Turbine Noise Affects People Differently

Sound can affect people differently


From Justin Lindholm
Rutland


Published: December 13, 2009


In his commentary last Sunday, Randal Smathers uncharacteristically belittled suffering people — in this case those who suffer from wind turbine noise. Randal fails to realize that a particular type of sound can affect different people in different ways.

For instance, I have always been fascinated by how the sound of fingernails being drawn across a blackboard causes many people to freak out. Such a sound doesn't affect me at all. I bet an operating vacuum cleaner puts out a higher level of decibels than fingernails on a blackboard does, but is more pleasant to listen to.

Low decibel levels do not by themselves determine whether a sound is bearable. When one stands close to a large wind turbine, the sound is a pleasant, windy sound. But, one mile from these turbines, the sound, although not as loud, becomes a series of throbbing, penetrating pressure waves that assault ones' senses within ones' own house, hour after hour, day and night, sometimes for days at a time. Last Saturday I visited a friend in Lempster, New Hampshire who lives one mile from the big turbines. Last year, he was in favor of them. Last Saturday he told me that he can't stand them anymore.

Randal believes that turbine noise syndrome is non-science. Throughout history, new science has at first been considered non-science. Vermonters affected by turbine noise need to be compensated, as homeowners in Canada have been.

Justin Lindholm

Rutland