Wind turbines across Oregon stir up health scare

Study suggests living close to an energy farm can cause a variety of physical ailments

“I started to cry,” Eaton, 57, recalled of her first sight of the Willow Creek Wind Project in late July. “They’re going to be hanging over the back of our house, and now there’s the medical thing.”

“The medical thing” is new research suggesting that living close to wind turbines, as Eaton and her 60-year-old husband, Mike, soon will be doing, can cause sleep disorders, difficulty with equilibrium, headaches, childhood “night terrors” and other health problems.

[…] Pierpont’s findings suggest that low-frequency noise and vibration generated by wind machines can have an effect on the inner ear, triggering headaches; difficulty sleeping; tinnitus, or ringing in the ears; learning and mood disorders; panic attacks; irritability; disruption of equilibrium, concentration and memory; and childhood behavior problems.

Concerns also are coming out of Europe about low-frequency noise from newly built wind turbines.

Houston Chronicle