Brussels, 31/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - After the confession of a Danish minister on the impact of noise emitted by wind turbines on the health of local residents, European anti-wind turbine activists launch a health warning.
“Windfarm scandal in Denmark” is the title of a press release issued by the European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW) on Tuesday 30 October. Danish Minister of the Environment Ida Auken apparently confessed, according to a Danish university press article, that between 4% and 11% of local residents are inconvenienced by the pulsing sound of wind turbines - although Auken always pretended that the limits imposed by her country on the noise emitted by wind turbines were the most restrictive in the world. Indeed not only are nearly a thousand new wind turbines going to be “imposed on the saturated Danish countryside”, deplores EPAW, the figures quoted by the minister are also apparently under-estimated. In the view of Henrik Moeller, an acoustician professor at the Danish Aarlborg University, 22% to 42% of local residents are apparently “significantly affected by wind turbines, day or night”. Last year Moeller had already become well-known for denouncing important irregularities in the establishment of norms concerning the low-frequency noise levels of wind turbines.
Representing 556 associations and federations from 24 countries, EPAW says in it press release that “human rights are being violated” and it points to the harmful noise for thousands of wind turbine neighbours who suffer from insomnia caused by the infrasound they emit - and this includes many children. EPAW is therefore launching a health warning across the borders of Europe. (EH/transl.fl)