Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h/t JoNova – The floodgates might be about to open on wind farm health litigation; an Irish family who claim they suffered health impacts from a wind farm which opened 700m from their home just received a €225,000 payout.

Cork brothers and sister who lived close to windfarm settle actions for €225k

TUE, 25 FEB, 2020 – 16:42ANN O’LOUGHLIN

Two brothers and a sister from the same family who claimed they suffered illness as a result of noise, vibrations and shadow flicker from a Cork windfarm have settled their High Court actions for a total of €225,000.

Laura David and Jack Kelleher claimed their family had to leave their farm at Gowlane North, Donoughmore, Co. Cork, four years ago after a 10-turbine wind farm began operating just over 700 metres from their property.

In the High Court today Laura (aged 15), David (aged 17) and Jack (aged 10) who now live eight miles away from the family farm settled their actions for a total of €225,000.

The settlements which were without an admission of liability were approved by Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds and occurred after mediation.

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They claimed the noise, vibrations and shadow flicker from the turbines, located just over 700m from their family farm, resulted in them suffering from various illnesses.

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Read more: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30983997.html

My heart goes out to the Kelleher family. Infrasound from wind turbines is strongly suspected to cause significant health problems.

From a 2018 study;

A Review of the Possible Perceptual and Physiological Effects of Wind Turbine Noise

Simon Carlile,John L. Davy,David Hillman, and  Kym Burgemeister

This review considers the nature of the sound generated by wind turbines focusing on the low-frequency sound (LF) and infrasound (IS) to understand the usefulness of the sound measures where people work and sleep. A second focus concerns the evidence for mechanisms of physiological transduction of LF/IS or the evidence for somatic effects of LF/IS. While the current evidence does not conclusively demonstrate transduction, it does present a strong prima facia case. There are substantial outstanding questions relating to the measurement and propagation of LF and IS and its encoding by the central nervous system relevant to possible perceptual and physiological effects. A range of possible research areas are identified.

Read more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6081752/

Obviously it would have been better if the Kelleher family had never suffered this awful intrusion into their lives, but a substantial payout may help their recovery.

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