Released under the RTI Act 2009 - EHP
Comments by Queensland Government Noise Expert - Dr Antoine David
26 August 2015
Bullet points for Draft Wind Farm State Code acoustics review
- Acoustics problem associated with wind farms are due to the infrasonic and low frequencies harmonics and their interaction between several turbines. Those generates annoyances and to higher intensities health effects.
- By using both a time average and frequency weighting, by definition, all those harmonics disappear and as such no assessments of the impact of those harmonics can be made.
- To assess those harmonics, it is necessary to use unfiltered data and no time average.
- The low frequencies and infrasound effects cannot be assessed by dBA. By designed, the A filtering process takes away low frequency and infrasound. Low frequencies and infrasound need to be assessed by dBlin which is unfiltered data according to frequency.
- Annoyance has not been considered in either guideline.
- Wind masking has been applied as if it was masking noise of similar frequencies and this is not the case.
- The distance of 1500m as a buffer will not be sufficient for the current size of wind turbine. This distance had originated years ago for much smaller size turbines and at the time was probably a correct distance.
- The noise criteria proposed in the draft wind farm state code is most likely not protect residents for their health and well-being and will not protect their environmental values.
- It is uncertain and unlikely that the noise criteria proposed in the draft wind farm state code will protect animals such as farmed animals for their health and well-being from low and infrasonic noise exposure.
Dr Antoine David PhD MEng MAAS
Technical Specialist (Noise)
Technical Support Unit | Regulatory Capability and Customer Service
Department of Environment and Heritage Protection
400 George Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
Hidden documents reveal expert advice on health dangers from wind farms ignored
Right to information search reveals government noise expert's advice withheld.
The Queensland Government's own noise expert has warned proposed rules for wind farms in the State could cause public health and environment problems.
Bryan Lyons, spokesman for the community-based Wind Energy Queensland (WEQ) group, said today the warnings were revealed in documents obtained under a Right To Information (RTI) search.
“These documents show that warnings from the Queensland Government's own noise expert were hidden from the relevant Minister and from the public,” Mr Lyons said.
“The expert report reveals that the proposed Queensland Government Wind Farm Code (V2) will not protect resident's health and well-being and will not protect their environmental values.
“The documents obtained under RTI also reveal these concerns were not passed on the Planning Department or the Minister for Planning.”
Mr Lyons said the documents show that, on August 26, the noise expert in the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection provided his superiors with a list of nine points of concern regarding the draft Wind Farm Code.
“Those concerns were not subsequently forwarded from the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection to the Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning, who have developed the current draft (version 2) of the Wind Farm Code.
“The concerns raised by the Queensland Government's own noise expert confirm existing advice that independent noise experts conducting research in this area have already provided to courts, governments, Senate inquiries and community members dealing with wind farm proposals across Queensland.
Mr Lyons said the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection had withheld the expert report.
“Wind Energy Queensland have previously asked Deputy Premier Jackie Trad to seek advice from her own Government noise expert. It is now clear from these documents that concerns were deliberately withheld by the department of Environment and Heritage Protection. A Senior Official from the Environment and Heritage Protection Department advised the Premier's Department that they have ‘no fundamental concerns’ with the draft Wind Farm Code.
“However, the advice from the Noise Expert indicates that proposed wind farm standards in Queensland will not protect the health and well-being of our communities. It is extremely disturbing that this advice appears to have been kept secret from the Government department developing the Wind Farm Code, kept secret from the Minister for Planning, and kept hidden from the public.
“We are calling on the Deputy Premier to have the noise sections of the Wind Farm Code redrafted by Noise Experts in the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection and scrutinised by an independent panel of Noise Experts, with those peer reviews made publicly available.
“This newly-revealed advice from the EHP Noise Expert also affects the recently approved Mt Emerald Wind Farm on the Atherton Tableland in North Queensland,” Mr Lyons said. “We believe the Mt Emerald approval is presently being negotiated by the applicant, and we call on the Deputy Premier to take this opportunity to immediately amend the approval.”
Mr Lyons said the Government noise expert's concerns confirm the concerns of residents in the Mt Emerald area that, if developed, the proposed wind farm will harm their community members even if it complies with the conditions of approval.
WEQ is a community-based group formed to ensure better planning of wind farms in Queensland.
The communities represented include Dalveen, Crows Nest, Cooranga north (west of Kingaroy) and Mareeba.”
Copies of the RTI documents are available on request.
Media inquiries: Bryan Lyons Ph 07 4668 6780
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