LEE COUNTY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS

Transcription

1 LEE COUNTY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS Ron Conderman, Chairperson Craig Buhrow, Vice Chairperson Mike Pratt, Member Gene Bothe, Member Tom Fassler, Member Bruce Forester, Alternate Member Chris Henkel, Zoning Officer Alice Henkel, Clerk The Lee County Zoning Board of Appeals met on Thursday, October 6, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. in the Old Lee County Courthouse, Dixon, Illinois. Chairman Ron Conderman called the meeting to order and Clerk Alice Henkel called the roll. The following members were present: Craig Buhrow, Mike Pratt, Gene Bothe and Tom Fassler. Chairman Conderman asked if there were any changes or corrections to the minutes from the September 15, 2011 meeting. Mr. Buhrow noted an error on the last page. The minutes state: Mr. Logan asked if the current ordinance provides a Remedy section. Mr. Henkel said it does not, it allows the developer one (1) to correct the problem. This paragraph should state: Mr. Logan asked if the current ordinance provides a Remedy section. Mr. Henkel said it does not, it allows the developer one (1) year to correct the problem. Another error was noted by Susie Miller, a visitor. At the last meeting she submitted a document to be included in the minutes entitled, VI. DECOMMISSIONING PLAN; however, the document that was attached to the minutes and posted on the County s website was not the document she submitted. Mrs. Miller resubmitted her document to Chris Henkel. The incorrect document will be removed from the website and will be replaced with the correct document. A copy will also be attached to these minutes. Mike Pratt made a motion to approve the minutes, with the above corrections, and Gene Bothe seconded it. All were in favor, resulting in a 5 0 vote. There was no old business. Under new business was a presentation by Dr. Carl Phillips regarding epidemiology. Chairman Conderman asked Steve Robery to introduce Dr. Phillips. 1

2 Mr. Robery stated Dr. Carl Phillips is from Wayne, Pennsylvania, and he is an expert in epidemiology which is the study of the causes and the development of diseases within a population. Mr. Robery said the science of epidemiology involves the study of actual health outcomes, in actual people, who are exposed to a given set of conditions. Mr. Robery said that Dr. Phillips received his PhD in public policy from Harvard University, with an emphasis on evidence-based decision making, including work in the area of public health. After receiving his PhD, Dr. Phillips has been a professor of public health at the University of Minnesota, the University of Texas, and the University of Alberta. In 2010, Dr. Phillips created an independent research institute where he continues his studies. Mr. Robery stated that over the past few years, Dr. Phillips has been studying the health impacts associated with wind turbines, and that he has several ongoing research projects on the issue. Dr. Phillips has also written professional papers covering the topic. Dr. Phillips has also conducted numerous presentations, including participation in a landmark Canadian hearing that may result in a major policy change. Mr. Robery went on to say that through the course of his work, Dr. Phillips has collected and analyzed data on hundreds of people who have suffered adverse health effects from nearby turbines. Mr. Robery then turned the floor over to Dr. Phillips. Dr. Carl Phillips was sworn in. Chairman Conderman told Dr. Phillips that he would have one (1) hour to present his testimony. Dr. Phillips explained that he is a professor of public health, by career, although he is currently running his own independent research institute. He said his educational background is in public policy and economics; and he did post-doctorate work in public health and philosophy of science. Dr. Phillips said that when he was a professor, his teaching primarily focused on how to properly interpret epidemiologic evidence and how to make optimal policy decisions based on that evidence, considering ethical questions, as well as trying to make the best possible sense of what we know scientifically. During his time as a professor, he stated that he won various awards and recognition for new research and teaching. Dr. Phillips stated that epidemiology is the study of actual health outcomes in people. He said the reason that it is significant is because there are many health sciences that look at questions of what might have negative impacts on people, obliquely. He explained that toxicology looks at what happens to cells, to other animals or in a test tube, but it doesn t tell exactly what is going to happen to people which is critical because the human body, the human mind, and the world exposures people face are extremely complicated. Dr. Phillips said the only way to really know for sure what is going to happen to people is by observing them, and only epidemiology does that. 2

3 Dr. Phillips said epidemiology, in some sense, trumps toxicology which is often dealt with in epidemiology or, for that matter, the study of acoustics which is something that doesn t show up that often in regards to human health effects but it is a key science for understanding the effect of wind turbines. He went on to say that the acoustics science may suggest there is or there is not a problem depending on who is asked; but the epidemiology very clearly indicates that there are serious health problems involved when industrial wind turbines are sited near residences. Dr. Phillips said his involvement in this topic started early last year (2010). Most of his work has been on other topics, primarily the area of tobacco harm reduction; however, his expertise is really making sense of complex bodies of epidemiologic evidence. He explained that there is no simple way to do that because epidemiology is an extremely complicated science and that there is no cookie-cutter, no recipe, and no way to pick up a text book and figure it out, even though some might say that is the case. Dr. Phillips said he has focused on trying to make sense of the most complicated bodies of evidence, and this certainly qualifies as one of them. He said he also has a background in environmental health, which he taught for several years, and in energy economics, which has obvious usefulness for this particular topic. Dr. Phillips said he was asked to evaluate a case like this in Wisconsin early last year. Since that time, he has given either oral or written testimony to various tribunals, courts, boards such as this Zoning Board of Appeals, about a dozen times and in four (4) different countries. Recently he has published an article in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, about how best to interpret this evidence, as well as having written several other analyses. Dr. Phillips has done research collecting the adverse event reports, trying to put together a database of those that can be useful for further research. He is also in the process of starting a survey research project on the topic. Dr. Phillips said he believes he has read pretty much all of the health science journal articles and summary reports by governments and others who have written about this topic that seem to have much bearing. However, most important, he has reviewed hundreds of adverse event reports which are where the really compelling evidence can be found. To summarize his key opinions, professionally, about this topic, Dr. Phillips stated there s overwhelming evidence that these wind turbines cause substantial health problems for nearby residents. He said the problems seem to consist primarily of sleep disorders, mood disorders, fatigue, headache, difficulty concentrating, and other problems that are typically associated with severe stress reactions or syndromes which also can include life-threatening effects like hypertension, although that is difficult for people to observe themselves, and there is a limited amount of measurement of that so far to date. 3

4 Dr. Phillips stated that there are many reports of vestibular system problems such as balance problems and tinnitus (ringing in the ears). He said this is a class of health problems that are often not well quantified in terms of how much of these are prevalent in the population, but most estimates from public health organizations say that these are enormously important in terms of overall health and well being in our society and throughout the world. He went to on to explain that one (1) limitation of what is known right now is that there is not enough of the right kind of research that allows us to estimate numbers like seven percent (7%) of population from this distance from this type of wind turbine is going to have a problem. He said there are studies that could let them do that but, unfortunately, nobody has funded those yet. Dr. Phillips said there is ample evidence that he thinks makes it fairly safe to conclude that something in the neighborhood of five percent (5%) of those within a mile, or more, of turbines are going to suffer substantial health problems. He said that by substantial, he means serious. He said many more than that 5% suffer disruptions in their lives and health that are less severe but are still quite costly when they are all added up. Dr. Phillips said that if wind turbines were a pharmaceutical, or some other chemical that industry was about to release onto the public, exposing tens of thousands of people to it, we wouldn t be in the position where we are right now, having to try to piece together the evidence we have. He said the industry would have been required to do the necessary research to figure out what he was just describing. He stated that in this case, unfortunately, not only have they not been required to do the research, but they have done a pretty good job of keeping anyone from getting it done. Nevertheless, a lot is known about this due to the exposures that have been inflicted upon people and their own reporting of what has been happening to them. Dr. Phillips said it is important to know scientifically, that we don t know exactly what s causing the problem. He said that it is known that it is the operation of the wind turbine but wind turbines create audible noise, sub-audible noise, vibrations through the ground, and, on occasion, shadow flicker. He stated that all of these are potentially problems that create stress reactions and other health problems in people. Dr. Phillips said it would be nice to know exactly which one of these had the effect because we could perhaps redesign the equipment to avoid the problem, and we would know exactly what it would take to avoid having this happen to nearby residents; however, we simply do not know this. Dr. Phillips said that what we do know is that there is definitely evidence of a problem, and anyone who claims that there s no evidence that there s health problems either has a very poor understanding of what constitutes scientific evidence or is simply trying to mislead. He went on to stay that just because we don t know everything we would like to know about these effects does not mean we don t know anything. 4

5 To that point, Dr. Phillips said his analysis follows the following outline: First, he is going to point out how and why there is a substantial amount of epidemiologic evidence of health effects in the form of adverse event reports, although there are also several systematic studies; Second, Dr. Phillips is going to explain why when we look at the details of this particular exposure and disease outcome, as opposed to many others that are actually quite a bit harder to study in some ways, the evidence becomes even more convincing and stands up very well to criticism that have been leveled against it s validity; Third, he is going to argue that these health effects are serious and important for people s well being and that it atempts to dismiss them as not real diseases simply doesn t stand up to scrutiny; and Finally, he is going to address the fact that the causal relationship is simply quite plausible and said he would state it now so not to belabor it. He said that we know that energy from these turbines reaches the human body of a person who is a mile, a mile-and-a-half, or even two miles away from them. Dr. Phillips said it is not known why this causes disruptions to the body or the brain, and many people have very strongly held theories about exactly what is the mechanism; however, as an epidemiologist, that s not where he comes in. Dr. Phillips said he doesn t know exactly why these problems exist, but he does know that the evidence is there, that they do exist, and that it is quite plausible given the nature of the exposure. Dr. Phillips stated that he has, on various occasions, written point-by-point rebuttals of several of the major, pro-industry reports, which he said he obviously could not go through each one. He said he could summarize a few key observations about these reports. Dr. Phillips said, first and most importantly, these reports consistently pretend that the vast majority of existing evidence (adverse event reports) does not exist. Second, he said that they claim that because we cannot figure out exactly how and why this exposure is causing these disease outcomes that, therefore, there must not be any problem. He said it should be fairly clear that science doesn t work that way. He provided the example that we do not know exactly why smoking causes lung cancer but we have been quite sure that smoking causes lung cancer for about 60 years. He said we are only now figuring out some of the reasons why smoking causes heart disease even though we have known that it causes heart disease for almost that long, yet the research goes on to figure out exactly what is the mechanism there. Dr. Phillips said there is nothing unusual about the complicated body and the difficult path of medical or epidemiologic research, and there is nothing unusual about the fact 5

6 that we see there is a problem without actually knowing exactly what the causal pathway is from the exposure to the disease. Lastly, Dr. Phillips said that these reports often, even as they pretend there is no evidence of health effects, tend to denigrate the nature of the health effects that actually occur. He said that the epidemiologic evidence, as he already suggested, primarily takes the form of adverse event reports which is a report about a single incidence of disease that seems plausibly to be tied to a particular exposure. He said some people may denigrate this as an anecdote, and technically it is an anecdote, but it is also a critically important part of the epidemiologic scientific process. Dr. Phillips explained that when the FDA figures out that a drug that has been put on the market causes side effects that weren t anticipated, perhaps because they are rare or because they happen only with interactions that nobody had actually studied, in the preapproval process. He said they almost always figure this out because of their adverse event report collecting and typically act on the information that is in these reports. He said that when we hear something like the recent disease outbreak with cantaloupes causing food-borne illness, we learn about that because of individual adverse event reports that someone pieces together and figures out what they have in common. He said that it is how we discover most of the acute hazards, such as a model of car that has faulty brakes, or a piece of children s furniture that has a dangerous characteristic, once it is available to the public, that the type of research where most of our epidemiologic knowledge comes from. He said it is no different with the case of wind turbines. Dr. Phillips said wind turbines were a technology that, for better or for worse, people thought wouldn t cause any health problems before they were put out in the world. Because the exposure was put in place, they have been able to collect adverse health information. He said in the cases of these industrial wind turbines, there have been thousands of these adverse event reports that have been published. He said most all are self-published in some ad hoc way, such as creating a blog, putting them on a website or a collected blog, circulating an , or telling to a reporter for a newspaper. Dr. Phillips said that several researchers, including his research group, have tried to systematically gather these reports together. He said the wind-voice project in Ontario is an attempt to replicate FDA-style adverse event reporting. Because adverse event reports are so critical to understanding post-market effects of drugs, the USFDA has a system in place to collect these adverse event reports, knowing that that is where most of the information is going to come up about these thing, wind-voice was an attempt to replicate that. His approach has been to try to gather a lot of them together to use some text-mining methods, and there is enough information that we can learn a lot from these reports. He 6

7 said this isn t just one person out there reporting something, expecting others to believe there are major health problems. Dr. Phillips said these reports are even more compelling than drug adverse event reports, for example. He wanted to emphasize the humanity of some these reports and suggested to those who have not read any of these reports to do so. He said there are heartbreaking stories of people who have had their lives disrupted because of these health problems. Dr. Phillips said that it is a bad thing when a person breaks his or her leg, that it is unpleasant and it s going to effect his or her life; however, it doesn t effect that person s mood, it doesn t keep him/her from working, it doesn t make him/her too fatigued to concentrate and to read, and it doesn t make him/her snap at people because of a stressrelated anger disorder. He stated that these are extremely disruptive results for a person or his/her family to suffer. Dr. Phillips said that only by reading these stories can a person really appreciate the human side of this topic and what it means for real people who have suffered these problems or who have had to abandon their home because what was once their sanctuary, is now a hostile environment. Before going back to the point about how compelling these adverse event reports are; Dr. Phillips wanted to mention that there have been several systematic analyses. A systematic analysis is what may be typically thought of as a study where a defined group of people is studied to gain information about what causes cancer risk or heart attack risk. He said these are the only kind of study that can tell about cancer risks but are not nearly the only type of useful information about an exposure like this. He said, most importantly, these studies have happened. Dr. Phillips said some of the early studies, an even as recently as a year ago, some industry reports claim there is absolutely no evidence of this type out there. He disagrees and said there is more every month. He referred an article that came out this month about a study in New Zealand by Sheppard, et al. He said a group in Maine, led by Michael Nissenbaum, has done several studies that have come out in various forms. He said there were some studies in Europe that were done by a group led by Peterson, although that wasn t focused exactly on the health effects. Dr. Phillips said these studies are not the primary source of knowledge; they are small studies of very limited populations because these studies are difficult to do, they are expensive, and nobody is funding them. These small studies do agree with the overwhelming evidence we have. Different data, collect in different ways, analyzed in different ways, agrees with this other information he has. He said this is very useful from a scientific perspective, even though they would like to have 50 of these studies out there, when there is really only five (5), approximately. Dr. Phillips said that even though these studies are not available, the adverse event reports can be collected. He said that in this case, the reports are extremely compelling 7

8 in ways that wouldn t work for studying things such as whether chemical pollution is causing cancer. Dr. Phillips said one thing that is very useful and very reassuring that there is a problem is that there is a consistent pattern of reported diseases. He said that in many of these reports, there will be a stray claim. When reviewing the reports, they remove these claims that are not consistent and are not plausible given the circumstances. He said, most importantly, there are people conducting case crossover studies which he described as being, in some ways, the simplest possible form of health science. It was discovered by our simian ancestors before they discovered language. It consists of a cause-and-effect approach such as being able to identify that by eating a certain food, it will cause their stomach to be upset, which will make them avoid that food in the future. Case crossover refers to the fact that the exposure is crossing over from non-exposure to exposure, and then back to non-exposure, which will cause people to realize what exposure is causing the harm or the effect. He said this is one of the most common and most ancient methods of scientific research; however, it did not get its name until Dr. Phillips feels it is widely misunderstood, perhaps intentionally in some cases by those who would like to claim there are no health effects. Most of the adverse event reports that Dr. Phillips has seen, probably the majority of the reports that are out there, include some crossover evidence. There is, almost always, the observation that these problems started shortly after the nearby turbines went online. He said many of the reports, almost all of them, have time away where the people had taken a vacation, and during that time, their symptoms went away. Then once they return to their residence, the symptoms reoccur. Some have moved away from their homes and their problems have gotten better. Dr. Phillips said that this is the type of incredibly compelling experimental evidence that would convince a person that these turbines are causing a problem. He said, in many ways, this is better than the typical study for cancer, or the typical study for heart disease, because those require a whole lot of people to be gathered together and then the researchers wait to see if a few of them get cancer, ask them hundreds of questions to figure out what caused this, and only one observation per person. He said one family could do an awfully good experiment on themselves in a situation like this and figure out that there is a problem. He said people intuitively understand that kind of scientific reasoning and perform that experiment on themselves. Dr. Phillips said the key to this, unlike a case like cancer, the disease needs to have a clear onset. He said sleep disorders are a little bit difficult to detect when they started but they are not like cancer which may grow silently for years before it s actually diagnosed. 8

9 He said the disease has to be one that goes away after exposure ends, and these are diseases that somebody can cure themselves by moving to a different location. Dr. Phillips said the exposure has to have a clear starting point and ending points. He said it is also useful that it is very unlikely that there are coincidences. He said it is not uncommon for a whole bunch of people to experience the same problems, but what is uncommon is that the people who experience problems began experiencing those problems at the same time. Dr. Phillips said it is difficult to pull the evidence together about this because it is not the neat-packaged studies that we are used to seeing about other topics. There is actually more compelling evidence than there is about any number of other topics that typically show up on the health page of the newspaper. Dr. Phillips sais that, one thing that this type of data doesn t do for researchers is tell exactly how many people are likely to suffer when faced with a particular exposure. Since researchers are not able to get a good estimate for that, he feels this indicates more research needs to be done prior to more exposure. Dr. Phillips said that this doesn t mean that people don t know anything. The adverse event reports have distance information and the handful of systematic studies has very good information about distance to exposure. He said it is pretty clear that people living a mile from the nearest wind turbine have health problems at a substantial and disturbing rate, and those living closer, even more so. He said it would be nice to know exactly how far away a residence would have to be from a turbine before the problems became vanishingly rare, but unfortunately, that is not known yet. He said it is known that the level of offsets that are typically recommended by most governments have resulted in major problems, although he did not know what this Board was currently proposing, and are not enough to keep health problems from happening. Dr. Phillips referred to his final point about why the nature of this information is so compelling in this particular case, because of some of its unique properties, is revealed preference. He defined revealed preference to be the opposite of cheap talk. He said it is easy for someone to answer a survey or sign a petition, but there are many cases where people report abandoning their homes, selling them at a loss, or evening moving to a different residence without being able to sell their home because of the impact wind turbines are having on an area where the home is located. Dr. Phillips feels that this not only tells people that there is a serious problem, one serious enough for someone to document, and it was worth giving up their home or losing tens of thousands of dollars. He described this as real, hard evidence that is hardly ever gotten while trying to quantify how big a health impact is. He said they usually have to go through all sorts of models and contortions in order to figure out how big a number to assign to a particular health impact because there usually isn t a direct economic 9

10 measure like this. He feels in this case there is a direct economic measure and that it is pretty impressive. In cases where residents have stayed in their homes, Dr. Phillips said many of them have spent thousands of dollars trying to retrofit their homes to mitigate the effects. He also said that those who have merely gone to the trouble to report this have devoted hundreds of hours of their time to make sure their story got out in an effort to education others. Dr. Phillips feels that this is not something somebody does lightly, or for free. He said these are not the acts of people who have suffered only a minor inconvenience. Dr. Phillips said, there are of course, plenty of reactions to the points he had made. Most of them, he feels, are pretty straight forward to address. One claim that he has often seen trying to dismiss these experiences is that they are all subjective, which he thinks people are trying to say they are psychologically mediated because some of them can be objectively measured. Dr. Phillips said, it turns out, when we measure the quality of life in public health using various techniques, in people who suffer from terrible diseases that don t allow them to walk or causes them to be blind, it is remarkable how little impact those physical ailments actually have on somebody s quality of life. He said they reduce it by five percent (5%), even though those unaffected may feel it would decrease their quality of life by 50 percent (50%). Dr. Phillips said the things that reduce a person s quality of life by 50 percent (50%) would be problems like depression (which he said is not an issue here), but also relentless pain, headaches, and things that interfere with social functioning. He said those are the things that cost someone more quality of life than do most physical ailments; and study after study reflects this. Therefore, these merely subjective, merely mediated through your head through stress, are actually some of the worst things that somebody can ever suffer from. He said sometimes this is referred to as, annoyance, and is suggested that it is merely annoyance. He feels this is just game-playing with the jargon. He said it turns out that the people who study health problems related to noise basically divide those problems into ones that do actual, physical damage and those that cause other things which they call annoyance. Annoyance doesn t mean mere annoyance as it would be typically used in conversation, and it can mean these completely devastating, stressful impacts that he has been talking about and that can be read about. He said there is no reason that the word, annoyance, ought to be interpreted as denigrating these experiences. A related point, that he said is sometimes made, is that these don t seem like real health problems, that it is all in somebody s head and can t they get over it? He said it is typically estimated that these somewhat psychological, somewhat physical problems, such as depression, stress disorders, and/or anxiety disorders, do more damage to public 10

11 health and to the collective happiness of humanity than physical ailments do. He is not saying wind turbines, alone, do this type of damage. Dr. Phillips noted an argument that he feels is becoming more popular is that this is just in people s heads, that they find theses things to be scary like some mystical force; and therefore, they are just reacting out of irrational fear, or they irrationally hate these things for some reason, and that is what is causing the problems. This argument also includes that some counseling should resolve problems like this. He said the most important observation about this argument is that it is pure speculation and nobody has provided any evidence that these irrational fears and behaviors actually exist, let alone any evidence that people can be counseled out of these effects. He said, most important from the perspective of public policy, is even if these claims are partially true, it really doesn t change the severity of the effect, and people are still suffering. Dr. Phillips said that the best argument being made currently by the supporters of the industry is that it doesn t really count because the suffering people are enduring is something that someone else may not consider to be a real health problem. He feels that built into that argument is a recognition that some suffering is occurring, even if the labeling is in dispute. According to Dr. Phillips, another observation that has been made has to do with the heterogeneity of the effects, which means some people get it, some people don t. He said there is nothing surprising about this. He referred to smoking and lung cancer, which is probably the best case of cause-and-effect that has ever been seen, and that not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer. He said that we really don t know why, and only in recent years have we figured out someway to better predict who is likely to get lung cancer if they smoke. He said even that is relatively a poor predictor. He went on to say that different people have different experiences. It would be great to know who is going to suffer from these health problems so that a public policy decisions can be made by taking that into consideration. However, he said that we simply don t know it. Dr. Phillips said it would not be surprised to find a person living 600 meters from a wind turbine who is not experience any health problems; and perhaps, half of the people living at that distance don t experience any health problems. But there is still the other half of the population experiencing health problems and maybe even five percent (5%) or ten percent (10%) of those people are experiencing really substantial health problems. He said some people will state that they have visited a wind farm and have hung out around the turbines for a while and did not experience any health effects. Dr. Phillips said one difficulty with that argument is that the person may be one who does not experience any health effects from these turbines. Also, the wind may not have been 11

12 blowing in the right direction at the time the person was visiting. Most importantly, he said the person was not there long enough to experience the cumulative effects. He said his personal theory with these really has to do with stress reactions. He said people are experience a noise, or a throbbing, that is reaching them either consciously or subconsciously, going on all the time. This causes the person to become alert, and when this throbbing causes the person to be alert every time it is experienced, it creates stress and causes a flight or fight response in the person, over and over again. He also said that the person will also start waiting for the throbbing to occur. This causes anxiety which in turns causes more stress. He feels this is the most compelling story about why these problems exist, although others have different stories. It helps explain why some people might have this reaction and why some people might not. Different people have different temperaments with regards to how much the fight or flight response bothers them. Dr. Phillips said whatever the reason for the heterogeneity, there is nothing at all that is surprising about it. He feels that if everyone who was not bothered by this were the one who could have the turbines put in their backyards, we would all be healthier; but unfortunately, we have no way to predict right now who those people are. In conclusion, Dr. Phillips stated that he predicts this information is going to continue to not be well known and not be acted upon for a period that is measured in months, not years. He said the most thorough review of this topic that s ever been done was recently completed in Ontario. That tribunal declared, and even most of the witnesses who appeared on behalf of the wind industry admitted, that there are health problems that we need to better understand before we move forward with this. There is already one (1) liability suit in Ontario as a result of this. Also, he feels it might be that the rural vote in the Ontario provincial elections, which are going on right now, is heavily influenced by the opposition that has grown to wind turbines in their rural communities there. He went on to say that it is not just Canada or the United States. There are strong backlashes in Australia and New Zealand; and even in places where everybody loves wind power such as the United Kingdom and Denmark, there are protests in the streets against the effects these are having upon people. Dr. Phillips asked if wind turbines could be designed and installed without causing health problems. He said, perhaps, that there might be some way to do it and suggested siting them far enough away from residences; however, that leads to the questions as to how far away is far enough away. He stated that we are pretty confident that two (2) miles away is far enough away, and that we are quite confident that one (1) mile is not far enough away. He said the research hasn t been done to determine where in between is far enough away. 12

13 He suggested that maybe it is possible to improve the technology so that these problems don t happen. He feels that in order to do that, studies need to be done to find out why these problems are happening, rather than continuing to install basically the same system over and over again when it is already known that it causes problems. Dr. Phillips asked if this means that in many places, such as Lee County, that there are almost no place that is safe to put in a wind turbine without risking someone s health. He feels that this might well be the case and that some people will want to know what should be done if it cannot be determined how to put them in safely. As a policy analyst, Dr. Phillips feels that sometimes public policy decisions are made even though it is known that it will hurt some people. The first step in doing that is to recognize that some people are going to be hurt and own up to it, and then point out why this damage is warranted by the benefits that come from the particular activity. He said he has never seen any analysis that shows that the net benefits for wind turbines, in terms of contributing to the power grid, reducing global warming, etc., are enough that it is worth having a few people leave their homes because the turbines are ruining their family s health. From the local perspective, he understands that typically global warming isn t high on the agenda, and rather the potential tax revenues are important. Again from a public policy point of view, Dr. Phillips feels if the County needs a few hundred thousand dollars, one way to get it would be to confiscate the homes of some local citizens, which everyone can agree is not a good thing; however, putting wind turbines near many people s homes has remarkably similar effects to just confiscating them. Dr. Phillips stated that this is why he finds this to be an important topic to work on, and why he travels across the country and comes to late meetings. He does not hope to get rich, or even make a living doing this; he has seen too many people suffer from this, and he wants to make sure people understand what this suffering is like. He said if the notion is this County has is that it is unsure about how bad this problem is, he suggests that it wait and revisit this topic in 6 to 12 months from now. He feels that if it is true that there are not big problems, then waiting 6 to 12 months isn t going to produce any more evidence that there is a big problem and little will be lost, the opportunities will still be there, the possibility of building will still be there. On the other hand, Dr. Phillips predicts that that amount of time is going to result in more and more accumulated information about this being such a harmful idea, then everyone will be able to make decisions based on a better understanding, without having to fund a brand-new Lee County study, or anything like that, by simply waiting for the information that is already rolling in. Dr. Phillips thanks the Board for its time and offered to answer any questions. Chairman Conderman asked if there were any questions and/or comments from the Board. 13

14 Tom Fassler wanted to know if the government was doing any studies on this. Dr. Phillips did not know of any. He noted that the Australian government has started to take this very seriously and thinks they are actually pursuing some studies. With regards to the United States government, the individual states, and the provinces of Canada are not, themselves, supporting this. He went on to say that, unfortunately, the United States government has boxed itself into the policy of supporting this type of project, and politically, finds it very difficult to pursue these questions. He feels that this will become an equal embarrass to the U.S. government s pursuit of solar energy. Dr. Phillips said that community groups, independent researchers such as him, and other volunteers have been responsible for most of the studies. Regardless, he feels that they have gotten some very high quality studies for amazingly low budgets. Mike Pratt wanted to know why Dr. Phillips suggests that this Board wait 6 to 12 months, and what s going to be available. Dr. Phillips stated that there are two (2) or three (3) more systematic studies that have information trickling out. He said there are some that surprise him and pop out of nowhere, such as the New Zealand study he mentioned earlier. He said it came across his desk a couple of days ago and that he did not even know it was in the works. He suspects that there are many more of those that will happen, coming from people he has never talked to or never met. He explained that the organization of the adverse event reporting, and that type of information, is definitely getting underway and becoming more clear and more systematic. Also he feels, as importantly as anything, there is no information coming in that is pointing in any other direction. He said that every three (3) months or every six (6) months that go by without someone coming out with a study that suggests that there isn t really a problem, is pretty compelling evidence that there is a problem. Dr. Phillips stated that in one (1) year from now, he would venture to say almost nobody is going to be considering this to be a good idea, nobody from the perspective of public policy decision-makers. He thinks that the opinion is pretty strongly coalesce around what he is contending to be a scientific truth. He said that perhaps somebody will come along and say that the benefits of this are so huge that they warrant those costs; even though, frankly, he is quite skeptical that that is going to happen and that the days are numbered for the ability of this industry and its supporters to continue to claim that these costs don t exist. Craig Buhrows explained that when the first wind energy conversion system was construct in the County, 10 years ago, the Board was told that there hadn t been any production in the United States for years and that most of the production of wind energy 14

15 had been over in Netherlands on a continual basis for quite some time. He wanted to know if there had been any more problems showing up in the Netherlands, or in the areas that have had wind turbines for the last 75 years, if the wind turbines were smaller, and if Dr. Phillips feels size to be part of the problem. Dr. Phillips said that size in undoubtedly a part of the problem and that those turbines (in the Netherlands, etc.) are smaller, and the turbines just keep getting bigger. He said it would be nice to know and that is one of the answers more research could tell us. The research could tell us that these 40-story high towers that are sort of the current technology cause too much impact over too wide of an area, and that alternatively, something more right-sized is productive and efficient and won t cause these impacts. He said that would be great to know, but that we don t know that. With regards to the Netherlands data, Dr. Phillips feels that a relatively small number of adverse event reports coming out of that population suggests that there is perhaps a right-sized technology, that there is a right offset, that off-shoring is a good idea for getting them away from people. Unfortunately, he said it is not so clear-cut because, as he mentioned earlier, protests have started to begin in places that have traditionally supported this industry. Mr. Pratt said that Dr. Phillips made the comment that depression is not a symptom. Dr. Phillips said that it might be seen as secondary or tertiary symptom for someone who experiences a long period of stress disorders might fall into a depression as a result of that. He did not think anyone is claiming that it is a primary effect. He noted that it certainly does show up in some of the reports but it is not one of the four (4) or five (5) really consistent diseases that appear in almost all of the reports. Mr. Pratt asked if Dr. Phillips could give an explanation for why depression does not show up consistent. He said that that surprises him. Dr. Phillips said that he is not an expert in depression; however, he is aware that the sort of current public health conventional wisdom is that depression should usually be attributed to a particular chemical imbalance in the brain, one that isn t related to the corticosteroids, the stress-type reactions. Dr. Phillips said that, in general, those don t tend to go together. A long period of having these social problems might cause someone to experience depression; however, things that cause anxiety are not typically the things that cause depression. With regards to cause and effect, Mr. Pratt said there is a certain percentage of population that is going to have these symptoms no matter where they live, he assumes. He asked Dr. Phillips if that is taken into account when looking at the adverse event reports. Dr. Phillips responded that that is why the case crossover aspect of the reports is so compelling. He said Mr. Pratt is right, that coincidences do happen but it is unusual for people to start experiencing the same symptoms at the same time. Because of this the onset is looked at, the incidence over the prevalence. Dr. Phillips said prevalence refers to some being there, existing at a particular time. He said incidence refers to the time at 15

16 which something happens or when it stops happening. Dr. Phillips said there are reports of people who did not have a history, or report a history, of any of these diseases, who supported the wind project but started experiencing symptom approximately a week and a half after the project went online, who then went on vacation, only to have their symptoms disappear shortly after going on vacation and then return shortly after they returned to their home. He said it is this type of pattern that makes it very different from people having the same symptoms due to coincidence. Dr. Phillips said that because of this pattern, this subject is very easy to study when a researcher starts sifting through the evidence that is out there. He said it is much easier to make sense of, unlike cancer which is extremely difficult to study. Mr. Pratt asked if Dr. Phillips has looked at the adverse effects in comparison to those involved in the project and those not involved in the project and whether or not there is a correlation. Dr. Phillips said that is the type of question researchers would like to ask with systematic studies. Researchers would like to be able to go into an area and be able to ask everyone what their experience has been. Ideally, they would like to be able to go into an area before and after the installation of a project, to find out about the health of those in the study. He said they are trying to work on putting some of those together, and that would be pretty interesting to know. He said that relatively few of the self-reported pieces of data he has described come from people who were involved in the project. Dr. Phillips said that often times he has heard that people who are financially involved in the project sign contracts saying they won t talk about it. He didn t know how often that occurs or how binding those contracts are. He said that that is often the explanation that is offered for why you don t see many such stories but that there are a few. Mr. Buhrows asked if there have been any other explanations for what may cause this, and is it the vibrations or the air turbulence. Dr. Phillips said his explanation is the constant minor tweaking of that fight or flight reaction which produces a steroid reaction in the body that causes all sorts of stress. He said others are convinced that it has to do with the effects on the vestibular system, or balance system, that the low-frequency sound creates a constant sense of being off balance, similar to seasickness or motion sickness, because of what is happening in the inner ear and in the chest due to sound effects. He said there are others who have different views but the ones he described are the dominant ones. He said that even if they don t know why this happens, they still can see that it is happening. Mr. Fassler wanted to confirm Dr. Phillips earlier statement that roughly five percent (5%) the people living within one (1) mile are affected. Dr. Phillips said they are 16

17 substantially affected and that is his best guess based on the evidence he has pieced together. He said that if someone insisted that it was three percent (3%) or eight percent (8%), he would not be able to tell them they are wrong; however, if someone insisted it was one percent (1%) or more than ten percent (10%), he would consider them to be on shaky ground. Dr. Phillips said there is a legitimate scientific uncertainty here but it doesn t mean the whole world is a possibility, it just means that we are not sure by a range of double or triple, which isn t very comforting from a scientific perspective but it does tell us quite a lot. Mr. Fassler noted that Dr. Phillips said that some people will be affected and some will not. Dr. Phillips said there are perhaps half (½), based on some of the more systematic studies, that do not seem to have any health problems, except for aesthetic complaints or noise. He said the other half are an issue of degree. Mr. Fassler asked what the five (5) diseases are. Dr. Phillips said he was talking casually when he said five (5). He said the diseases that repeatedly show up are 1. Sleep disorders, which is a general, technical term mostly referring to problems with insomnia; 2. Fatigue, which may be a secondary effect of the insomnia or a separate effect; 3. Difficultly concentrating, which may also be a secondary effect of the insomnia or a separate effect; 4. Mood disorders, which means people become irritable and quick to anger and is a typical response to chronic stress; and 5. Headaches, which may be a secondary effect of the insomnia or mood disorder, or a separate effect; Dr. Phillips said these tend to be the dominant disorders found; however, there are also vestibular, balance problems where many people report that they frequently feel off balance, have ringing in their ears, or other auditory problems related to the inner ear. Mr. Pratt noted that Dr. Phillips made a comment that five percent (5%) of the people inside one (1) mile are affected. He also noted that Dr. Phillips, having done work in public policy, mentioned what is allowable for the net affect of a population. Mr. Pratt wanted to know what that number would be. Dr. Phillips said that is why he was sort of referring to this, unfortunately, fictitious analysis, the one where some people sit down and honestly and seriously try to figure out what the benefits of this are. He said that if these wind turbines meant either having electricity or not, then people would be willing to pay a pretty high price to have that 17