Stephen Ambrose Presents: Wind Turbine Harm
In his slide show revisiting the Bruce McPherson (memorial) study, acoustician Stephen Ambrose demonstrated the shell game used to hide the impacts of wind turbines felt by nearby residents. Rob Rand collaborated on producing this quick, accessible series of images depicting where the harm lurks. Both Rand and Ambrose experienced adverse health effects while studying the Webb turbine from the home of Sue and Ed Hobart in Falmouth.
Ambrose, who is INCE Board Certified, prepared “Wind Turbine Harm” as testimony for the Falmouth Zoning Board of Appeals hearing on March 6, 2014. His presentation was not projected, but was distributed at the hearing–in support of the claim brought by the Hobarts that the Webb Research (Notus) Turbine is a nuisance. The hearing was continued to May 1, 2014.
This “Bruce McPherson Study Epilogue” has also been submitted to the MassDEP Wind Turbine and Noise Technical Advisory Group (WNTAG), of which Stephen Ambrose is a member. The last meeting was held on March 7, 2014 and materials have not yet been posted on the WNTAG web site. Unfortunately, “neither infrasound nor low frequency is being addressed by WNTAG,” according to the minutes of the initial meeting held in July 2013.
The original study funded by Bruce McPherson was subsequently published in 2012 as “Wind turbine acoustic investigation: infrasound and low frequency noise – A case study,” a peer-reviewed article in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society.
Wind Wise ~ Massachusetts 
Notice the slide titled “VESTAS V82 Electric Power Output”, and on that slide “Vestas Guaranteed 2005, Shear 0.13”. In Fairhaven, at night after midnight, when people are trying to sleep, Shear can climb close to 1.00. With a shear of 0.13, when turbine noise is near maximum, the wind noise on the ground is extremely high to drown out most of the turbine noise as developers claim when applying for permits.
With a shear of 1.00, when the wind turbine noise is near maximum, There is no wind noise on the ground to drown out the turbine noise. The only noise one hears is the whoosh, whoosh, pounding of the wind turbine blades going by. Those are the sleepless nights that make people sick, and those must be the sleepless nights when wind turbine noise has been found to be out of legal compliance.
There is evidence that in Fairhaven, nighttime wind shear close to 1.00 can happen more than 100 nights of the year. So, when the developer says that the he will turn the turbine down or off for a few days when the wind is low, and authorities accept that as mitigation, it is clear that they do not understand the magnitude of the problem, and the sleepless nights will continue.