“More and more people are describing their lives as unbearable when they are directly exposed to the acoustic and optical effects of wind farms. There are reports of people being signed off sick and unfit for work, there is a growing number of complaints about symptoms such as pulse irregularities

There are reports of people being signed off sick and unfit for work, there is a growing number of complaints about symptoms such as pulse irregularities and states of anxiety, which are known from the effects of infrasound (sound of frequencies below the normal audible limit).

Extract from The Darmstadt Manifesto

DEFRA recently commissioned research by Casella Stanger into the hazards of 'infrasound' - frequencies of 20 cycles per second or less (well below the lowest note on a piano).

It identifies infrasound as a source of stress-related illness, and cites wind turbines amongst the common hazards.

As yet, Environmental Health Officers are ill equipped to measure levels and effects of infrasound pollution.

A criminal suit has been allowed to go forward in Ireland against the owner and operator of a wind plant for noise violations of their environmental law.

Also in Ireland, a developer has been forced to compensate a homeowner for loss of property value, and many people have had their tax valuation reduced.

In the Lake District of northwest England, a group has sued the owner and operator of the Askam wind plant, claiming it is ruining their lives.

The Danish government has cancelled plans for three offshore windfarms planned for 2008 and has scheduled the withdrawal of subsidies from existing sites. Development of onshore wind plants in Denmark has effectively stopped.

Spain began withdrawing subsidies in 2002.

Germany is considering ending subsidies to wind power.

Switzerland also is cutting subsidies as too expensive for the lack of significant benefit.

The Danish government has stopped erecting onshore turbines because of the health problems associated with noise.

Dr Bridget Osborne, a doctor in Moel Maelogan, north Wales, where three turbines were erected in 2002, has presented a paper to the Royal College of General Practitioners in which she reported a marked increase of depression suffered by local people.

Research by Dr Amanda Harry showed that all but one of the 14 people living near the Bears Down wind farm in Cornwall had experienced increased incidents of headaches, and 10 said they had problems sleeping and suffered from anxiety.

According to Dr Harry, a local GP in the area, there was a range of reported symptoms from headaches, migraines, nausea, dizziness, palpitations and tinnitus to sleep disorders, stress anxiety and depression.

New medical studies indicate that onshore wind farms can be a health hazard to people living nearby because of the low-frequency noise.

The civic authorities in Palm Springs, USA, as early as the late 1980s made developers move turbines to a distance of half a mile from the highway for safety reasons.

Apart from the danger of blades becoming detached or disintegrating, there is a risk that lumps of ice can form on them in still cold weather and then be thrown significant distances when the wind gets up and the blades begin to move.

"In those areas where icing of blades does occur, fragments of ice might be released from the blades when the machine is started."

Residents living 500 m and more from the park have reacted strongly to the noise; (and) residents up to 1900m distance expressed annoyance

“Effects of the wind profile at night on wind turbine sound” (Journal of Sound and Vibration, 277 (2004), G. P. Van den Berg, a physicist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands

From the point of view of the national economy the develop- ment of wind energy is far from being the "success story" it is often claimed to be. On the contrary, it puts a strain on the economy as it is still unprofitable with a low energy yield on the one hand and high investment costs on the other.”