The non-profit, Sante Fe, New Mexico-based Institute, a spin-off from EarthEar.com, a company that produces recordings of natural “soundscape art,” has been producing reports on wind farm noise since 2010.
The new study, Wind Farm Noise 2011: A Science and Policy Overview, was written by organization founder Jim Cummings, who says his goal is to “make sense of the incongruous perspectives that seem to dominate the discourse” over wind farm impacts.
“On the one hand,” Cummings writes, “wind boosters minimize the extent and effect of noise near wind farms, insisting there’s nothing to bother ourselves over, while on the other hand, increasing numbers of apparently clear-headed citizens say their quality of life is destroyed by the incessant noise of nearby turbines.”
He goes on to ask, “Is wind energy a benign key to our energy future, or a scourge in our communities that we’ll live to regret?”
Cummings takes pains to point out that he’s not looking to stymie the proliferation of wind farms in the US, but what becomes clear over the course of the report’s 54 pages is that he’s definitely come to believe that some settings should be “taken off the table” when it comes to future wind farm development – those populated areas where the addition of turbine noise would prove most bothersome to residents.
The tools for making that happen, he says, are new land development regulations that would establish mandatory buffers between wind farms and communities, and noise regulations geared to the expectations and desires of local communities.
While Cummings cites (without footnotes) that some have said a minimum buffer of 2 kilometres to 3 kilometres might be required between wind farms and homes, he also points out that 2000 feet to a half mile might also be appropriate to mitigate the impacts of audible blade swish.
Again, while he takes no definitive position – preferring that research on the subject continue – Cummings does suggest that a buffer of at least 3,000 feet might be appropriate in some cases.
When also notes that while for much of the country, a recommended noise limit of 55 decibels (45 decibels at night) would assure complaints about wind farms were sporadic or nonexistent, the US
Environmental Protection Agency has suggested that limits 5 decibels to 10 decibels lower might be appropriate for communities that are not accustomed to the addition of noise, whatever the source.
Cummings acknowledges that striking the right balance will likely be a lengthy process.
“New noise sources often spurt a decade-long evolution of noise standards as previous standards are initially assumed to be sufficient are gradually seen to not fully apply to the new situation,” he says.
In the introduction to his paper, Cummings notes that the issue of wind turbine noise “has exploded in importance over the past few years as wind developers set their sites… [on locations] where individual parcels [of land] are smaller and a significant portion of the population holds a strong passion for the peace and quiet of rural living.
“Most wind advocates, including regional renewable energy organizations, appear to continue to be in a state of disbelief about the noise turbines make and that they can be an issue to the nearby neighbors,” he writes.
Meanwhile, “Most community groups are over-reaching in their approach to raising the issue of noise by focusing too much of their argument on possible health impacts of wind turbine noise exposure”.
But he adds, “Even if these more dire experiences are rare and unlikely to happen to most wind farm neighbors, that doesn’t change the fact that high proportions of nearby neighbors in many communities say that the turbine noise has been an unpleasant and disruptive intrusion into their lives.”
Cummings says that in his travels around the US, he’s encountered many wind farms in the wide open spaces of New Mexico, Texas, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Wyoming, that seem to be “totally right for their place.”
Opining that “building [wind farms] close to neighbors is just plain rude,” Cummings said the most constructive and widely beneficial path forward would be to shift toward larger set back requirements that include easements that allow turbines to be built closer to landowners who agree to it.
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