind opponent Eric Bibler, too).

Liz Argo: None of us want to throw Falmouth under the bus, but what can we learn from Falmouth?

As we go forward, there has to be a certain degree of conservatism that’s brought into doing a sound study. The parameters that guide what you are looking at — maybe those need to be adjusted.

What happened in Falmouth has very definitely made doing any well-sited wind project on Cape Cod nearly impossible right now.

Falmouth has proven that it comes right up against current the sound levels that are acceptable. We know why now: It’s an older turbine technology that is noisier and it’s a quieter environment. So 10 dB there over ambient (sound) — that’s probably little bit more than family should have to as we go forward. I think we’ll see as we go forward and that the sound level will be lowered. Instead of having 10 db over you might have 8 db over or less.

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FILED UNDER: Mitigation, The Falmouth Experience, wind energy
March 10, 2011 | 4:26 PM | By

Extended Interview: ‘The Towns Are Conflicted’

In The Falmouth Experience: The Green Debate, Sean Corcoran spoke to an activist from each side of the onshore-wind debate. We want you to hear more about both sides of the story, so we’re bringing you extended interviews with wind advocate Liz Argo and wind opponent Eric Bibler. Eric Bibler is a vocal opponent of onshore wind. He lives in Western Connecticut and is the president of Save Our Seashore, based in Wellfleety, Mass. Read and listen below.


Eric Bibler: There are thousands and thousands of people around the world reporting empirically that they were fine before the wind turbines were installed and they are no longer fine. They have symptoms that vary from person to person, but the list of symptoms is relatively consistent and consists of sleep depreivation, which is a recognized health issue, headaches and ringing in the ears.

(There’s also) so-called flicker, which is a very intense strobe-like fact which is almost intolerable. Its very, very disrupting, people can’t function normally. It’s as if someone’s turning the light switch on and off every second. People have a low tolerance for that. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Mitigation, The Falmouth Experience, wind energy
March 7, 2011 | 3:30 PM | By

Extended Interview: ‘You Can’t Be Forcing These On People’

In Part One of his series, The Falmouth Experience: The Trouble With One Town’s Wind Turbine, WGBH radio reporter Sean Corcoran spoke to Neil Andersen, a Falmouth resident who says the nearby wind turbine has had catastrophic effects on his health. Here’s more of their conversation, plus a series of photos of the log Andersen and his wife keep of the noise and its effects on them.

Neil Anderson sits in his kitchen. Anderson says the noise from the wind turbine near his Falmouth home has caused emotional and physiological problems for he and his wife.

Jess Bidgood/WGBH

Neil Andersen sits in his kitchen. Andersen says the noise from the wind turbine near his Falmouth home has caused emotional and physiological problems for he and his wife.

Neil Andersen: We knew there was a turbine going over there, we were not notified of any meetings or any type of concerns. In other words, there was no input from this residence.

I am an energy conservationist, I’ve had my own passive solar building company for 35 years. I was actually looking forward to that turbine being erected there. Although when it went up it was quite astounding the size of it.

I was proud looking at it from this viewpoint until it started turning. And it is dangerous, Sean. Headaches. Loss of sleep. And the ringing in my ears is constant. Never goes away. That started probably in May. It’s a constant reminder of that thing. I can look at it all day long, and it does not bother me. It’s quite majestic. But it’s way too close.

Sean Corcoran: How long after it started to spin did you start feeling some sort of symptoms?

The sign at the end of the Andersons' driveway, which is just over 1,000 feet away from the turbine.

Jess Bidgood/WGBH

The sign at the end of the Andersens' driveway, which is just over 1,000 feet away from the turbine.

Myself, it took me about a month and a half, maybe two months, to manifest all the symptoms. First it was the pressure in the head. The ears popping for no reason at all. Trying to get the water out of your ears and there was no water there. My wife, the first day, she feels it and notices it, and she feels it and notices it every day.

People talk about the noise, it gets loud. It gets jet-engine loud from this point right here. But the noise is the minimum component of that turbine. There is a pressure involved that gets into your ear, like you’re climbing at altitude in an airplane and your ears pop.

And there is a low-frequency pulse that particularly drives me crazy and some of the neighbors around here. It is a once-per-second low-frequency pulse, and it messes up your vestibular organs in your inner ear. And gives you a sense of off-balance and vertigo.

We both have signs of these symptoms. Headaches. My wife gets headaches three or four times a week, she wakes up with a headaches. She’s actually sleeping in a back bedroom right now with earplugs and a white noise machine trying to mask the sound. But it is really not doing any good because the sound just comes right through the windows, right through the insulation, right through the earplugs. And the pulse is right there.

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FILED UNDER: Mitigation, health, The Falmouth Experience, wind energy