A third of Groningen village visits doctor because of wind turbine complaints
,,A soundproof cabinet”, says GP Cornelis Pet in Meeden in Groningen. ,,That's what a couple had built in their home as an extreme attempt to keep the noise and the roar outside. Mr and Mrs are screaming crazy with the wind turbines.”
Edwin Timmer 18-03-24, 04:34
Last updated: 08:43
Other of his patients flee the Groningen ribbon village, less than a kilometre away from the Wind Park N33, whenever they can. ,,I know from several people that they regularly sleep elsewhere,' says Pet. In a chalet in Drenthe, with family or on a boat in Friesland.
Since the commissioning of the first of a total of 35 turbines in 2020, the Tegenwind N33 foundation collected nearly eight hundred complaints. Many of the complainants appear at Pet, the village doctor since 1991, at the consultation hour. ,,I estimate that more than a third of the population in Meeden experiences hinderance.”
Powerless and ferocious
Many are at the end of counselling. Pet: ,,The insomnia leads to stress, anger, fatigue and increased levels of irritation and alertness. Parents complain about untruly children and learning delays. I see quarrels, depressions and suicidal tendencies. But despite all the cries of emergency to politics, nothing improves. As a doctor, I feel powerless.” As a human being, he is sometimes 'serot'.
His colleague Sylvia van Manen from Den Bosch has also noticed the necessary complaints in her practice in recent years. ,,Dizziness, migraine and a feeling of unrest and anxiety,' she formulates. After four high mills appeared at the Engelen district in 2020, she decided to do a sample herself in the immediate vicinity. ,,A third of the residents seem to be experiencing serious nuisance.”
Doctor Van Manen also sees how local residents from a form of self-medication use their own house differently. ,,Since the arrival of the turbines, a patient no longer sits in the living room with her children, but in the kitchen. To be able to ignore the sound and the drop shadow.”
“I am very concerned about how the government is doing. The only goal seems to be placement of wind farms. While it has been proven that continuous noise gives an increased risk of cardiovascular disease
Anneke Bodde, GP in Denekamp”
Van Manen, like colleagues who have been approached by the AD, is therefore angry about a recent Nivel- report, which claims the opposite. According to the Netherlands Institute for Health Care Research, general practitioners did not find acute or chronic health problems more often in people living near wind turbines between 2012 and 2021 than in people further down.
,,Broddelwerk”, former GP and epidemiologist Dick Bijl judges about the study Health Exploration Wind Turbines. The Nivel looked at a connection between postcode areas and the codes with which GPs register the diagnoses of their patients. ,,Methodologically there is a lot to criticise. You really shouldn't draw this conclusion,” says the scientific advisor of the doctors' collective Wind Wiki.
Tunnel vision
Nevertheless, the client, the Ministry of Health, Welfare & Sport, sent the study to the House of Representatives. In front of wind energy on land, they reacted enthusiastically. Like: 'You see, little is wrong'. For the rollout of climate policy, and the desire to generate renewable energy, it would of course also be best if health problems prove to be an illusion.
But according to general practitioner Anneke Bodde from Denekamp, politicians and administrators suffer from 'tunnel vision'. ,,I am very concerned about how the government works. The only goal seems to be placement of wind farms. While it has been proven that continuous noise gives an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Yet only the favourable studies are picked out.”
According to Bodde, and her colleagues, the ICPC- codes used in the Nivel- study are not at all suitable for scientific conclusions. ,,Complaints such as anxiety or sleep problems, I can write down under many different codes. At the same time, the system is not detailed enough to indicate whether a diagnosis is related to nuisance from wind turbines.”
Flevoland GP Paul Kemps is also not happy with the Nivel- study. In the past, windmills in the agricultural municipality of Dronten were far from the four residential centres. In recent years, dozens of turbines more than 200 metres high have arisen, one of which is a row right along the village of Swiftrbant.
“One says it 'goes crazy', others hear a hum in the house continuously and others continually let the shutters down. There is no solution. Yes, shutting those turbines”
Paul Kemps, GP in Swifterbant
It shows in a nutshell what he thinks is short of the report. ,,The Nivel looks back ten years. But at that time, windmills were a lot smaller and were further away from habitation. This study has no predictive value whatsoever, nor for what is going on now,” the doctor warns.
Kemps experiences 'a general picture of unrest and dissatisfaction' among some of his patients. ,,One says to 'go crazy', others continuously hear a hum in the house and others continually let the shutters down. The nuisance is horrible and there is no solution. Yes, that shut down turbines. But that doesn't happen.”
Sleeping pills no option
Sleeping pills are not a way out. Because 'with addiction you get even further away from home', his colleagues also agree. But a relaxing walk in the village forest does not work either, Kemps complains. ,,Those kins would be placed far from the village, but were eventually put along the edge of the forest without a say.”
Epidemiologist Bijl mentions another point of criticism. ,,Four-digit zip code areas are too large to meass the effect on civilians within a kilometre of wind turbines. The deviations dilute in the rest of the area. If you really want to do good research, we need to investigate door-to-door. And don't forget those who have already moved as a result of the nuisance.”
Christos Baliatsas, senior researcher of disasters and environmental threats at the Nivel, recognises the limitation of the postcode areas when requested. At the same time, he calls the study 'one of the largest in the international literature in terms of sample and also the most comprehensive in terms of health problems investigated'. In addition, especially in the Netherlands, hardly any epidemiological research has been done into the effects of wind farms.
Tension headache
According to Baliatsas, the fact that the study shows no association with disease does not mean that 'an impact on health should be completely excluded'. ,,We have seen that a limited number of symptoms such as tension headaches and depressive feelings are more common in the vicinity of wind turbines, especially in the more recent years of the study.” But that outcome is not very sharp.
In Meeden, the roar also regularly keeps GP Pet himself out of his sleep. Yet he doesn't want to emphasise that. ,,I don't want to be a cause of polarisation within our village. Even the farmers, on whose land the turbines were placed, could never know this in advance.”
Pet does think that administrators should open their eyes and act. ,,The couple of the soundproof cabinet was allowed to tell their story to the mayor a year ago. And since then? Nothing at all. Such a report from the Nivel also gives victims the feeling that they are not being heard.”
'Pure folk slander'
Doctors Collective Wind Wiki has focussed hopes on new national environmental standards for wind turbines that the government needs to set. The previous ones proved to be unsound according to the European Court and have been set aside by the Council of State. Van Manen: ,,Wind Wiki recommends distance standards of ten times the mast height to residential cores, because larger turbines cause more low-frequency noise.”
But to the horror of epidemiologist Bijl, the preliminary draft rules, like the old ones, are based on an annual average as the maximum noise standard. ,,Then every noise peak will soon be permissible again, because it does mean out anyway.” Pet formulates it sharper. ,,It's pure folk decry and a deliberate way to cause health damage. According to the law, you are not allowed to do anything to your loved ones, but apparently something else applies to the government.”
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