By Kenyon Wallace

Energy Minister Chris Bentley said this week that he’s looking forward to the results of a nationwide study being launched by Health Canada into possible links between wind turbine noise and ill health. But he has no plans to curtail the province’s ambitious wind energy development program.

“We look forward to the federal government’s findings,” Bentley told QP Briefing. “Ontario has some of the toughest wind turbine setback standards in North America; these standards are based on scientific evidence in order to protect Ontarians.”

The minister noted that the province has already set up an Ontario Research Chair at the University of Waterloo to focus on renewable energy technologies and health.

“As we continue to invest in clean, renewable energy for Ontarians, we are committed to funding research into the field to determine any future health impacts that may arise as a result,” he said.

The study announced this week by Health Canada will look at 2,000 dwellings in communities located near wind turbines to determine whether there is any evidence that noise from the power-generating structures causes any negative health effects.

Participants will be asked to provide blood-pressure readings, submit hair samples – these will be measured for cortisol, a biological stress marker – and wear sleep-monitoring devices on their wrists. Researchers will also conduct interviews with residents and measure noise levels inside and outside homes.

Health Canada says the results of the study, expected sometime in 2014, will not be binding on any government but are intended to assist in the creation of policy and community planning.

PC Energy Critic Vic Fedeli said the fact that a federal agency is launching a study into possible adverse health effects from wind turbines means Liberal claims that the technology is safe deserve another look.

“We have called for an immediate moratorium on wind power generation,” Fedeli told QP Briefing. “The Liberals should have done this before they jumped into it. They wanted to force-feed the green energy plan.”

Fedeli said that he has held more than a dozen town hall meetings over the past nine months across the province about the impacts of wind turbines and has consistently heard from people who say they have suffered ill health that they blame on nearby turbines.

“We get people standing up and I tell you, your heart goes out to them when they talk about how they’ve abandoned their homes, how they can’t sleep, how they get tremors and nosebleeds,” Fedeli said. “Something’s wrong here. I’m not a doctor but that’s why I want to see the science.”

He said he was looking forward to a study that makes use of hands-on measurements, as opposed to a 2010 study commissioned by the Ontario government that was essentially a literature review of papers and reports on wind turbines and health. That study found no relationship between health issues and wind turbines.

Fedeli noted, however, that the new Health Canada study could be risky for the federal government.

“We applaud the federal government . . . they’ll have to live with it. 'Be careful what you ask for,' I say that to them. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Warren Mabee, a policy studies professor at Queen’s University and director of the school’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy, said that while political parties may try to spin news of the study to their advantage, green energy technology has been supported by parties on both the right and left of the political spectrum.

“It’s not as though this technology is partisan. The Conservative government in Alberta has, for years, supported green energy development,” Mabee said. “I really don’t see politics as being the primary motivation here, because I can’t see it being a clean win for the federal Conservatives. It’s got connotations in Alberta and other places across the country that would potentially hurt them.”

He said he doesn’t foresee any major findings arising from the Health Canada study but noted that more information is never a bad thing.

“I don’t see us discovering suddenly that these things are lethal but having more data in the Canadian context that can help planners with future projects is going to be useful.”

Bentley committed to wind energy

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