The first round of noise studies is in from Kingdom Community Wind, the contentious wind-energy development straddling a ridgeline between Lowell and Albany.
The verdict?
For the most part, the 21 Vestas turbines strung along the spine of the Lowell Mountains did not generate enough noise to violate the conditions under which the Public Service Board approved the Green Mountain Power project. But in a few instances, noise at the remote Northeast Kingdom wind project did spike high enough to violate GMP’s permit.
That’s according to a report GMP filed yesterday (PDF) with the PSB. Wind opponents and neighbors, however, aren’t satisfied with the study, and say the noise generated by the 400-foot-tall turbines is still loud enough to disrupt the quality of life for nearby residents.
“I don’t call it that we have a quality of life anymore,” says Shirley Nelson, who along with her husband, Don, lives on more than 580 acres on the eastern slope of the Lowell Mountains. Their property borders the Lowell project, and the Nelsons have been vocal opponents of it. The Nelsons and GMP are entangled in a lawsuit over disputed ownership along a section of the ridgeline.
“I sometimes wake up with headaches, and can’t sleep the night through anymore. My ears ring almost constantly when the turbines are going,” says Shirley Nelson.
Don Nelson likened the noise inside the couple’s farmhouse to the sound of rushing water. Outside, he says, the turbines sound like “a jet plane on the horizon.” The noise isn’t steady, the Nelsons say, but pulses in and out. Nearby neighbors, they say, have to run a fan at night in order to block out the turbine noise and get to sleep.
One condition of GMP’s permit to operate the wind farm is that sound levels not exceed 45 decibels outside of any existing homes near the project and 30 decibels in interior bedrooms. (GMP equates 45 decibels to the ambient noise level inside a library.) The utility must collect noise measurements from the project for at least two weeks, four times a year, for the first two years of operation. GMP hired White River Junction-based Resource Systems Group, Inc., to collect and analyze the first round of noise data, and submitted the data to a third party for confirmation that it was sufficient for a thorough analysis.
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Sounds like some people are just being WAY too sensitive…don’t they have lives?
Sounds like you are being too sensitive. Can’t tolerate criticism of these behemoth industrial turbines?
Every article on the Lowel turbines includes that image. Is that a picture or a digital simulation? It looks a little suspect.
The younger people in favor of the turbines probably don’t own property.or plan to be transient enough so that if somehing like this is placed near their residence they can move.
So the neighbors run a fan to cover the sounds of.. well basically a giant fan?
What is the PSB doing about Burlington Telecom’s continued multiple violations of its Certificate of Public Good that the previous PSB Head said was being done with “wanton disregard”? Are they still getting a pass with impunity because of all the “protected players” and politicians involved?
No, I really don’t think Ms. Smith actually has a life. That’s why she does what she does. Which is, go around and get involved in other people’s business to oppose everything. She’s a paid opposer.