I am so disappointed by the people I witnessed this evening. I can not even begin to describe how I am feeling. My husband and I attended the council meeting and basically, what has happened is that council voted to defer the issue until the August planning meeting. The way I understand it, the changes to the Green Energy Act, and the different setbacks in place from the Ministry of Environment are not 100% finalized. If Chatham Kent was to go ahead and approve the wind projects tonight, they may have to move turbines later if they were in contradiction to the new rules....It appears that the new rulings may be more focused on provincial decisions and take some of the control out of the municipalities hands. Our Mayor Randy Hope stated that it was up to "them" (himself and councillors I believe) to do their homework and be sure to find ways to hear both sides of this issue so that they will be able to properly represent the community if the public is taken out of the equation so to speak. In my opinion, they had so many people in the room tonight, it may have been prudent to allow both sides to speak. I am optimistic but doubtful that we will get our chance. It sounded to me like when the August meeting comes we will be told that it is a provincial decision and there is nothing that can be done. So I guess we just wait. In the mean time, I am going to have to contact Mr. Hope to see if he would like to do his part in the due diligence by meeting with me to hear what is happening in our home, and our neighbors homes.....But, that is not what disappointed me. It was what happened afterwards in the hall. There were a number of people wearing shirts in support of wind energy. I approached a group of them in what I felt was a friendly manner. I introduced myself and said something like " I see your shirts, I was wondering, do any of you live near the turbines?" The response from one women was "yes, we do". My reply, "and you have not noticed any side effects or issues from them?" She said "no, we haven't". I said that they were lucky because I also live near the turbines and my husband, and my children age 5 and 3 and myself are all suffering from what I believe to be Wind Turbine Syndrome. I went on to say that I have had a headache for months, but then I realized that the body language and expressions I was getting were not friendly. I said "you don't want to talk to me do you?" To which the reply was NO. The group turned away from me and I was shocked. I thought that by being open-minded to both sides of the issue perhaps we could work together to find solutions, but for some reason, this group had absolutely no interest in hearing about my issue. This surprised me because even if I was for something, if I found out that people, and especially children were being hurt by it, I would want to hear first hand what was going on before I continued supporting it. It makes me wonder, What have they been told? Do they think we are making it up? Do think we have been paid by someone to say bad things about wind energy? I suppose it might make it easier to believe that if you are benefiting financially from something. I guess as long as you can tell yourself that you aren't hurting anyone, that makes it okay. It is really a sad state of affairs though. I sincerely hope those people continue to be unaffected by the turbines because I would not wish this on anyone. A few minutes later, I saw a man trying to say something to someone, I'll call him Mr. G, Mr. G was polite to the fellow and said something like "yes, I know, I know, I have read your letters, I have heard your issues"; when the man walked away, another person asked Mr. G, What that was all about. Mr G replied that "there is a group of people trying to stop the wind turbines, they will do and say anything just to stop progress, they are ridiculous"....Then he caught my eye and realized I was listening so he cleared his throat and changed the subject....Very sad behaviour indeed. I am far from perfect, but one thing I have always been proud of is that I can have an open mind to just about anything. We should all be open to change, and to learning about new things. If there are problems, we should work together to fix them. I did not see that attitude from any of the people I witnessed after the meeting who were wearing the t-shirts with Isupportwindenergy.com on them. To those people, if you are reading my blog, I invite you to contact me as I would welcome the opportunity to explain to you our issues. I wish you would have allowed me the chance to tell you that we are not against the turbines, just against putting them where they affect nearby residence. Surely there is enough vacant land in Ontario that we do not need to have one 600m from our door that is causing us health issues. Or, possibly there is a potential solution if someone would actually acknoweldge the issues, then we could work on solutions instead of wasting time arguing what will I am positive eventually be too big of an issue to ignore.
Everyone, please contact your councillors and the mayor and let them know that there are issues to be heard. Remind them that they need to do their due diligence and their homework as Mayor Hope said and hear both sides of the issue so that they can properly represent us to provincial government when the time comes.
I want to apologize to several people who introduced themselves to me tonight and are in support of better guidelines and setbacks for wind turbines. My headache was already so bad from working at home all day, and then my frustration from the meeting and the encounter afterwards made it worse. On top of that, the hallway outside the council chambers was very loud and crowded. I was finding it very difficult to concentrate on what people were saying and I am positive that to at least one gentleman I may have seemed rude. I apologize. I am very interested in meeting people on both sides of the debate and hope you will forgive me if I did not seem interested in what you had to say. All of the people who spoke to me, I believe were not for wind energy and I certainly feel for you if you are also living near a wind turbines and suffering the side affects. Sorry.
Goodnight. Nikki
Dwarfed by Turbines
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Well at least your council acted to put off the zoning till they found out more. In Essex the self-professed experts pushed the zoning through at 450 M. Hope somebody from around that wind farm appeals,they would have a good chance because it totally disregards the propossed new rules.
I'm curious if you have read Dr. Colby's letter to council that was submitted for the June 15th meeting, and if so your opinion. You can find the letter here: http://www.chatham-kent.ca/NR/rdonlyres/1BAB883D-8EB0-4CD7-AD02-8FD692934718/9789/5a.pdf
What are your thoughts on somatoform disorders?
Thank you Anonomyous for sending me the link. No, I had not read Dr. Colby's letter until now. I think it is a well written letter that demonstrates clearly that No one can really say for certain whether the wind turbines are in fact causing issues or not. Assuming the information he has written is correct, I agree that the somatoform disorders do sound very much like the symptoms described by Dr. Nina Pierpoint of Wind Turbine Syndrome. After reading the letter (just the letter, I will need to read the other 136 pages another day), my initial thoughts are this.... I can see how a person's health may be influenced by their expectation to feel something from the wind turbines, however, in our case, we had the symptoms long before we ever considered the wind turbines as a cause. My husband's inability to sleep due to the audible noise was obvious. The symptoms resulting from lack of sleep were also quite obvious. However, with the children and myself, it never occurred to us that the wind turbines could be a cause until we happen to have someone else point out that it could be linked. The same with my husband's rash - we worked for months trying to figure out what was causing it and only after another sufferer of wind turbines mentioned it did we think it could be linked. For this reason, I do not feel that my symptoms are related to somatoform disorder - to be honest, I wish that was the case as I am sure that would be easier to treat than what we are dealing with. For the record, I do not harbour any resentment towards Dr. Colby. I do feel that his "objective" opinion does seem to strongly favour the side which states that the wind mills are not causing the problems, rather than staying neutral and in fact stating that we don't know. I believe I would have the most respect for someone who would say that since we don't know for sure, we have a responsibility to avoid people's homes until such time as the actual side affects of wind energy can in fact be proven or disproven. I may be nieve, but the way I see it, our CK Council should have allowed wind energy if it is a benefit to the community (which they must believe it is the way they are springing up all over), but allow them in areas free from people. Surely there could have been clauses put in that certain turbines be held off until such time as further study could be done. This would allow green energy and progress to move forward without infringing on the health of the CK population. I realize that many people do struggle with change. For this reason, change experts usually recommend gradual changes with input and buy-in if possible. Perhaps our council in it's wisdom may have thought of this and put in a place a gradual plan that included the research and study necessary rather than "pushing" wind energy and moving it ahead regardless of the costs. On a personal note, I was quite disheartened when I heard one of the councillor's at the meeting state that wind energy needed to go ahead as that is what her constiuents want. Surely she has seen my complaint, my letter regarding our health that was sent to all of council - yet, niether she, nor Dr. Colby, nor any other member of council (other than councillor Art Stirling who actually came out to visit me at home for a short time), have attempted to contact me to ensure they have "both sides" of the story. I am willing to accept other possible explanations for our symptoms, especially if we can determine cause and find a solution - they do not, however, seem willing to consider that possibly it is a bit too coincidental that all of these similar symptoms started with all of these people after living near wind turbines, and some of them had no previous knowledge of the dangers or possible side effects so were unaffected by media, etc. Nikki
Post a Comment