The Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) recently filed comments with respect to a proposed Health Canada study, “Health Impacts and Exposure to Wind Turbine Noise: Research Design and Noise Exposure Assessment”, to be undertaken in collaboration with Statistics Canada. Here, PES looks in detail at the issues raised by the proposed study, and the association’s response…
The Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) is the voice of Canada’s wind energy industry, actively promoting the responsible and sustainable growth of wind energy on behalf of 400 members. CanWEA monitors and reviews all credible sources of information related to wind energy.
CanWEA, in its thorough review of the materials posted by Health Canada for public comment, has significant concerns related to the proposed methodology and the scope of this study as it was presented. Many of these concerns, CanWEA believes, were fundamental. It is the opinion of CanWEA that substantial modifications to the proposed methodology and study design would be required to ensure the results of the study make a useful contribution to the significant volume of global scientific literature already in existence.
CanWEA has submitted comments in the following areas: treatment of annoyance; participant and project selection; treatment of control groups; the lack of demonstrated ability to account for the prevalence of reported symptoms and bias; the proposed sound modeling and measurement procedures; the poor amount of research cited; and the lack of a commitment to compare results (e.g., executing a risk assessment) between wind energy and other sources of community concern or known health/environmental impacts.
While it may be the case that the concerns of CanWEA are mainly attributable to the lack of detail provided by Health Canada (meaning, areas where concerns have already been accounted for, but not yet articulated by Health Canada), CanWEA has requested the study team provide a formal response to the concerns that have been raised and then re-issue a revised study design and methodology with much more detail (considering the comments received) for further review by stakeholders.
CanWEA believes the proposed study has the potential to make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the issue of wind turbines and human health if it is executed with sufficient scientific rigor, absent of bias, and produces results that are reproducible by an independent research group.
