wind energy

There are many opinions about wind energy and this seems to be a proper place to air them.
When the 'wind people' first came to our area our feeling was that of course we would sign up, the only question was with whom would we sign?
But the idea that all a person had to do was sign a contract, sit back and let the money roll in seemed a little far fetched to me. So it was research time. That coupled with the problem that at least one representative goes from neighbor to neighbor with what have been outright lies has made a few of us pause before we get on board.
There is a site called Industrial Wind Action that is very good, they have a spot with editorials that is very interesting, but the most interesting to me is the weekly post of wind issues from around the world, some are simply what is getting started and where. Some show the problems that wind farms have. For example i had no idea how many liens have been filed against landowners if a wind corp. does not pay it's bills. Or the lawsuits filed against landowners from neighbors who are bothered by the constant hum, whose homes have been damaged by ice throws etc. It is easier to go after a landowner than a corporation, and even if the suit comes to nothing, the land owner still has attorneys fees etc. to deal with, so the $$$ made can disappear quickly.
I know that there are lots of people who favor wind energy and I have read some of those opinions here. This just shows another aspect.
industrialwindaction.org

I hadn't thought about some of these things. There certainly is risk involved, and a lot to research before moving out. Thanks for bringing this up. Glad your group is out there -- Keep doing what you're doing for us!

As a sincere person who acts on their beliefs what actions have you been taking to stop local wind projects?

You have been looking into things, then have there been any problems with the new projects in our MN SD area? A lot of early wind turbine problems have been solved by design and setback distances. South Dakota just passed legislation to prevent any lien on lands due to wind easements, but you already knew that I am sure. We would all like to hear from people adversely impacted by our up to date local projects.

I am concerned about your charge that representatives of Summit Wind have lied to the neigbors. What's the lie? I invested a small amount of money in that project, as you all know and I take this seriously. What were the "outright lies"?

I have not done anything to stop local wind projects. It will mostly affect people who live in the hills and that would be up to them to organize and oppose.
Some of us are opposed to transmission lines on county 4, too close to too many homes and last year a california study backed up previous studies that childhood leukemia, miscarriage and ALS rates rise sharply when people live too close to these lines.
North Dakota passed a law on liens on landowners, but they cannot stop regular lawsuits.
I have been talking to people in western mn about the effects on individuals and communities. Even with new equipment there are problems. This whole thing seems as though it will eventually cause huge rate increases to fund.
Grant County's setback rule is already out of date, that is my opinion.
The summit wind people have told at least three of my neighbors that everyone west of them had signed an easement, completely untrue. One also told a neighbor that they would just get permission to build in the right of way and not pay them anything, which according to an e-mail from another rep and a couple of phone calls to commissioners is also untrue. The funniest is someone had a concern about irrigation and a water/line connection. He was told that water did not conduct electricity. Some people who started out completely supportive have changed their minds by what they feel is shady behavior, this is not me, this is other neighbors.
From almost the begining i feel it is an expensive, inefficient, faddish and wasteful effort. Again, my opinion, but it is the result of a lot of study.

The truth is in the details. Water is a very poor conductor of electricy. dissolved salts conducts electricity. Salt water conducts electricity very well, distilled water not.
Running around calling a simple true statement a lie, instead of straighting it out while you are there(if you were there and it's not hearsay) or looking it up in a book first isn't looking out for your neighbors.

If you wanted people to read the California study then you would tell people where they could read it. Why leave out the details such as author, title and web site? This study should be making headlines according to your post.

The World Health Organization has a web site and on it is a review and research about electromagnetic fields form power lines. Not every study pertains to power lines of the size in the Summit wind project. We drive under higher capacity lines that cross I-29 South of Watertown. So check it out and let us know what you think the safe distance is from the proposed transmission line. There is regulation of power line construction and the project meets all of those safety regs.

I heard second hand that farmers on the flats were planning to hold up the transmission line because they don't want the little ranches in the hills to get the extra cash from turbing easments. It's just a rumor.

actually there are people in grant county who have moved their irrigators because of sparking when water and the lines met up w/eachother.
i have shared the california study with people who live near the proposed line site. it is not hard to find.
there are some places on county 4 where lines will go right over peoples homes.
when my neighbors tell me what was said, i believe them,especially when the same thing is said by more than one person.
no one that i know wishes any harm to people in the hills, heck, if it is all as it appears to be, we would stand to make some $$$ ourselves.

As I grew up as a kid I remember a protest near Glenwood Minnesota who claimed that transmission-power lines caused harm to milking operations and crop farming. People were shot at and arrests were made.

A few years later in college we debated whether power lines caused harm to people, livestock and crops.

The research was at best difficult because most of the studies done were done by colleges or universities paid for the power companies.

We debated about one-half of the year when a study from USSR should all kinds of harm created by the power lines.

I cannot find this study and was completed long before the internet was a word. Sorry I am confessing my age! Has anybody seen this study or a good study like this regarding wind energy and the transmission of power lines?

The california study is impossible to find if you jealously guard the author, title, publication date and journal.
Why keep a study secret that says our common power lines cause disease ? Maybe the paper refers to setback distances and sizes of lines that aren't even in the local projects.

Yes we have to manage irrigation , livestock, people, metal buildings around all power lines. That's why easements are paid. But it is still true that the electrical properties of water that we observe are due to the impurities in the water and not the water.

I'm going to let this thread go since the studies that show power lines can be managed safely will be discounted because power companies fund some of them and the California study that shows unmanagable problems is some kind of nameless secret weapon.

No I am not coming back to see if the California reference is ever cited. No I do not want private correspondence about public safety issues.

Enjoy yourselves without me for awhile. It's summer.

You see neither side of this debate is right or wrong, on one side people say that the turbines and power lines increase the chance of disease but all the "studies" that were mention didn't take into account the genetics of the people and other outside factors. Studies can be twisted and way you want and the only way to get the truth is to put on your overalls and get outside and see for yourself. But the Pro side is not entirely right their are problems with the turbines including the flicker effect and their appearances which may decrease land value. But the best we can do is develop new technology and pass laws that improve the quality of life for everyone. My personal vision is that wind energy will make SD great but it can't do so yet without the cooperation of everyone. Both sides should get the facts straight.

Childhood leukaemia risk doubles within 100 metres of high voltage power lines



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Find other articles on: "california study of transmission lines"


The biggest ever publicly funded UK study (1) into power lines and child cancer has found that children under the age of 15 living within 100 metres of high-voltage power lines have close to twice the risk of developing leukaemia. Children aged 0-5 are the most vulnerable so their risk is likely to be even higher.

This result from the OXFORD CHILDHOOD CANCER RESEARCH GROUP study, headed by Gerald Draper analysed and compared 33 years of data (from1962 to1995) on 35,000 children diagnosed with cancer, with their distance to the nearest electricity transmission line. These latest findings from the Draper study of a direct effect on childhood leukaemia from U.K. power lines follow from the acknowledged International studies that the risk of childhood leukaemia is doubled for magnetic field exposures above 0.4 microtesla, well below that seen under high voltage powerlines.

We have learned that " preliminary results" of the latest Draper study, funded to run from 1997-2001 were known as long as 3 years ago and were formally shown confidentially to the U.K. Department of Health in May 2003, but to date has not as yet been entrusted to the public.

We of the Trentham Environmental Action Campaign, an independent research and activist group, concerned about adverse health effects from power-lines, believe it to be absolutely scandalous that 3 years after telling the Department of Health of these latest U.K. findings, it is only as a consequence of our intervention that we are now able to make these findings public.

There appears to have been a determination to withhold the Draper Report for as long as possible.

Trentham has a high voltage powerline crossing many of the houses and there are a significant number of households with young children within 100 metres of the line. Our concerns are also shared by REVOLT, Powerwatch and Electromagnetic Hazard and Therapy, organisations which have also voiced concerns about the health risks of electromagnetic fields for many years.

Our campaign group has been in constant contact with the Government, Mr George Hooker at the Department of Health and the National Radiological Protection Board [NRPB]. We have also been deeply disappointed in the organisations' continuing denial of the problem despite their knowing about these new study results. The NRPB already acknowledges that there is international consensus on the fact that the incidence of childhood leukaemia is doubled at a magnetic field of 0.4 microtesla, which is exceeded under most powerlines. In March 2004, the NRPB reduced the national magnetic field exposure guidelines from 1,600 microtesla to 100 microtesla [3].

They said "In the light of these findings (the association between exposure to magnetic fields and childhood leukaemia) and the requirement for additional research, the need for further precautionary measures should be considered by government". However, 100 microtesla is still 250 times higher than the level (0.4 microtesla) at which the risk of developing childhood leukaemia is doubled.









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Electromagnetic fields from powerlines are also linked to adult cancers, depression and suicide. Our Trentham group carried out a local survey which produced extremely worrying results. Depression, miscarriages, headaches, insomnia (with its attendant chronic health problems due to immune system damage) were much more common in the people who lived near the powerline, compared with those who lived further away. Some of these health problems were also found in the important California Health Department report [4] of 2002.

The leukaemia link has now been repeatedly demonstrated. The government should take our nation's health seriously enough to stop allowing houses to be built near high-voltage lines and to remove overhead powerlines from residential areas.

The Minister for Housing and Planning, Keith Hill, in a letter dated July 2004, said "We are aware that there is continuing debate about the effect of living under power lines and whether this can have adverse long-term health effects.

We are of the opinion that power lines are unlikely to have significant effects on the environment". Is this a government statement about people's health or about the environment? Is this confusion, or spin?

It is time the government and planners took the health issue seriously, and reversed their policy of favouring developers, clearly ignoring the risk to children's health. New housing near powerlines should be restricted, and existing lines through residential areas phased out.

Only 50 years ago developing childhood leukaemia was an almost certain death sentence. Due to dramatic improvements in treatment, about 80% of children who suffer from the most common form of childhood leukaemia (ALL, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia) now live for more than 5 years after treatment, but childhood leukaemia remains the largest child killer disease. Survivors often suffer ongoing adverse health complications. The number of children developing leukaemia has been steadily growing over the last 50 years. In 2001, Dr Sam Milham reported [5] a link between the growth in electricity supply and the growth in leukaemia incidence in the USA.

We ignore this at our peril.

[1] Draper G, Vincent T, Kroll M & Swanson J - Childhood cancer and electromagnetic field exposures from powerlines - Department of Health funded 1997-2001, RRX 46 (as yet still unpublished)

[2] International Scientific Conference on the incidence, causal mechanisms and prevention of childhood leukaemia and other cancers. Westminster, 6-10th September 2004. See: http://www.leukaemiaconference.org

[3] See: http://www.nrpb.org for details of their announcements and downloadable publications

[4] Neutra R R, DelPizzo V & Lee G M - An Evaluation of the possible risks from electric and magnetic fields (EMFs) from power lines, internal wiring, electrical occupations & appliances, 2002, California Department of Health & Human Services, The Program, Oakland, California. http://www.dhs.ca.gov/ehib/emf/RiskEvaluation/riskeval.html
See commentary
on: http://www.electric-fields.bris.ac.uk

[5] Milham S & Ossiander E M - Historical evidence that residential electrification caused the emergence of the childhood leukaemia peak Medical Hypotheses, 2001, 56(3) 290-295

Further information about powerlines and health problems (including the Trentham survey) can be found on the following websites

TEAC http://www.revolt.co.uk/trentham Media (only) Tel: 01782 658648 Mobile 07963915428 ( Maureen A)

EMH&T http://www.em-hazard-therapy.com Simon Best 01730 816 799 (media only)

Powerwatch http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/contents.asp

REVOLT http://www.revolt.co.uk

IF this study were complete then why haven't these facts been proven before. Transmition lines have been around for more then 10 years so if this study had any merit it would show that this had been going on longer than when the study was done. Leukemia would be a a much larger disease than it is now.

Actually studies have been around for a long time. Read any of the books by Brouder or The Body Electric by Becker.
As to why leukemia is not more prevalent, I would use this analogy...
smoking is widely regarded as being a major cause of lung cancer. I have known many, many people who smoke, and only a couple who have died from lung cancer.

SO are you saying that you know the cause of leukemia because if you do Hallelujah praise the lord. Also your analogy still does not make sense as to some of the books I've read that state other causes for leukemia including age, genetics or life style choices (i.e. obesity and and bad dietary habits).

The logic of mythoughts and flame are confusing and misleading. I think they are saying, " I am from the government and I am here to help you."

The people of Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Florida all believed that self serving business and government bought and paid for looked out for only themselves.

Big business can be as bad as big government, especially when big business buys big government.

If you want to make this area look like the Gulf Coast this forum will always oppose bad decisions. Whether they are made by those who support big business or big government.