Richard R. James' testimony before the Wellington City Council in regard to modeled noise predictions for a Meridian Energy Ltd. wind energy facility.

In 2008, the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation ('MPAC') assessed the 1,320-square-foot house owned by Paul Thompson at $255,000. Mr. Thompson, sought a reduction in the house value from MPAC due to noise from Canadian Hydro Developers' transformer station built 360 meters from his front door. The station services the nearby Melancthon I wind energy facility consisting of 133 wind turbines located in Melancthon and Amaranth townships in Ontario Canada. Thompson was denied the reduction and he appealed to the Assessment Review Board ('ARB'). The ARB found in favor of Mr. Thompson's appeal and issued an order to reduce the assessment of his property to $127,000, a 50% drop in value. The report found "There is evidence that noise contaminations exists without any apparent cure." The documentation explaining the property value reduction can be accessed by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

Cavanaugh Tocci Associates (CTA) was hired by the Town of Clayton NY to review the noise analysis prepared by Iberdrola/PPM for the Clayton wind farm project. CTA's report was delivered to the town on February 15, 2008 but refused by the Town Board with objections that the report was too technical. CTA was asked to prepare an executive summary of their report. The executive summary of the report can be accessed by clicking on the link below. To date, the town has refused to release the full CTA report to the residents of Clayton or to the Planning Board.

This paper, prepared by community noise experts George Kamperman and Richard R. James, was presented at the 2008 International Noise Conference held in Dearborn, Michigan. The abstract of the paper appears below. The full body of the report can be accessed by clicking on the link below.

This paper, presented at the Noise-Con 2008 in Dearborn, MI discusses the limitations of Ray-Tracing software in predicting noise levels. Ray-tracing software is used to model noise levels on industrial wind turbines.

Many of the complaints in the UK relating to wind farm noise appear to be due to the amplitude modulation (AM) of the aerodynamic noise from the blades, sometimes referred to as "swish" or "thump". Dick Bowdler explores the existing evidence and summarizes how the totality of what people experience when listening to wind turbine noise is really dependent on operating modes, weather, and even the location of the listener with respect to the turbines and the wind.

Abstract of a paper to be presented before the NOISE-CON 2008 conference Dearborn, Michigan 2008 July 28-31

The Windfarm perception project shows that the sound of wind turbines causes relatively much annoyance. The sound is perceived at relatively low levels and is thought to be more annoying than equally loud air or road traffic. This may be caused by the swishing character of the sound or because at night it does not decrease in strength -which is usually the case for traffic noise. Also in this study more disturbance of sleep occurs at the highest sound levels that occurred in this study. ...In the WINDFARM perception project, supervised by Frits van den Berg, the perception was investigated of modern, tall wind turbines by Dutch residents. The study shows that sound from wind farms is an important disadvantage of wind energy which in itself is positively appreciated by a majority of the participants.

The Brownsville Diary: Entries of a noise log kept by a Brownsville, Wisconsin family living 3/4 miles east of South Byron in Fond Du Lac County, Wisconsin. The new wind turbines have just gone on line there.