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Wind Turbine Noise Affects Health

To the editor:

According to the results of a new peer-reviewed study made available to us by the U.S. government's National Institutes of Health, the connection between noise and coronary heart disease -- particularly at night -- is serious.

Wind energy ordinances must include a top limit for how much turbine noise can safely be added to our environment.

More than 15 million Americans currently have some form of coronary heart disease (CHD), which involves a narrowing of the small blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the heart. Risk factors for CHD include diabetes, high blood pressure, altered blood lipids, obesity, smoking, menopause, and inactivity.

To this list we can now add noise, thanks to a recent study and assessment of the evidence by the WHO Noise Environmental Burden on Disease working group.

"The new data indicate that noise pollution is causing more deaths from heart disease than was previously thought," says working group member Deepak Prasher, a professor of audiology.

The working group compared households with abnormally high noise exposure with those with quieter homes. They also reviewed epidemiologic data on heart disease and hypertension, and then integrated these data.

"Many people become habituated to noise over time," says Prasher. "The biological effects are imperceptible, so that even as you become accustomed to the noise, adverse physiological changes are nevertheless taking place, with potentially serious consequences to human health."

Chronic high levels of stress hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline can lead to hypertension, stroke, heart failure, and immune problems. According to research, arousal associated with nighttime noise exposure increased blood and saliva concentrations of these hormones even during sleep.

"Taken together, recent epidemiologic data show us that noise is a major stressor that can influence health through the endocrine, immune, and cardiovascular systems," says Prasher.

The broader implications of chronic noise exposure also need to be considered.

"Noise pollution contributes not only to cardiovascular disease, but also to hearing loss, sleep disruption, social handicaps, diminished productivity, impaired teaching and learning, absenteeism, increased drug use, and accidents," says physician Louis Hagler, who coauthored a review on noise pollution in the March 2007 Southern Medical Journal.

Hagler added, "The public health repercussions of increasing noise pollution for future generations could be immense."

M. Nathaniel Mead

National Institute of Environmental Health

Science

'Barry Bonds Buck'

Dear Editor:

Although I don't agree with the radical idea of stopping antlerless deer hunting for 10 years, we do need some sort of "stay of execution" so the herd can recover.

Recovery, however, clashes with the Pa. Game Commission plan and stands no chance of consideration.

Food plots are a workable idea, as nutrition is a big part of the deer equation, but we'll got no help from the Game Commission on that, either. They will not help to feed what the big timber interests would like to seen eradicated.

Any item that is growing in a food plot should be part of the natural habitat. Commercial products such as Record Rack, Buck Grub, Vita Buck, etc., are basically just bait. They produce what I call "Barry Bonds Buck," pumped up on artificials.

As long as we have to deal with a deer management plan that is geared to be profitable for the few or politically correct, we will continue to see lifelong hunters quit, fewer younger hunters coming up, fewer deerhunting opportunities, higher license fees and financial losses to area businesses.

Leon E. Hillyard

Eldred

Correction: Wind Plans Blocked

Dear Editor:

In reading your article called on wind plants, I would like to correct your reference to AES Corporation obtaining approval in Tioga County for the Armenia Mountain wind energy project.

TheTioga County Planning Commission issued a "preliminary conditional approval" in December, but I can assure you this is not a "final approval."

The Tioga Preservation Group filed an appeal on Jan. 17. This means AES's Armenia Mountain project is dead in the water for now.

Judi Piccolella

Wellsboro