The following testimony was given on April 30, 2007 to the Maine legislature by Wendy Todd of Aroostook County, Maine. Ms. Todd lives near the Mars Hill wind "farm,” which went on-line in the winter of 2007. An excerpt of her testimony is included below. The full testimony can be downloaded by clicking on the link.

My husband and I, on a visit to Prince Edward Island, took a drive to the north shore to stand under the turbines there and found them not to be intrusive. We felt we had enough proof on the issue of noise that we went ahead and built our home. We figured that if we could deal with the aesthetics and the construction phase that we would be fine.

If we had known then what we know now or if we had been made aware of the noise section of the permit with the sound analysis from Resource Systems Engineering [RSE, of Brunswick, Maine], we would never have built where we did. The report from RSE clearly stated that some residences would experience noise levels at or above Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) level limits.

Clear-cutting began in the fall of 2005. I believe the figure is 150 acres of land that was cleared. Heavy equipment started the process of developing roads, and in April of 2006 blasting started. We watched with heavy hearts as the North end peak was literally blown away. No one ever notified us of the blasting, but our houses shook, silverware and dishes rattled, and sheet rock dust fell as it took place. Soon the huge trucks arrived with the components of the wind turbines. Traffic was interrupted which made daily comings and goings difficult....

In early December, #9 turbine was turned on and some residents thought immediately that something was wrong. The noise from just that one turbine was unbelievable. That is when residents began to make calls, first to UPC, then to the town and then to the Dept. of Environmental Protection.

It's hard to understand, but we are not getting used to the noise from the wind farm as we were once able to do with the traffic and jet noise at our old house. In an attempt to figure out why, we started researching the topic and I finally called a noise expert out of Massachusetts, who was able to explain why the noises that come from wind turbines are so offensive. I can't begin to repeat what he said here, but I made copies for you of the papers he recommended that basically demonstrate how complex the issue really is, and how the developers had no right to tell us there would be no noise problems.

Are there other issues with wind turbines? Yes.

Other testimony by Wendy Todd can be read here.

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WendyToddTestimony07-04-30.pdf (247.02 kB)