Ministry of Environment Incident Reports on Noise Complaints - obtained through an FOI request

7/30/2019 Ministry of Environment Incident Reports on Noise Complaints - obtained through an FOI request

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Ministry of Environment Incident Reports (IRs)

A Snapshot of an Impacted Family in Ontario

December, 2008

Families reporting harm have been told different things.

They may be told they are the only ones complaining about the negative effects occurring

since wind turbines started turning.

Or that they are imaging the sleep disturbance, headaches, nausea, vertigo, loss of quality of

life and so on.

Or that their symptoms occur in the general population so whats the problem?

Or they are upset because they arent getting money.

Or the MOE will investigate.

Or that the wind turbines are running in compliance and they just have to get used to it.

The list goes on.

Examples of the complaints process:

The attached PDF has copies of MOE Incident Reports completed by a Ministry ofEnvironment district office employee concerning one home.(The employees name and the company name have been removed. Copies have been verified.)

Incident Reports by a family

This excerpt shows that 11 separate Incident Reports (IR) regarding one household were

created by the Ontario Ministry of Environment employee. (Pages 1 11)*(Each individual report is actually 4 pages in total but is too cumbersome to include all in this communication)

Each report has a reference number, the date the report was created by the employee (March9, 2009) and the date it was closed (March 31, 2009).


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The next excerpt shows the date and time the complaint was actually reported to MOE(February 10, 2009).

The family was told they were the only ones complaining about the turbines.

Issue number one: reporting timelines

MOE and family records document the complaints started December 2008 but the firstIncident Reports were not created until March 9, 2009.

On March 9, 2009, 7 Incident Reports were created and all were closed on March 31, 2009.

In every case the Incident Reports were closed with no further action


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Issue number two: IRs are levelled off

A copy/paste system was applied to the 11 complaints. There were some variations in the

complaints.(See pages 12 & 13 and 14 & 15.Due to size of the file, only 2 reports are attached as examples).

Issue number three: out of compliance doesnt matter

Two families had noise assessments conducted showing wind turbines were out of

compliance.

Family 1 - Noise Assessment:

Results from two separate noise reports on the same home show the turbines were out of

compliance (December 2008 and January 2009. See pages 16 & 17 of the attachment)

However, all files were closed noting no apparent contravention


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Family 1 - Noise assessment January 09

The top line of the graph is the measured dBA noise levels at the home, the more solid line

around the 40 dBA area is the allowable limit by MOE standards.(Allowable limits can vary from 40 to 51 dBA in increased wind conditions)


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Family 1 - Noise Assessment December 08


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Family 2 - Noise Assessment (1 only)

The last page (18) is a copy of a noise report from a totally different homeowner in the same

project, also done in December 2008 but a week before the family number 1.

Note - family number 1 was being told they were the only family complaining about the

turbines.

All but 1 of the eleven Incident Reports state the following


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As of this date with regard to this IR there were no current Interpretation Documentfor Wind Turbine Generators exceedances related to noise emissions from the

turbines, and (id deleted) district staff have been unable to verify excessive noise

emissions from the operations of the turbines.

As such, based on the information supplied to EAAB/(ID deleted) District office, as

well as observations by (id deleted) district office staff, and despite the ongoing

residents complaints, it does not appear that there are any noise emissions that arecausing a contravention of EPA S. 14 (1) (in that the standards in the Interpretation

Document for Wind Turbine Generators are being met), that would cause MOE to

cause company (id deleted) to take any additional abatement action in this matter.

As such, I suggest that this incident report be closed with no further action.

Issue number four: Contraventions were not noted

On the first page of the IRs you see a box:

Is this an air emission (measured or modelled) or..exceedance that will become part of

the Environmental Compliance Report?

(legislation, certificate of approval, order, or guideline)

The project which documents the attached IRs received a Certificate of Approval. Although

test results showed noise levels well out of compliance on each IR the answer to the questionwas No.

A check of the annual MOE Environmental Compliance Reports from 2005 to 2011 indicates

there were no incidences associated with any wind developer. In addition, no contraventions

are identified.

Unanswered questions

Is there a valid reason to have processed the complaints in this way?

The documents clearly point to numerous process gaps in the Ministry.

The Ombudsmans office has had copies of these issues for some time now.

Did the Ombudsman investigate this?

Did the Ombudsman talk to the ministry employee or the EAAB?


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If the Ombudsman has investigated, the homeowner (family 1) was not contacted or askedany questions nor was an interview requested.

If the Ombudsman did contact the MOE, how can any answer from the MOE be trusted

considering some of the issues that are now known?

For years, the Ombudsman office has been receiving many, many other submissions.

Does the Ombudsman office investigate other issues?

The family and the company tried to work together but like in so many other cases the family

had to leave their home.

More questions than answers for Ontarians.

Documents

Ministry of Environment Incident Reports on Noise Complaints - obtained through an FOI request