The first two sections - Basic Acoustics and Noise Regulations - were a somewhat neutral look at these topics. I was trying to not be too critical in them, preferring to just explain the basics. Finally, the rubber hits the road. In this section I will zero in on the ways the complexities of the Basics and the looseness of the Regulations allow the wind industry, abetted by the government, to legally destroy people's homes and health. Some may consider the previous sentence pretty strong, but after all the truely sad stories I've read - numbering in the hundreds, from all around the world - I think it is entirely justified. Obviously it is in the interests (at least in the short-term) of the wind industry developers to try to disregard or nullify as many protections as they can. The governments nominally are in the business of protecting their constituents, but it seems that many governments have either forgotten this or simply don't have the means to do so. Money plays a part, as governments are always eager to get new sources of income and the developers are eager to promise same.

From a noise perspective, perhaps the single most important activity is modeling the project's projected noise effects on the neighbors. Most projects hire a consultant who takes ambient measurements, maps out where the participants and non-participants are, plays around with siting the turbines and comes up with a noise topological map of the project. As long as the non-participants are all outside of, for example, the 40-dbA contour line the government is likely to accept those sitings as permissible. And once they are built they are never moved and seldom shut down regardless of their actual noise generation, so the siting map becomes critical.

While creating the model the consultant needs to make a number of judgments about how to set all the parameters up. This is especially evident when considering what constitutes the "worst reasonably foreseeable circumstances". All of these decisions can significantly alter the siting, and since I've seldom seen these decisions documented in any noise assessment, I pretty much have to assume they were made to best favor the consultant's employers - the wind developers.

For the really curious, here's some rather technical studies that explore how choosing one of these parameters, propagation, can affect the results - enough to make a major difference to a neighbor.

• Probst, 0.6mb, Methods for the Calculation of Sound Propagation, a general look at the issues.
• Kakiski and Duncan, 1.2mb, Propagation Modeling Parameters for Wind Power Projects.

In this section I start off by asking if the rules - even assuming they were religiously followed in a good faith manner - provide reasonable protection for the neighbors. The quick answer is no, as detailed in Noise Intrusion.

A second, more sinister, problem exists when the government responsible for making and enforcing the rules also has the goal of increasing wind energy. Britain's DECC - that's Department of Energy and Climate Control - opted to pursue wind energy at the expense of the citizens.

After that, the remaining sections listed below show the major ways (that I know of) of circumventing the intent of the noise regulations. All of these circumventions occur before the construction even begins; once the turbines are up seldom are there cases where they've been shut down, no matter how serious the problems. Update - a couple of turbines were shut down at the Ashbee-Lormand residence in Shelburne, Ontario, before the developer bought the house (along with a number of others) and gagged all the residents.

• Stability and Masking
• Ambient Measurements
• Point Source

The real proof of the how well the modeling is done is how close any measurements taken after the project is in operation agree with the modeled projections, and how well those measurements comply with the regulations. I have now managed to find three systematic studies that publish that information - Mars Hill in Maine, Tug Hill/Maple Ridge in New York, and Melancthon in Ontario. Mars Hill's was created only because that project became so ugly that the developer was forced to hire a consultant and publish the findings. Tug Hill/Maple Ridge's specifically addresses the modeled vs actual question. Both of these studies, not surprisingly, show that actual noise measurements are louder than what was modeled, and thus often louder than the regulations allow. Melancthon's study was in response to complaints and therefore the measurements were taken by a consultant hired by the developer, and were so high they led to a buyout. If there exists a study showing where a project actually meets its modeled estimates I have yet to find it, but this could be explained by an accurate and compliant project generating few enough complaints that measurements are not taken.

• My summary of the Mars Hill report, along with an introduction to the WHO guidelines. The important part is in the chart, which compares pre-operation modeled results with the actual measurements made later. Note that the model consistently underestimated the actual levels.
• Clifford Schneider - Maple Ridge, 1.8mb. Fairly long but well worth the time; it goes right to the heart of the matter. He took extended readings at two locations, with the Leq's averaging 5 and 7 dBA above predicted levels, and 20 dBA above background levels.
• The gist of the Ashbee-Lormand situation is in this John Harrison paper. So far in Ontario three of the seven major projects have been found to be non-compliant, page 8, with the other four so far not being measured.

If there is a problem, what is the recourse? Will the offending turbines be turned off, or removed? Will the Province or the locality remove an operator's license? Can the courts be used to obtain damages? The answer to all these is almost certainly "no". Regardless of any setback provisions, what is legally actionable is provable violations of the noise regulations, and that requires professional measurements. And even then, the rules are loose enough that a court fight can go on forever, while the lawyers try to clarify the rather muddy rules, their clocks happily running all the time. Amazingly, Ontario's MOE apparently doesn't have the authority, page 8 to shut non-compliant turbines down.