From: mike Date: Mon, Jun 7, 2021 at 9:43 PM Subject: Local Research on air and seismic pulses and waves from Industrial Wind Turbinesind To: EnvironmentalHealth@ontario.ca , christine.elliott@ontario.ca , helen.angus@ontario.ca , briana.maguire@ontario.ca , mitchelle.rozario@ontario.ca , Isaac.Apter@ontario.ca , aaron.silver@ontario.ca Cc: rjmekker@gmail.com Dear Sir or Madam; My name is Michael West. I am a 37-year Geophysicist working in the field of seismic exploration techniques. Please see the attached research article published in the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists' Recorder Magazine, June 2019 edition, that explains the existence of the large, very low frequency seismic and air pulses emanating from every Industrial Wind Turbines (IWTs) approximately once every second, 24 hours a day (also found at the link www. https://csegrecorder.com/articles/view/the-industrial-wind-turbine-seismic-source). Also attached is Appendix A, with test displays that were not included in the published article for brevity. The pulses have high amplitude in the 4 to 20 Hz range and the very low frequencies do not diminish much in amplitude over 4 or 5 kilometres. At certain locations on the ground the pulses are enhanced to higher amplitude due to constructive interference. We call these locations constructive nodes. It's too bad for you if your ear parts are already sensitive to these low frequency pulses (due to ear parts wearing out over time or some high amplitude sound or vibrations over the years)... and your house happens to be in a constructive node. This can turn your house into a “reverse subwoofer” with your head in the middle of it. For example, a typical house “box” length (15 m) is about half the wavelength of a 11 Hz pulse at air velocity, creating a “standing wave”). This amplifies the incoming low frequencies air waves (sound waves, really) even further making it unbearable to live or work there for some people. Some people experience a nausea, dizzy, nervous reaction which can be very intense (the Ossicle bones trying to save themselves from being broken, I suspect). Even for those who do not experience the reaction (yet), the ear parts are being vibrated which can result in the “worn-out” ear parts, so you may eventually experience the nausea etc. This damaging of ear parts from the vibrations of sound waves has little to do with whether you can hear or perceive a sound or not, and everything to do with the shear amount and amplitude of vibrations. Low frequency events of this type are particularly dangerous due to the properties of resonance, reflections and refractions that can increase the pulse or wave amplitude dramatically and quickly at certain locations and periods. Thus the fact that you cannot hear most of the very low frequency pulses (you can hear parts of them in places, though) makes the problem even worse as a person does not know what is hitting them until they figure out the relation to wind speed and direction associated with the high-amplitude events. The frequency range required for recording and measuring wind turbine “noise” must include the frequencies down to 2 Hz. These pulses are also called “Infrasound Pulses” (infrasound simply means below the frequencies of hearing) because you cannot hear most of the pulse energy. The IWT is actually an “impulsive source”, like a seismic airgun, and not a whirring noise machine like a milling machine. You would probably realize how dangerous and unwise it would be to have a company mount 4 x 100 cubic inch seismic airguns on on top of 10 x 100 meter high towers around a residential area to have them firing low frequency pulses and waves outwards every second of the day and night. Well.... that is exactly the equivalent of what is actually happening in rural, residential, agricultural SW Ontario. The IWT machine does not appear very ominous until you realize exactly how it is impacting us. At some proximity to an IWT within about 500 metres you can hear a low-level “whump” sound which is actually being made approximately every second by each IWT in the cluster when the blade passes the supporting column. The part of the whump that you cannot hear is about 5 to 10 times higher in amplitude than the low frequencies that you can hear, so it is actually mechanical energy of the air-pulse and the vibration and large displacement of the ear parts that is the problem phenomenon damaging the ear parts causing nausea, dizziness and nervous symptoms, creating stress and possibly affecting the immune system. These high amplitude, very low frequency pulse events occur both day and night while you are sleeping. That in itself is a very different noise scenario to most other man-made noise pollution. It's hard to understand why the IWT industry is allowed to run the IWTs at night. It seems that these machines have been grossly over-rated and actually misunderstood. I studied these large machines at close range during 2017 and 2018. The publications that state there are no health effects from these low-frequency pulses are just simply incorrect and the motivation seems to be higher profits to private wind companies and their CEOs, who undoubtedly do not live within the wind farms that they operate. The true costs (noise, loss of home, loss of real estate value, moving costs, deteriorating health)of the current IWT deployment strategy are not being recognized by Government or Industry, but are being born by the people affected personally by the IWT pulses. If all of these expenses were born by the Wind Companies, they would go out of business, and it is clearly not worth the expense to the people of Ontario, to operate IWTs in this manner, when the total costs are included in the evaluation of this IWT deployment strategy. Here is a summary of the facts to consider: The Industrial Wind Turbines (the key word here is appropriate... “Industrial”!) should not be closer than 8 kilometres to residential areas or homes. Who decided it was OK to put industrial machines in residential zoned areas? That is why we employ zoning.... to avoid this type of industrial abuse. IWT clusters in residential areas have poor array-response or “poor cancellation” of the horizontally travelling low frequency pulses and waves, due to their hap-hazard spatial layout from the use of small, leased parcels of land. The Government Techs or Acoustics Guys who measure the noise levels should be using testing for "impulsive sources" not for constant noise machines like diesel generators. The IWT is an impulsive noise source. The current methods used by Government and Industry are incorrect producing completely meaningless results because the low-frequency air pulses and waves have been "averaged out" of the frequency analysis of recorded "sound events" (audible and inaudible). Frequency analysis of recorded data need to take place over short lengths of time (like 1/3 of a second) after each "event of interest" has been identified on the time-domain data. Listening to the data and other analysis (not just frequency) should take place....like “what is this event? How often does it occur. What is it's amplitude?” etc. (Please see the attached file named IWTnoise-data-processing-artifacts.pdf) Testing needs to include frequencies all the way down to 2 Hz. Currently Ontario does not test or acknowledge any noise or pulses from IWTs with frequencies lower than 31 Hz! This is shameful abuse of the responsibility of so-called Professionals to show true, scientific presentations in true dimensions.... not fake ones. Testing using recorded air pulses from IWTs, played back through a sound system with sub-woofer has revealed that repeated bombardment by these low freq. air pulses will eventually wear out your ear parts, even if you are not currently affected by the bombardment.... and eventually the person can develop the sensitivity and the strange collection of debilitating symptoms similar to the package of symptoms associated with Barotitis and food poisoning.... as a result of the impact and vibration of the ear parts (organs). People should not be forced to drive through wind farms (as they are between Windsor and London, ON) because even when driving you can be bombarded by inaudible low-freq. pulses in the car, as the car speed is still less than 1/10th the speed of sound in air. People should be advised to use ear plugs or professional ear muffs for attenuating industrial noise, when working around a cluster of IWTs because the pulses are damaging the ear parts even though you cannot hear them. It is astounding that the Government allows workers to operate all day long in wind farms with noise levels over 60 dB in the very low frequencies. As stated before, damage to ear parts is done by prolonged vibration, whether you can hear or perceive a sound or not. Despite misinformation that the Acoustics Guys have been proliferating about "infrasound" (frequencies below hearing).... there are no infrasound or low frequency sound pulses and waves made by any other source, man-made or natural, that repeatedly creates pulses like an IWT does that can be viewed on recorded data in any rural residential or agricultural setting.... or anywhere for that matter. These pulses are quite unnatural and should not be bouncing around in the space where your head resides. One should realize that a cluster of 10 IWTs produces about 864,000 air pulses per day while operating both day and night. Some of those pulses get amplified and are bound to be encountered by people here and there. Low level exposure of just a few pulses (like when you encounter a high amplitude node in the field) can make you feel ill with recovery taking 3 hours. It can be quite debilitating with repeated exposure. High level exposure (like a really bad node or listening to recorded pulses too loud) can make you feel like you are dying and takes up to 8 hours to clear up.... from just 4 or 5 pulses. The claims that there are no health effects are just meaningless babble compared to the fact that people are reporting ill-health effects caused by impact and vibration of ear parts by very low frequency air pulses and waves. These ill-effects are well known to people who have worked with large sound systems with subwoofers, music synthesizers and disc jockeys who use both. People get extreme vertigo from the vibrations of listening too long and loud to ear-bud headphones. The lack of real research on the above phenomena, by the medical industry in Canada is like the denial that took place for decades leaving people with Lyme's disease to twist in the wind.... once again, due to ulterior motives. This 3-blade horizontal axis wind turbine is preferred by industry for it's ability to shed ice and to withstand severe weather. Unfortunately, intrinsic in the design of this wind turbine is the creation of the very low frequency air pulses and waves. It is surprising that more has not been done to improve the design of this turbine. Please see that attached document named “Pulse-Eliminator-for-IWTs.pdf” which shows a modification to the IWT design using hub extensions, that eliminates the low frequency air pulses. Please note that there is also attached a Windows Movie file with an animation of pulse travel paths and the sound track of real recorded air pulses from IWTs in Ontario (also the soundtrack in a .wav format file and a .jpg display file, showing recorded pulses). If you play this movie back on your computer plugged into an audiophile sound system (amplifier with response down to 5 Hz, like Harmon / Kardon 630 and a subwoofer rated down to 20Hz like the Celestion Trinity One).... or audiophile headphones directly into the computer (like Audio-Technica...ATH-T44).... after several plays at low volume, (so you can barely hear the “whump” at about 45 dB SPL.... (about as loud as your refrigerator or a quiet dishwasher at 1 meter) you will eventually feel the nauseous effects etc. after it gradually wears out your ear parts. Remember that the lower part of the “whump” that you cannot hear is 5 to 10 times higher amplitude than the part you can hear. (you do recover, but you may be "sensitive" for a long time). I suggest that you do this several times for a few minutes over a few days or as many times as it takes until you get the reaction creating the mild nausea and other effects (with about 3 hours to recover).... then you will know exactly what is going on in Ontario. Please do not listen to the audio of the movie file at high volume as the intensity of the ill-effects is proportional to the volume or loudness of the low frequency pulses you are listening to or that are encountering your ear parts. I made the mistake of listening to the audible part of the pulses using the amplifier and subwoofer mentioned above, at about 80 dB SPL (medium-loud music listening level).... and after about only 5 pulses it was like being hit in the head and stomach simultaneously with a baseball bat while somebody stuck knives in my head. I was buckled over, panting with racing heartbeat. The horrible sensations continued to increase in intensity for about 15 minutes. I was just about ready to call 911 because it felt like something was going out of control. But then it started to abate, so I just set about observing how long it takes to recover in that case (by going to bed of course and lying down). In that case it takes about 8 hours to recover and feel relatively able to operate. Please take all this information I have provided seriously. The physics of the IWTs and the very low frequency pulses they create have been described accurately. You will have to ignore the mountain of pseudo-science journalism and paid-skeptics' fantasy-domain arguments found on the internet. The Wind Industry uses unscrupulous tactics and cover-up pseudo-science to create a complex web of confusion and conflict for unsuspecting rural residents.... or even those living in small towns. These hopeful citizens never dreamed that their Green Solution would get hi-jacked by unethical people, in order to make greater profits for absentee companies and foreign CEOs. Sincerely; Michael West, P. Geoph, B.Sc, GDM BC, Canada (ex; Windsor and Grand Bend, ON.)