Wind Farms and Health: It's Not Black or White

Anyone following the controversies surrounding wind farm siting policy over the past five years has surely been startled at the rapid escalation of concerns being voiced by residents near wind farms. After years of building wind farms in ranching communities with few if any complaints, we began to hear clusters of noise complaints about a few wind farms, especially in Wisconsin, New York, Ontario, and Maine. These complaints focused on the surprising intrusiveness of wind farm noise, and sometimes sleep disruption; nearly all of those having problems lived within a half-mile or so of turbines, with occasional issues being reported out to a mile or so.